Good thing he was up for a brisk walk.
Five minutes of striding later, he was at the diner. Agent Heron was outside the front door, leaning against the building, smoking. He was wearing a lot of leather, looking more like a biker than a federal agent. Then again, maybe he was off duty and into riding.
Veck frowned. Christ, for some reason he had a hazy memory of one of those agents bitching about his BMW. Except when had that happened?
Maybe he'd just dreamed it.
"A cigarette at the right time is better than food," Veck muttered, as they shook hands.
"Amen to that."
"Bad day?"
"You got it."
"You wanna just walk it out?" Veck nodded to the sidewalk. "Chain-smoking seems more appealing than the BLT I'd planned on ordering."
"Good idea."
They hit the concrete path together and kept their speed at a meander. Beside them, the Hudson River was the same murky color as the sky, the surface getting choppier toward the middle from the wind.
"Brought you a copy of our report," Veck said, putting his cigarette between his teeth and taking out the papers that he'd folded in half. "But you've probably already seen most of it."
"Never hurts to take a second look." The documents went into Heron's breast pocket. "I want to help."
"And I could use whatever you've got. This case is f**king frustrating."
"I hear you."
And that was all they said for a while. Cars whipped along to the right of them, honking at one another from time to time. An ambulance went by at a dead run with sirens blaring. A thicket of bike riders wearing Saran Wrap suits and aerodynamic ice buckets on their heads ripped past, pedaling like they were being chased.
Unlike the rest of the world, he and Heron stayed in slow-mo.
"You're easy to talk to," Veck said on the exhale, his smoke drifting up over his head.
Heron laughed. "Haven't said much."
"I know. I like it. Shit, this Barten case is killing me. None of it makes any sense, to be honest."
"Yeah."
Veck glanced over. "By the way, where's your team?"
"Not here."
Well, duh. And clearly that was a closed subject.
At that moment, Veck's phone went off, and he jacked it right up to his ear. "DelVecchio. Yeah? Really. Shit ... no kidding."
He felt Heron look over ... and as the guy did, the strangest warning tickled over Veck's nape.
Last night ... in his kitchen ...
Veck's feet stopped and he finished the Bails report about Kroner on autopilot, his eyes locked with Heron's.
He'd always had good instincts about things, but this was deeper than intuition or hunches. This was fact, even though he didn't understand the hows or whys.
After he hung up, he just kept staring at the FBI agent. "You know, I think someone was in my house last night."
Heron didn't bat an eye - there was no reaction in his hard face at all. Which was a tell in and of itself, wasn't it.
"I don't know, maybe I was dreaming."
Bullshit. It had been Heron. As soon as Veck had walked into his kitchen, he'd had exactly the same sense of being watched by the eyes that were meeting his now.
The question was, why would the FBI be tracking him?
Then again, file that one under well, duh: His father was being executed in Connecticut in a matter of days. Maybe they were worried he'd go copycat or something - and yeah, the Kroner incident helped soooo much on that front.
And although law enforcement wasn't allowed to officially single out and suspend people just because of what they looked like or who they were related to, they sure as shit could work the back angles.
Then again, they could be protecting him. From his father, or his father's followers. In that case, though, they'd just come forward and tell him, wouldn't they.
"So what did you think of Bob Greenway," Veck murmured. "The manager from the Hannaford where Cecilia Barten was last seen."
"As you said, not much to go on."
"You aren't here for the Barten case, are you."
Heron took a drag on his Marlboro. "The hell I'm not."
"The manager's name is George Strauss. Have you even read the file?"
The agent didn't blink. Didn't seem to care in the slightest that he'd been caught in at best a lapse of memory, at worst a lie. He remained utterly self-contained, as if he had seen and done things so much worse than a mere bending of the truth, he couldn't give a f**k.
"You want to tell me why you were in my house last night?" Veck said, tapping his cigarette into the air.
"It is not inaccurate to say I've taken a special interest in you. And it is very accurate to say that Sissy Barten's disappearance is a big f**king deal to me."
Veck frowned. "So what the hell is going on? Does it have anything to do with my father? Because in case you're not aware of it, I don't really know the guy, and I hope they do the world a favor and off the bastard."
Heron leaned down, lifted one boot, and stubbed out the tip of his coffin nail on the heavy tread of his combat. After he put the butt in his back pocket, he tapped out a fresh stick from his soft pack.
He lit the thing with the efficiency of a long-term smoker. "Lemme ask you something."
"You could try answering some of my shit first, thank you very much."
"Nah. I'm more interested in you." The guy took a suck and exhaled. "You ever feel like there's another side to you? Something that follows you around, lurking under the surface. Maybe every once in a while it comes out, taking you in a direction you don't want to go in."
Veck narrowed his eyes as his heart kicked once in his chest and then stopped dead. "Why the hell would you ask me that?"
"Just curious. It would be the kind of thing you don't want to see in a mirror, for example."
Veck took a step back and pointed at the guy with his coffin nail. "Stay the f**k out of my house and away from me."
Heron just hung where he was, feet planted in the middle of the sidewalk. "It would be the kind of thing that makes you wonder what you're capable of. Reminds you of your old man so much, you don't like thinking about it."
"You're f**king crazy."
"Not in the slightest. And neither are you."
"You should know I'm good with a gun. And I don't care if you're a federal agent - assuming you didn't lie about that, too."
Veck pivoted away and started walking, fast.
"Look down at your feet, Thomas Delant to hio," Heron shouted out. "Take a good look at what's doing. And then you call me when you get scared enough. I'm the only one who can help you."
Fucking loony-ass motherfucker.
Motherfucking loony-ass bitch.
It took him no time at all to get back to HQ, and he blasted up that front stairwell, gunning for his computer. As he blew into the Homicide department, all he got for a greeting was a lot of ringing phones - everyone was out to lunch or working a case somewhere in town. Which was good news for his colleagues.
Sitting down at his desk, he got the number of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's local field office, and dialed in.
"Yeah, hello - this is Detective DelVecchio over at Caldwell Homicide. I want to speak with Personnel. Yup. Thanks." He picked up a pen and began twirling it in and out of his fingertips. "Yeah, DelVecchio at the CPD - I want to see if you have an Agent Jim Heron anywhere in your system, including out of state. I have my badge number if you want it." He recited the numbers. "Uh-huh, that's right. The guy I'm looking for is Agent Jim Heron. Yeah, that's how you spell it, like the bird. A man approached me yesterday with what looked like bona fide credentials, identified himself as an agent working on a missing persons case, and came with me to interview the family. I just met with him again and I want to verify who he is. Yup. Just call me, I'm at my desk."
He hung up.
One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi. Four Miss -
His phone rang. "DelVecchio. Hey, thanks - really. Go fig, no one at all by that name. Yup, he's six-four, maybe -five. Blondish hair. Blue eyed. Looks like soldier. He had two other men with him, one with a braid, another with a lot of metal on his face. The credentials were legit, though, right down to the hologram. Thanks - yeah, please, I'd like to know if you find anything - and I'll let you know if he shows up again."
As he hung up the phone, he thought he should have known. He should have f**king known - and he should have apprehended the guy right there by the river. That talk about shadows, though, had thrown him -