LITMIR.BIZ

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though it was probably a fool’s hope that he’d ever track it down.

      He pushed his feelings aside and focused on the murder investigation. There was no reason to ever see her again, and that thought gave him some degree of satisfaction. For a moment, he’d thought he’d seen something in Bailey’s eyes that made him believe she was willing to make a bargain, but he had been wrong. She wouldn’t even talk about the money, and without that dialogue, he was done. It was time for them to go their separate ways.

      He reached his car but couldn’t shake a strange feeling that he was being watched. He scanned the area but didn’t see Bailey or anybody else paying any attention to him. Still, hot electricity ran down his back. He checked again and this time noticed a man in black eyeing him from across the street. Frank pocketed his keys and headed across the street to confront the man, but several cars drove by and blocked him from crossing. By the time Frank reached the doorway where the man had been standing, there was no sign of him. Why had the man been watching him?

      His stomach rumbled and he decided to stick around and grab a quick bite in case the man reappeared. He glanced up and down the street and then headed toward a nearby coffee shop and turned his thoughts back to Gates.

      The company didn’t look like much of a lead at this point, but he would follow through and check out the five applicants, just in case. It seemed ridiculous to kill over a career opportunity, but he’d actually seen worse as a beat cop. Maybe he was jaded, but few things surprised him anymore. In any case, the list of applicants from Gates was his best lead so far. Hopefully interviewing them would point him to the killer.

      He placed his order at the counter and then called his office while he waited.

      “Graham.”

      “Hey, this is Frank.” He gave Ben Graham a synopsis of the discussion with Johnson, smiled at the waitress who handed him his food and headed for a table, his ear still pressed against the phone. “Anything new on the Cox case?”

      Ben cleared his throat. “We’ve got a couple of new reports. Forensics matched the bullet to the gun in the blond man’s possession. So now we know who pulled the trigger, but we still don’t know his identity. According to our databases, he’s a ghost. The dark-haired man we’ve positively identified as Adrian Bekim from Balkavia. He’s an international gun for hire and did most of his work in Europe until recently, when he surfaced in Chicago. He’s suspected in the death of a businessman there.”

      Frank soaked in the information. “Still nothing from CODIS on the blond?” he asked, referring to the national DNA index system.

      “Not yet. Nothing from the national fingerprint and criminal history system, either.”

      Frank grimaced. “I’m thinking it’s time to contact Interpol. The blond is probably a known associate of Bekim. He’s got to show up somewhere.”

      “Yep, I’ll start the process.” Ben paused. “You should also know that we’ve finished examining Cox’s financials. There wasn’t anything unusual, just like we suspected. Following the money won’t lead us to the killer in this case.”

      Frank took a sip of his coffee, digesting the information. For the past six months, they’d been investigating a Balkavian mercenary group operating out of Jacksonville. They had received a tip that something was going down at Cox’s office that fateful night. They still hadn’t been able to prove any kind of connection, though, between the Balkavians and Cox. In many cases, the money led to the killer, but so far it hadn’t in this case. Why had they killed him? Had he just been in the wrong place at the wrong time?

      Frank leaned back, his frustration growing. “Nothing new on the computer angle?”

      “Nope, nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, there wasn’t even that much on it. Looks like his daughter was right—he barely used the thing.”

      Bailey had been right about something else too—they’d lost a lot of valuable information when those paper files had been stolen. It was unfortunate that the team hadn’t thought to grab them on the night of the murder, but they hadn’t realized their importance at the time. Now it was too late. “Thanks, Ben. I’m off to interview the applicants. I’ll catch up with you again once I have some insight.”

      “Sounds like a plan.”

      Frank stirred his coffee as he flipped to the email program on his phone. That was strange. He could see the two messages that Johnson’s assistant had sent, but they both showed that they had been read. He pulled out his iPad, and then he also opened his work email account on the off chance that there was something wrong with his phone. It also showed that the two messages had been read, even though he hadn’t opened either one of them. Then, right before his eyes, the screen refreshed and both emails were marked Unread.

      Frank took a sip of his coffee and a bite of his food as he raised an eyebrow, confused by what he was seeing. Why had the status of the emails changed, and who had changed it? Had someone accessed his account and made the change?

      A flash of blue caught his eye and he glanced out the window of the coffee shop. Bailey Cox was just leaving a store across the street. He watched her as she walked toward the bus stop. She looked beautiful, even with that look of grim determination on her face. He glanced up at the sign over the door she had exited. It was an internet café. A sinking feeling hit him hard in the pit of his stomach. He picked up his phone again and called his department’s IT specialist.

      “IT, Sergeant Daniels.”

      “This is Detective Franklin Kennedy, badge number 4577. I think my email has just been hacked. Can you run a check for me?” He fed the sergeant the details and then waited a moment for the confirmation. It wasn’t long in coming. The knot in his stomach twisted and he grimaced. It looked like he hadn’t seen the last of Bailey Cox after all. She had just broken the law. Again.

      * * *

      “It will be just another minute,” the secretary said with an apologetic smile. The hospital administration’s waiting room wasn’t as fancy as the room at Gates, but it was decorated tastefully. Bailey tried to relax, even though it was nearly impossible. She hated hospitals. Her mother had gotten lost in the system, given insufficient treatment because she couldn’t afford health insurance. By the time Bailey had stolen the money to make sure her mother got the help she needed, it was too late. It was hard not to hold the entire medical industry responsible for her mother’s fate.

      To distract herself from the thought of her mother, she focused on the list she’d stolen from Kennedy’s email—the names of the applicants that had brought her here.

      She didn’t know how long it would take Franklin Kennedy to realize she had broken into his email account, if he did at all. Still, she had started her quest to interview the applicants in the middle of the list rather than at the top in hopes of throwing him off if he decided to come after her. If the police wouldn’t let her help, then she would solve this murder on her own. She nervously leafed through the stack of magazines and glanced around the room again, making sure Kennedy was nowhere to be seen.

      She was also keeping her eyes open for the man in black. Something was off about him, and she had noticed him a second time after she’d left Gates. She wasn’t sure, but it looked like he had been watching her as she’d left the internet café. Creepy. That was the word for him. At least now he had disappeared and she felt a measure of relief.

      A few more minutes passed, and finally the secretary rose and came to her side. “Okay, Dr. Petrela is almost here. Let me take you back to his office.” The secretary led her to a nice office filled with medical books and journals and Bailey took a seat. “I’m sorry for the wait,” the nurse said in parting.

      “It isn’t a problem.” She’d been waiting for over an hour and a half to see the hospital CEO, but it had been surprising that she’d even gotten her foot in the door. The man was extremely busy, but when she’d explained who she was and why she wanted to meet, the CEO had promised her ten minutes between meetings.

      He entered the room a few moments later, and Bailey

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