He opened the camera feeds. Skipped through them with precise keystrokes. Studied each one for exactly three seconds. Corridors clear. Elevators clear. Stairwells clear.
On the third exterior feed, which looked across the east side of the building past the windows of Garner’s den, he stopped.
There was a young woman sitting in a chair a few feet in from the windows. Dark hair and eyes. Maybe thirty. Very attractive. Garner himself was just visible at the edge of the frame, sitting at his desk chair. Looking casual. Staring off through the window at nothing.
Who was the woman?
Dyer minimized the feed and clicked open the logbook for the security checkpoint. No one could enter or exit the residence—not even Garner himself—without passing through it and being logged with a time stamp.
There was no entry in the file for anyone coming or going today.
Or yesterday.
The day before that, Garner had logged out to have lunch with the governor in Midtown, and logged back in three hours later, alone.
Dyer quickly skipped through the past five days’ entries. Nothing but Garner coming and going by himself.
He minimized the logbook and opened the exterior feed again. The woman was still sitting there.
How the hell had she gotten in without it being noted?
Dyer could think of only one explanation. He hated to believe it. But what else was there?
He looked around. One other agent had a desk in this room. The other four were stationed elsewhere in the suite, the better to rush Garner’s residence from multiple angles if the need arose.
The other agent in the room wasn’t looking Dyer’s way.
Dyer took out his cell phone, set it in its dock next to the terminal and waited for it to sync up. When it did, he captured a single frame of the video feed, clearly showing the woman’s face, and sent it to the phone. He took it back out of the dock, then stood and left the room.
He stepped into the bathroom across the hall, turned on the vent fan and the water for masking noise, and dialed a number on his phone. It was answered on the second ring.
“Greer.”
“It’s Dyer. Do you have a minute?”
“Sure.”
Dyer explained about the woman, and sent the image to Greer’s phone. He also relayed his hunch. Greer didn’t like it any more than he did.
“I find that very, very hard to believe,” Greer said.
“I’d prefer another theory myself,” Dyer said. “Got one?”
The line was silent for a moment.
“I don’t get the motive,” Greer said. “Garner’s a single man. If he wants to entertain a guest, it’s his business. Why would he feel the need to hide it?”
“Maybe she wants to hide it. Maybe she’s somebody. Or somebody’s wife.”
Another silence on the line.
Then Greer said, “If Garner’s asking these guys to keep someone out of the logbook, and they’re actually doing it, their balls are gonna be hanging from the director’s trailer hitch before the week’s out.”
“Which is why I called you,” Dyer said. “I’d rather keep mine hanging where they are.”
Greer was quiet again. Dyer could hear a pen or pencil tapping on his desk. A fast, tense rhythm.
“Fuck,” Greer said. “All right. Let me run it up to a few guys at the top, and a couple friends at Justice. See if there’s a precedent for handling something like this. And I’ll see if anyone recognizes her. I’ll get back to you.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Garner spent the rest of the evening compiling a list of names, drawn from records on his computer as well as paper documents. He came up with close to a hundred, and then began going through them systematically, using his computer to pull up detailed information on each of them. To Travis they appeared to be mostly military and FBI personnel. Garner made shorthand marks next to some of the names. Others he simply crossed out.
Bethany offered to help. Garner looked puzzled as to what she could do. She rattled off her credentials in about thirty seconds, and he told her to pull up a chair.
Night settled on the city. The skyline lit up in random bits and fragments until the whole thing was blazing. Travis stood at the living-room windows and looked down over the park. From beneath the forested expanses, warm light from footpaths streamed up into the darkness.
Paige came up beside him. They stood there for a while, silent.
“Never been here before,” Travis said.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
He nodded.
“My mom lived here for a long time when I was a kid,” Paige said. “That building right over there. The brick one with the blue light on the roof.” She pointed across the park. Leaned against him so he could sight down her arm.
He felt her skin against his. After a second she seemed to notice it too. Seemed to notice that he noticed. She didn’t say anything, just shifted back to her own balance, putting a few inches between them.