Not Even Past Read Free

If the person who’d sent him the email had put any sort of security on the website at all, Donne wouldn’t be able to track him down. Hell, Donne wouldn’t have been able during his PI days either.
    At the same time, his phone company contacts had dried up, either moving elsewhere or retiring. Investigating certainly wasn’t like riding a bike. Instincts sag, and intellectual focus is put elsewhere.
    He couldn’t go to the cops. Talking to them meant talking to Bill Martin. He wasn’t ready for that.
    Donne stepped out of the tavern into the noon sunlight. It reflected off the glass of the store across the street directly into his eyes. He blinked and wiped at his watery eyes. The temperature had crested somewhere into the high seventies, as businesses let out for lunch and some students who hadn’t gone home after finishing exams loitered.
    What he should be doing.
    Instead, he opened his text message and tried firing off a quick text to the blocked number. Who are you? It didn’t go through.
    Donne took a deep breath and leaned against the wall of the Olde Towne Tavern. He needed to go talk to Kate and tell her what was going on, but he wasn’t ready to do that yet. At the very least, he had to try to get a step closer to figuring out what was going on.
    His mind flashed on the video again. Jeanne’s eyes wide open. She was screaming through duct tape.
    Closing his eyes, Donne thought back to his brother-in-law, another kidnapping victim. So many people were involved then: local police, state police, the FBI. Who took the lead? The FBI—they always took the lead, pushing cops off the trail, using their massive budget to track people down.
    That’s who Donne needed now.
    FBI headquarters was a thirty-five-minute drive up the Turnpike, with no traffic. Easier than calling. If he called, he’d bring two agents down to his home and just worry Kate.
    He walked back to his apartment. His car was parked across the street. Kate’s was parked right behind his. She’d noticed he was gone, and if he didn’t call he’d worry her. She picked up on the second ring.
    “Where are you?” No hello, no smile in her voice.
    “I’m outside, but I have to take a ride.”
    “Where?”
    Donne looked up at his apartment window and saw the curtains part. He waved and saw Kate wave back.
    “Newark campus’s library.” Not a total lie. Well, maybe a total lie, except for the location.
    “Why?”
    “An article for Siva’s class. I need it for the exam.”
    “You can’t get it on campus? Or on the Internet? Like normal people?”
    “It’s in one of those journals you can’t find online. I missed class the week he handed it out.”
    Kate sighed. “You need to make some friends.”
    “I need someone to cheat off.”
    She paused, squinting. Then she grinned.
    “Be safe,” Kate said. “Be quick.”
    The drive was quick. The roads were mostly clear, and he hit green lights on the way there. He found a parking lot just two blocks from the FBI building. This wasn’t like walking into a police station. People didn’t just call the FBI about a kidnapping. There was procedure. Call the police, and eventually the FBI would be brought in. He knew the drill. He hadn’t been out of the game that long.
    Claremont Tower rested along the Passaic River at Newark Dock, on the outskirts of the city. Donne imagined few people actually knew what was inside the tall, unmarked building. It looked like any other office building but without corporate logos. Donne crossed McCarter Highway and walked down a side street to the front of the building. He could smell dead fish and gasoline rising off the river and wondered if that made agents ornery on a daily basis. They did have a reputation to uphold, anyway.
    Donne pulled open the glass door and a security guard waiting by a metal detector stared at him. The lobby looked like the TSA line at the airport.
    “Can I help you?” the guard asked.
    “I need to see an agent.”
    The guard