The Gatekeeper. Michelle Gagnon

to a line of cars stacked at the curb. Madison climbed into the rear of a sedan. Jake frowned as it drove off.

      “Can you get me a printout of that guy, and of the plate?”

      Frank shrugged. “Yeah, no problem. Technology is a beautiful thing.”

      Jake didn’t respond. He leaned back against an empty console as Frank shuffled to the printer. So Madison Grant hadn’t been snatched, she’d been lured. Not surprising, he’d done plenty of dumb shit himself at that age. And whoever she was meeting must have money, curbside limo service didn’t come cheap. He’d have Syd run the plates, but he doubted that would give them anything. This smelled professional. Someone had spent enough time developing a relationship with the girl that she didn’t hesitate to jump on a plane. And if Syd was right about the dad’s job, there were high stakes involved. Jake shook his head. He was liking this less and less by the minute.

      “Here you go.” Frank handed over a stack of pictures.

      Jake flipped through them quickly. It didn’t look like there was enough of the guy’s face to run through facial recognition software, but there was a nice close-up of Madison. She was a pretty girl, light hair, big smile. She appeared sweet and trusting and more than a little naive. And right now, she was probably in some shit-hole, scared to death.

      “Crap,” Jake said, shifting the photo to the bottom.

      “What?” Frank asked.

      “Nothing. Thanks for your help.” They shook hands and Jake walked out, blinking in the fluorescent glare. Even without looking at it he could still picture the photo. It was as if Madison was challenging him to try and forget about her. Jake tucked the stack into the outside pocket of his carry-on and headed for the car rental courtesy shuttle. He already knew there was no walking away from those eyes.

      Four

      Kelly adjusted the surgical mask over her mouth. Rodriguez was growing progressively paler as the medical examiner peeled the skin back from the senator’s face. And she had to admit, she was enjoying his discomfort. Kelly had sat in on more autopsies than she could count. It wasn’t the sort of thing you got used to, exactly, but she’d developed coping mechanisms. Plus this wasn’t a victim that inspired the warm fuzzies. Kids were still tough, she preferred to come in at the end for those results. But this guy, the more she found out about him the less she liked. Not that he deserved to be hacked up, but Duke Morris didn’t inspire a lot of sympathy.

      The ME had arranged him on the table like a jigsaw puzzle. Morris’s feet were splayed out, arms and legs canted at angles that would have been impossible were his skeleton intact. A disassembled mannequin, Kelly thought. And an ugly one at that.

      Under the glare of the overhead lights his skin was pale, suggesting he spent more time on the Beltway than in his home state. A protruding gut attested to plenty of pricey dinners, and his body was covered with an alarming amount of hair. His eyes and mouth were closed, and the hair plugs along his forehead stood out in stark relief. Kelly flipped open the file. On top was a professionally taken photo of Morris in front of an American flag, robust and strong, grinning obsequiously at his constituents. He possessed that air of smug satisfaction common to men who took money and power for granted.

      “So officially, gunshot wounds were the cause of death?” Kelly finally asked. Over the years she’d learned that MEs came in all shapes, sizes and levels of ability. This one didn’t seem half-bad, but whether it was the pressure of working on such a high-profile corpse or his own habitual pace, this autopsy was taking a hell of a long time. She pulled back the sleeve of her surgical smock to check her watch: nearly 5:00 p.m. Her stomach growled, reminding her that they’d missed lunch.

      The ME peered up at her. “Yes, I’d say so. Two to the back of the head, fired at a downward angle.”

      “Execution style,” Rodriguez noted faintly.

      “Any way to tell how long they waited before using the machete?” Kelly asked.

      The ME shook his head. “No blood around those wounds, so he was definitely dead. That would put it anywhere from a few minutes after his heart stopped beating to several hours. Time of death was around midnight last night.”

      Kelly nodded. That matched what they knew about the senator’s schedule. He’d attended a fundraising dinner at the Hilton in downtown Phoenix. His wife thought that afterward he’d gone to a private men’s club, but according to his credit card receipts Morris had actually whiled away those hours with a blonde from a local escort service. And not for the first time, according to both the lovely, gum-snapping Trixie and a trail of charges on his government-issue card. Kelly repressed a sigh—politicians, always so predictable. Apparently stamina wasn’t one of Morris’s strong suits. After spending less than half an hour in the room, hotel cameras captured him strolling out the lobby doors while adjusting his tie.

      If the ME was right, Morris had been waylaid somewhere between the hotel lobby and the lot where his Cadillac was parked. And the next time he was seen, it was in pieces in front of the capitol building.

      “I voted for him,” the ME said contemplatively as he draped the sheet over Morris’s body.

      Kelly closed the file. “I hear he was a real pillar of the community. When will you have the full report?”

      He shrugged. “A few hours. Initial tox screen shows he’d had a few drinks, but no illegal substances or anything that points to him being drugged.”

      “Make sure to scan for everything and fax the results to this number.” Kelly handed him a card and left the room, tossing her mask and gloves in a bin.

      “I’m kind of surprised you let the hooker go,” Rodriguez grumbled as they strolled back out to the lot.

      “Why?” Kelly asked.

      “She might have been in on it.”

      Kelly tilted her head to the side. “But then why not drug him in the room and take him out the back stairs? No cameras there, and it would have been easier than trying to grab him on the street.”

      Rodriguez shrugged noncommittally. “I’m just saying,” he said. “She smelled funny to me.”

      “She’s a prostitute, they don’t usually smell very good,” Kelly replied wryly. She slid into the driver’s seat and glanced at him across the interior. Rodriguez’s face was still too round for his body, definitely a former fat kid who’d worked off the residual pudge in the gym. A few more years would probably take care of that. He wasn’t much taller than her, maybe five-nine, and his high cheekbones and light eyes pegged him as closer to a Spanish-Mexican lineage than a Mayan one. Based on his file she knew he was twenty-seven years old, had entered the Academy straight out of Princeton, and spent his childhood in Los Angeles. Aside from that, not much there. Which lent further credence to the OPR rumors. His constant second-guessing of her decisions was irritating. Plus, every time he called her chief it was getting harder not to smack him.

      “So what next, chief?” he asked casually.

      Kelly gritted her teeth. “Don’t call me chief.”

      “You prefer boss?”

      Kelly decided not to get drawn into a pissing match, dinner was coming up and she didn’t want to lose her appetite. “You make any progress on those gang files?”

      Rodriguez shrugged. “The machete thing has been popular in L.A. for a few years, originally started by the Salvadoran gangs like MS-13. But then it caught on with everyone else—there have been incidents with immigrants from Sierra Leone, Somalia, Mexico. It’s a cheap weapon, and chopping someone into bits sends a pretty strong message. There weren’t any tags near the bodies, and according to the local Gang Task Force no specific group or gang is claiming responsibility. Which is kind of weird. Something high profile like this, you’d figure folks would be coming out of the woodwork to build their street cred.”

      Kelly shook her head. “Probably not with something this big. A mayor, maybe, but a senator?