Playing Dead_ A Novel of Suspense - Allison Brennan [70]
On the elevator, Claire punched the 18 button. It was 1:30, past the lunchtime rush, and she had the ride to herself straight through to the eighteenth floor.
Guilt washed over Claire. She was about to violate someone’s trust, and it didn’t make her feel good. She worked through a cover story—something close to the truth, but without mentioning her father had contacted her or left her a letter. She’d simply heard that Oliver Maddox was dead and she wanted to figure out what he’d learned about her father’s case. She had a right, didn’t she? Her mother had been the victim.
Half-truths were still half-lies.
Rogan-Caruso Protective Services took up the entire floor, but you wouldn’t know it when you exited the elevator into the simple yet comfortable waiting area surrounded by designer bulletproof glass, the Rogan-Caruso logo of a sword and shield etched in the center. Though the office was thoroughly modern, the logo harkened back to the days of white knights to the rescue.
Claire always felt inadequate coming into the offices. She had a small workspace that she used primarily to access protected computer files, and she briefed her boss, Henry Opacic, twice a month on her assignments or before testifying at trial if one of her investigations went that far. But today she was coming in to use the Rogan-Caruso state-of-the-art computer system to find out everything she could about this mysterious Frank Lowe.
She hated being deceptive, but she didn’t want to bring her boss or anyone else in the company under the scrutiny of the FBI. And while Rogan-Caruso played hardball with the government, they also took jobs from the same. Claire wasn’t exactly sure of everything the company did, and that was fine with her. She was happy with her low-level, below-scrutiny position, and she hoped that because of that no one would notice the computer time.
She stuck her badge into the slot that opened the first door. Aggie, the receptionist, glanced up. “Good afternoon, Claire. How are you?”
“Good, thanks.”
“Henry is out of town.”
“I’m just doing some research.”
“Go right in.”
Aggie knew everything about Rogan-Caruso. Receptionist was a misnomer. She buzzed Claire through, and Claire knew before the end of the day Henry would know exactly how long she’d been in the office and what internal files she’d accessed.
She wasn’t planning on looking at internal files beyond the Ben Holman investigation.
Claire walked down the quiet, plush hall, around the corner, and hesitated outside the office of the only person she truly considered a friend, Jayne Morgan, the computer genius Dave had a crush on. But Claire didn’t want to abuse her friendship, and she hated asking anyone for favors. This was her problem; she would handle it the way she preferred to handle all her personal problems: alone. Still, she peeked in and was both relieved and disappointed that Jayne wasn’t in.
She sat at her desk and quickly wrote up the report on the Holman arson investigation, scanned in Pete Jackson’s report, her interview with Holman, and what she’d learned from her informants about the medical supplies on the black market. She sent the whole report to Henry.
Claire then logged in to the Rogan-Caruso system and the world appeared at her fingertips. Jayne had created the intensive computer system which pulled public records and archived information from the Internet into a powerful database, which could be combined with secured data maintained internally or through their memberships and associations.
She typed in “Frank Lowe Sacramento,” figuring that if Lowe was involved somehow with Chase Taverton fifteen years ago it would have been local. She could expand the search if nothing came up.
Immediately, more than a dozen Frank Lowes popped up. She wished she had more to go on because she didn’t know which Lowe was the man Maddox had referred to. There had to be a better way to weed out the information.
She surmised that if this Lowe knew anything about Chase Taverton and the murders, he’d have been in Sacramento County in the