Private Beijing

Chapter 13

Detective Salazar had shared copies of everything he had with Justine and the Private team, on the understanding the transfer of information would be a two-way street. Mo-bot had told Justine about Salazar’s reaction to the Gaiter program, and how it seemed to have convinced him to take a collaborative approach. The two victims were Private employees, so the organization had standing and a strong interest in finding the perp, and Salazar was smart enough to recognize the resources he’d have at his disposal if he collaborated with an investigation that was going to happen anyway.

Justine leant back and rested her head against the couch. She was alone in the meeting room on the thirty-fifth floor of Private’s building at 41 Madison, a thirty-six-story black-glass-and-steel skyscraper that stood on one corner of Madison Avenue and East 26th Street, overlooking Madison Square Park. Mo-bot had been worried the room might trigger painful memories because it was here that Justine had erroneously received the news that Jack had been killed in Afghanistan, but she liked the place precisely because of that dark association. She’d never felt lower than she had at that moment, and had decided then she would do anything to ensure others never felt the same way. Besides, the memory of how low she had felt came with its corollary of learning Jack was alive, and that had been one of the happiest moments of her life, something she never wanted to forget.

Justine tried to set aside her personal feelings and consider Salazar’s case notes the same way she’d look at any investigation. This wasn’t a robbery or an abduction gone wrong. The killer had entered the apartment with the express intention of killing. His actions were either personally motivated — unlikely given the speed and lack of gratification shown during the shooting — or professional. Justine suspected he’d been hired or otherwise instructed to kill Lewis and Jessie, and that marked Ivor Yeadon as an obvious instigator, but would anyone, even a degenerate financier, be stupid enough to commission a double homicide on their own doorstep?

Mo was currently in the Private New York computer lab, reviewing video footage from a wider range of cameras, trying to use Gaiter to see if she could get an image of the suspect’s face. Sci was in the forensics lab, doing his own analysis of a DNA sample they’d collected from the wire gate. The suspect had indeed snagged his hand on a broken link in the mesh and left a small trace of blood. NYPD had taken a sample and Sci had managed to get a usable swab from what was left. He was running it against the databases Private had access to while he waited for news from Salazar. Sometimes Justine envied Mo-bot and Sci and the certainty of their respective disciplines. When Mo-bot hacked a network or confirmed an image search, the result was unequivocal. And when Sci got a DNA match or identified a suspect from a fingerprint, the outcome was definitive.

So much of Justine’s work was speculative, making educated deductions based on what she knew of human psychology and behavior, and sometimes it felt as though she was trying to find her way in the dark. Even when her profiles helped law enforcement or her colleagues at Private, she rarely focused on the elements she’d got right and instead obsessed over the characteristics or behaviors she’d called wrong. In this way her work was less a science and more an art, and sometimes, like now, she found herself frustrated by the lack of certainty. She wished she could give the team something concrete to work with.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Sci, who came in buzzing with energy.

“I didn’t get any ID matches, but I did manage to run genealogy.”

A match would have been too much to hope for, Justine thought, trying to hide her disappointment. Genealogy would at least give them something. Many years ago, Private had invested in the same capabilities as the numerous DNA genealogy companies.

“The suspect comes from mainland China,” Sci went on. “Looks as though one parent originated from the Beijing region.”

He had got Justine’s attention. It might have been a coincidence, but it supported her initial suspicion when she first heard of the New York attack — the two incidents had to be linked.