Denouement by E. H. Reinhard Page B

2199, I believe,” I said.
    “Go right around the corner here and take the first set of elevators up to the twenty-first floor. The condo will be down the hall to your left.”
    “Appreciate it,” I said.
    Hank and I rounded the corner and found the bank of elevators. I thumbed the button to take us up.
    “This is some place, huh,” Hank said.
    I rubbed my fingers together, gesturing that living there must be expensive. The elevator doors opened and took us inside. Hank hit the button for the twenty-first floor.
    “So Faust has two agents murdered inside of a few hours. What do you think we’re dealing with here?” Hank asked.
    “I think someone, possibly Azarov, found out they were feds and killed them.”
    Hank didn’t respond.
    Soft jazz music played in our ears for another thirty seconds until the elevator bucked and the doors opened. We stepped out. I looked left and spotted Officer Rickson standing outside a door down the hall. Hank and I walked over.
    He gave us a nod. “Lieutenant, Sergeant.”
    “Hey, Rickson,” I said.
    “It’s just the FBI agent inside. Well, him and the body of another agent, I guess. The other officers are talking with staff and residents.”
    “Thanks,” I said.
    Hank and I entered into a short hallway. Dark wooden floors ran down the hall and spread into an open concept room. The kitchen ran down the right-hand side. In the center was an island with a granite top. A dead man was taped to the barstool next to it. His right eye had been pulled from his head. I spotted it at the ground beside the stool. The man’s head rested on his chest, and an odd bulge protruded from the side of his neck. We walked farther in. To our left in the big room was a television on the wall, a couch, and a lounge chair. All the furniture was leather and modern in design. Faust sat on the couch, staring at us but talking on the phone. Behind him was a wall of windows looking out over downtown. To our right, past the kitchen and around the corner, was a hall that I assumed led to the bedroom or bedrooms.
    Hank and I walked to Faust.
    He clicked off from his phone call. “I have people coming,” he said.
    “This is the guy we just talked to in the car?” I asked.
    “Yeah,” Faust leaned back on the couch. “He gave me the five oh five.”
    “Which is?” Hank asked.
    “SOS. Whoever did this was here while we were talking to him, Kane.”
    I walked over to the deceased agent. He had short brown hair, and his face was thin and recently shaved. Blood covered the side of his face that his eye had been liberated from—the blood continued down his blue button-up shirt. His tan slacks were torn a bit in the right knee and smudged. The bruising on the other side of his face indicated he’d been beaten. Above his puffed-up left eye were a pair of two-inch gashes that hung open a solid quarter of an inch each. I looked at the protrusion at the side of his neck that had caught my eye when we entered. It might have been his spine. I took a step back and looked at the way his head was hanging. It was off center and too low to his chest.
    Faust and Hank came to my side.
    “So this was your buyer for the contact’s name?” I asked.
    Hank looked at me, confused.
    “Yeah,” Faust said.
    “So both agents who met with Andrei Azarov are dead. Pretty easy to deduce that their covers were blown,” I said.
    Faust said nothing.
    “What do you think he was being questioned about?” I asked.
    “Questioned?” Faust asked.
    “The eye. That doesn’t strike me as something that would be done unless someone was trying to extract information.”
    “I don’t know,” Faust said.
    Pax walked into the condo and up to us. “Hey, Lieutenant, Sergeant Rawlings,” he said.
    “Pax,” Hank said.
    I gave Pax a nod.
    Pax wore a pair of jeans and some kind of heavy-metal-band T-shirt under a lab coat. He scratched at his peach-fuzz-covered chin and set his kit down on the granite island. “This is, um,