SeductiveTracks (4 page)

* * * * *

Matt had been to Julian’s two-bedroom apartment a couple of
times, but he was still grateful to be following his partner. Twice he had
crashed on the fold-out futon in the study-cum-spare room after nearly
twenty-four-hour-long shifts together, and once or twice he’d been over just to
brainstorm on their current assignment.

Most of those times he’d been either too dead on his feet or
brain-fried to register more than a passing memory of how to navigate the side
streets to reach Julian’s apartment. Julian had also been to his place a few
times, but in truth they hadn’t been friends—or partners—for long enough for
either of them to have the route memorized and be able to do it without
thinking about it.

It took Matt a couple of minutes to find a parking spot out
on the street. Julian’s apartment only had designated parking for the tenants.
Apparently waiting for his return, Julian buzzed Matt inside as soon as he
reached the door.

Julian had wedged open his apartment door, so Matt strolled
right in and found the space as he recalled. The rooms consisted of a large
open-plan main living area with a walk-through alcove to a tidy kitchen. The
wall facing out over the neighboring park was floor-to-ceiling windows, giving
the apartment a glorious view. A hallway led back to the two bedrooms—one
converted into a study and computer room—and a decent-sized bathroom. The main
living room had a TV and stereo set as well as couches and a few comfortable
chairs strewn around. The coffee table was large and made of heavy walnut, and
when Matt had been here before Julian had doubled it up as a work desk. It was
there that Matt placed the pile of manila folders as Julian waved a hand idly
at him as he spoke on the phone to an all-day-all-night pizzeria only a few
blocks away.

While Julian arranged for their pizzas to be delivered, Matt
pulled one of the overstuffed chairs closer to the coffee table and sorted the
pile of folders into chronological order. Individually the files weren’t
exactly hefty or brimming with reports, notes and evidence, but as a group the
volume of information appeared daunting.

“I’ll start back at the beginning,” Matt suggested as Julian
came and sat down near him, eyeing the pile of folders with resignation. “You
can start with the most recent. I figure if we make notes on the generalities
of each case—contacts, details, names and the like—then between us we can get a
good overview of the series of burglaries as a whole and see if there are any
consistencies or recurring ‘coincidences’.”

“This is going to take forever, isn’t it?” Julian answered.

“At least the rest of the morning.” Matt shrugged. “But
hell, with pizza for lunch to keep us going it can’t be that much of a
hardship, surely?”

“Maybe,” Julian agreed with a reluctant sigh. “Let me go dig
out some notebooks. You realize this sounded a lot more interesting in the
captain’s office.”

“Assignments like this always do,” Matt replied as he picked
up the oldest file, opened it and started to scan the report. Julian threw a
notepad at him and Matt caught it. The yellow legal pad had likely been
pilfered from some unsuspecting clerk’s desk, and the thought made Matt smile.
He dug out a pen from under a pile of junk on the table to start making notes.

A couple of hours later, Matt’s stomach felt queasy from the
pizza so early in the day. The empty boxes were stacked by the door to be taken
out to the recycle bin, and he and Julian had started exchanging folders,
having reached and now crossed the mid-point in the files.

Matt got up and refreshed his bottle of water, tossing a new
one to Julian from the fridge at the same time. Looking out the window above
the sink, Matt let the sun warm his face as he mentally reviewed the files as
well as the pages of notes he had been making. Despite the thinness of the
files themselves, their sheer combined bulk had given him a couple of thoughts
that refused to quit rolling around inside his brain.

Organizing his thoughts, Matt finally verbalized them to
Julian, the first non-monosyllabic exchange they’d had since they’d started
reviewing the files.

“I can see why once you add all these cases together they
definitely start looking like pieces of a whole,” he began, his mind still
coming to grips with the possibilities of the bigger picture. Julian finished
the sheet he was reading, placed the file in his lap, capped his pen and looked
over to where Matt stood.

“Hindsight is a brilliant thing,” Julian agreed. “There
still might be some similar cases floating around, but these are the main ones
that, once we started looking at them as if they were committed by a single
perpetrator, really came together. Chances are good we’ve missed at least a
few, but this group should give us a good enough idea of what she’s doing.
Reviewing them and studying them so closely, Will and I figured something
should shake loose now.”

“The problem with reviewing a bunch of files as thin as
these so closely is that there are
always
links that tie things
together, you know?” Matt started as he tried to feel out the niggling
sensation at the back of his head. “Things like the same three or four
precincts always answered the victim’s calls, so the same dozen or so officers
are on record as attending the majority of the cases. That’s not a coincidence,
but it also doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

“Right,” Julian said. “If a different precinct had been
called, different officers would have gone out to write the initial reports and
take notes, but because there are only so many affluent areas, the responding
officers repeat. Logical, but not actually a useful clue.”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Matt replied. “But at the same
time, it does give us a clue. Shadow is hitting a specific demographic. It’s a
point to add to the larger picture.”

“Yeah,” Julian replied wryly as he picked up his file again.
“It shows that she’s only after people who have possessions that make it worth
her time to pinch them. That’s a no-brainer.”

Matt drank from his water bottle as he continued to stare
out the window, watching two kids chasing each other, giggling, across in the
park. The dark-haired little Asian girl chased her blonde friend, tagged her,
then they turned around and the blonde chased the little Asian girl. Over and
over the two girls chased one another as Matt mentally reviewed what he had so
far gathered from the files.

“But how far do we let those logical assumptions go?” he
asked aloud a few minutes later, as if there had not been a pause at all. “I
mean, a large number of these cases—more than half—come from the Enforcers’
files. While Shadow doesn’t appear to be selective about whether her targets
are human or Mage, she does seem to lean toward the more complex magical
security workings. Is the fact that ten of the fifteen security systems she’s
hit were made by the same company relevant, or just an interesting side note?
Is the fact that in all but two of the wizarding cases Retrievers were hired to
try to find the articles stolen important?”

“All but
two
?” Julian repeated, astonished. Placing
his file on the coffee table, he stood up, leaned over the table and grabbed
Matt’s legal pad, flipped through the pages and scanned his notes.

“I wouldn’t think it totally unreasonable,” Matt continued.
“I mean, if someone stole something of mine I’d go to a Retriever and see if
they could find it for me. Assuming it wasn’t Blade—or more likely
Flame—playing some damn prank to piss me off. If it were them, I’d just go
steal something of theirs in retaliation and start an internal war.”

Julian cut a laughing glance at him, snorted in amusement
and returned to reading Matt’s notes.

“But do you see what I mean?” Matt continued as he ran a
hand agitatedly through his dark-brown hair, uncaring if he mussed it in his
frustration. “In and of itself, I don’t find it weird that these rich, powerful
wizards hired Retrievers to recover their stuff. These so-called victims are
used to getting their own way and acquiring exactly what they want as soon as
they want it. Hell, they probably just have to snap their fingers and an
underling pounces on the task and delivers what they want without a word being
exchanged. Hiring a Retriever to get your stolen items back would be a typical,
logical thing to do.”

“From your notes here, most of them failed to recover
anything,” Julian pointed out.

Matt nodded. “I know. But remember, Will already pointed out
that when Shadow steals stuff she already seems to know where it’s going.”

“But the couple of items that
were
recovered…” Julian
continued.

Matt snapped his fingers and pointed at his partner. “My
point exactly, buddy. Coincidence? Luck? Or just the way things are?” Matt
paced a little from the kitchen back to the couch. “There aren’t that many
Retrieving consultancy firms,” he explained. “Retrieving isn’t an unusual or
rare trait. Being talented enough to be a Retriever is not uncommon, or no less
common than being one of the best in any given field. There’s maybe three or four
firms based here in Chicago. Only one or two of them are used by the
crème
de la crème
, but again, did you notice it a particular witch, Olivia
Congreave, whose name was mentioned in nearly three quarters of those files
relating to Retrievers hired or who found an item?”

Julian knelt next to the walnut coffee table and rummaged
through the files Matt had been going through. In a moment he had opened and
spread a dozen files in a fan around himself.

“It could be a coincidence.” Julian spoke slowly, his eyes
roaming over the files, tracking the notations about Retrievers being hired and
the companies and employees used. “But it’s a bit of a stretch. I think this is
enough of a lead that it bears looking into.”

“In all of these cases, only two consulting companies were
used,” Matt summarized

Matt placed the cap on his bottle of water and returned to
the coffee table. “Let’s write out a list,” he said. “It shouldn’t be too long.
Let’s list each of the Retrievers who actually recovered something, along with
who they represent. Then we can add on the company’s name, and it sounds like
as good a place as any to start.”

They messed the files up as they juggled through them,
flipping folders open, running their eyes down the brief lists, and on a clean
sheet of their legal pad a very short list soon formed.

Only three Retrievers had ever recovered anything from one
of the thirty-seven break-ins. Vincent Monard had recovered two items in the
past year alone, Olivia Congreave had recovered five items in the last ten years,
and Kaili Dacres had recovered one item six years ago.

“I’ll bet you another pizza that Mr. Vincent Monard is some
young buck, freshly minted from whatever-the-hell Retriever training you
wizarding folk give and he’s out to prove his balls,” Julian said with
satisfaction.

Matt shook his head and laughed. “No deal.” He snickered.
“Not only could my stomach and waistline not handle another round of pizza, but
any fool can see that’s exactly what he is. What’s your take on Miss Olivia
Congreave? Five items in ten years. Considering how, out of many hundreds of
stolen goods, she has found five of the only eight items
ever
recovered,
I think she’s a good bet for us.”

“And they both work for the same company,” Julian pointed
out.

Matt nodded and went to get the portable phone from its
place on the kitchen counter. “That’s one of the oldest, most prestigious and
well-known Retrieval companies in the United States,” he explained. “They have
satellite offices in all the major cities. That’s the Chicago branch. It really
could be a coincidence.”

Matt dialed a series of numbers into the handset, then at a
tone punched in a special code that granted him access to unlisted wizarding
numbers. The Enforcers often used this method to track down phone numbers they
had not memorized. Modern technology and magical essence did not combine very
happily, so cell phone usage was rare and laptop internet searches were not
particularly common either. Most wizards found it easier to call directory
assistance when they needed a number.

While wizards and witches could use cell phones, laptops and
other technological gadgets, most electrical appliances had a tendency to fry
or malfunction after continual use or heightened emotions. Online cached
backups were
de rigueur
for any company—frequently back-ups of files
would occur three or four times a day to make certain as little data as
possible was lost.

As an Enforcer, Matt had special privileges when it came to
accessing numbers most regular wizarding folk couldn’t find. He jotted down the
Retrieval company’s phone number just in case the line disconnected, as well as
their business address in downtown Chicago, before pressing another series of
buttons to have his call transferred.

As the line rang, he went and sat down next to Julian on the
couch so his partner could listen in on the conversation and jot down ideas or
questions to ask as he thought of them.

“Yes, I’d like to be connected to Mr. Vincent Monard,
please,” Matt said to the perky-sounding receptionist. She asked him to wait a
moment and the call was transferred. A deeper but still young-sounding voice
answered the call.

“Monard,” the man said. “How can I help you?”

“This is Matthias Kestell. I’m an Enforcer making a routine
inquiry and I was hoping I could have five minutes of your time, please, Mr.
Monard,” Matt started. A heavy silence weighed on the other end of the line, so
he continued after only a moment’s pause. “I’ve found a small notation in a
couple of cold case files I’m reviewing that indicate you’ve Retrieved two items
that were stolen in the last year? A third edition of what I believe is an
ancient Alchemy manual and a diamond-and-emerald choker belonging to one of the
local Elders’ third wife?”