The Dangerous Edge of Things

CHAPTER 6

Nothing about Phoenix Corporate Services LLC screamed elite security firm. Its location was in the unsexy industrial area north of the Perimeter, and the building matched its surroundings—three bland stories and a smattering of overlygroomed shrubs. Somewhere I heard the burbling of a fountain against the mono-drone of I-285 traffic.

I shouldered my tote bag and stepped inside, the automatic doors opening and closing with a pneumatic hiss. The receptionist swiveled toward me.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m here to see Kent Landon.”

She made a check in her book, then looked up. She had a sweetheart face framed with tumbling coffee curls, soft round eyes, and the straightest, tightest mouth I’d even seen on a human being. She handed me a clipboard and an ugly badge the size of an index card that proclaimed VISITOR in bright blue letters.

“Do I really have to wear this?”

“That’s the rule.”

I fastened it at the hem of my sweater. “I am so sick of rules. Everywhere I’ve turned the last twenty-four godforsaken hours, there’s been someone there spouting off about rules.”

“Take the elevator to the second floor, third office on the right. Mr. Seaver will be waiting.”

I looked up. “I thought I was seeing Mr. Landon?”

She shook her head.

***

Trey’s office was, without a doubt, the most freakishly neat piece of square footage I’d ever seen. More like a MOMA exhibit than a workspace, it featured matte white walls and a slick black floor. Late morning sunlight cut the room into acute angles.

Trey himself was seated at his desk, dressed once again in a black suit and tie. He glanced up as I knocked.

“I thought I was seeing Mr. Landon,” I said. “Then the woman out front told me to find you instead.”

“That’s Yvonne. She’s the administrative assistant.” He returned his eyes to his computer. “Landon assigned me to answer your questions, since your brother’s case was filed under premises liability.”

“What about Mr. Landon?”

“All field work comes under him. But I’m your contact for this matter.” He gestured toward the client chair in front of his desk. “Have a seat.”

I sat. His desktop was a study in geometric precision: mechanical pencils in a row, meticulous stacks of papers with the edges exact. He wheeled his chair backward, pulled something from the printer and handed it to me. It was a formal release of information request with an X where I needed to sign.

“I’ve got an appointment with the firearms certification team in…” He checked his watch. “…twenty-seven minutes. What can I tell you about the case before then?”

I borrowed one of his pens. “You could tell me what’s going on for starters.”

“Starting when?”

“Starting at the beginning.”

“That would be the day before yesterday. Wednesday.” Trey laid a manila folder exactly in the center of his desk. “I met your brother as he was returning from lunch, and he mentioned that he would be working late that night.”

I waited for the rest of the story. There was none. “Okay, so…”

“So he was lying.”

“What makes you say that?”

Trey’s shifted his gaze to the wall behind me. “When he was speaking, his eyes slanted to the left and up, with too much blinking. The rest of the time, his eye contact was too direct and—”

“What does any of this have to do with why he hired you people?”

“Once Eric learned that you’d discovered the body, he requested that I be assigned a level-one personal protection order.” He slid the folder across the desk to me. “Read the case notes so far.”

I did. Mostly it was a repetition of what he’d just told me, all of it time-stamped and cross-indexed—the suspicious conversation, Eric’s request, Landon’s clearance to proceed, official yada-yada, yeah, yeah, yeah—at which point I noticed my name.

“Why am I on the—what is this, the personal protection order?”

“Because you’re the protected party.”

“My brother hired you to be my bodyguard?”

“That’s not the official term, but yes, he did.”

I examined the fine print at the bottom. It looked very official and bloodless, completely at odds with the churning in my gut. “I needed guarding? I was in danger and nobody told me?”

“The danger was hypothetical. My job was to get you from your brother’s house to your hotel room, safely, with no complications.”

“You could have told me!”

“Not without violating client confidentiality.”

“But I was your client!”

“No, your brother was. Is. And I’m certain that he’ll eventually explain—”

“But he’s not explaining anything, not to me, not to you! He’s on a boat somewhere in the Caribbean sipping daiquiris while I’m dodging cops and robbers and—oh yeah—a murderer!”

Trey almost frowned at that, but caught himself. “As I said—”

“I heard what you said. I just don’t like it” I slapped the folder shut and slid it back to him. “So what the hell were you and Landon doing at the house last night?”

“Your brother requested that Phoenix collect his files and computer records for safekeeping. Simpson is the technical expert, but since I’m premises liability, Landon thought I should assist even though hardware is not my field of expertise.”

“Let me guess. Your ‘field of expertise’ is the James Bond stuff while Simpson gets to rewire things.” And then I remembered. “Until you got him fired.”

Trey narrowed his eyes. “He was negligent enough to desert his post, which allowed you to infiltrate the premises—”

“I didn’t infiltrate anything!”

“—which then created an unpredictable situation that could have ended badly.”

He had a point there. Nothing like an edged weapon through the gullet to end things badly.

Trey continued. “Simpson was entirely unsuited for surveillance work, and I have no idea why Landon assigned him to my cases. However, it’s immaterial now. He’s been terminated.”

I scanned his features. Was he hiding something behind that professional blandness? Or was I just getting paranoid? I rubbed my temples against an encroaching headache.

Trey stood. “I’m fielding a conference call with your brother and Landon tomorrow morning. You’re welcome to join us. In the meantime, wait here. Yvonne is on her way with the last of your paperwork.”

He walked around the desk and stopped right in front of me, uncomfortably close. I stood too, toe to toe, refusing to be muscled.

“Look,” I said, “I want to work with you on this. A woman is dead, and my brother is involved, which makes me involved, like it or not. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is this: I’m sorry I threatened you with a sword, and I’m willing to forget the whole thing if you are.”

He shook his head. “I don’t forget.”

And then he walked out of the office, not even looking over his shoulder, leaving me standing there furious, but unsurprised.