Free Don't Look Away (Veronica Sloan) by Leslie A. Kelly Page B

didn’t have to be reminded that the minute the victim’s head turned up, a lowly D.C. detective would be calling the shots. Ronnie didn’t mind—getting away from the bigwigs and their pissing match was just fine by her.
    First up on her to-interview list was Jack Williams, head of the Phoenix Group. He seemed like the person who’d been closest to the victim and she wanted to talk to him now, before he was able to learn even more inside information about the investigation. She still couldn’t believe Kilgore had let him stay for the briefing.
    Politely asking the man for a few minutes of his time, she wasn’t at all surprised when he insisted he was too busy right now and asked that they talk later this afternoon, over at his own office. Although it was a pain in the ass, and meant she and Daniels would have to leave the site and go through security again when they returned, she wanted to play nice with this guy for now, so she and her partner agreed.
    They took the intervening few hours to start talking to witnesses on-site. They certainly didn’t manage to talk to fifty-five thousand people. Or even fifty-five. But they did hit about a half-dozen, which, in a case this major, wasn’t too bad. And from those six—the ones who interacted most often with Leanne Carr—they’d gotten some decent information about their victim.
    The young woman had been pretty, well-liked, prompt and hard-working. Though she worked at the Phoenix Group’s offices a few blocks further up on Pennsylvania Avenue, she visited the site almost daily. Apparently her boss was an eyes-on kind of guy and she was his looking glass. She’d delivered messages, met with suppliers, interacted with the project managers and carried reports back and forth. A couple of the younger men commented that, though she didn’t wear a ring, she must have been involved with someone, since she never responded to any of their come-ons.
    Ronnie wasn’t too concerned about that, knowing that if Leanne were seeing anyone, she’d find out as soon as she examined the downloads in the woman’s computer—hopefully tonight. She’d gotten word that the victim’s hard drive had been taken to a special lab back at the precinct, and Ronnie would be heading over later. She wouldn’t be able to see Leanne’s murder, and thereby identify her killer—not without that damned elusive chip in her head—but she could definitely learn more about the life Leanne had led before that final day.
    Finally, as it drew closer to their appointment time with Williams, they left Patriot Square and drove the short distance down Pennsylvania Avenue. They could easily have walked it, however, swarms of people still milled about. They were even hotter and crankier than they had been this morning, and Ronnie didn’t want to march through them in uniform and on a mission. Still, she was glad to see them. Obviously, if rumors of the atrocity committed in the basement of the White House had gotten out, they would have scattered in the wind by now. So somebody was doing a pretty good job of keeping a lid on the story.
    At the impressively constructed Phoenix Group building, they were shown in by a quiet receptionist whose swollen face and reddened eyes said she’d heard the news about Leanne. Probably all her co-workers had by now. Ronnie only hoped they hadn’t heard anything beyond, “She’s dead.” Hearing she’d been cut into rump-roast-sized chunks would probably have been seriously bad for morale.
    “Thank you for coming down here to talk to me,” Jack Williams said as they were escorted into his office, which was about the size of her entire apartment. “I realize it must have been an inconvenience.”
    Daniels shrugged, “Nah, not a problem. We prefer to get away from the crime scene when we’re doing interviews and wanted to see the victim’s work area. Plus we’ll get to talk to some of her co-workers on the way out.”
    Hmm. Not entirely accurate—Ronnie sure would