There is No Cloud

by Kat Wheeler

  “Sure,” she agreed. “It’s not like I have anything else to do.”

  His face fell at her comment. “I’m sorry you lost your job over this.”

  “It’s not your fault. And who knows? Right now I’m just suspended. Maybe I won’t get fired,” she said, putting on a brave face even though they both knew the truth. Her job was history.

  Cameron, Will, and Alan fell into a comfortable rhythm after that. It was almost like working with Bill and Phil. It seemed the underlying tension in the room disappeared with the ADA’s departure. Cameron started to wonder if there was more to her lack of hospitality than just an unusually harsh disposition. She studied Will covertly under the guise of searching for more info on her tablet. He might have had a history with the woman. Although unpleasant, she was beautiful. She could see the two of them having a fling, though it was hard to imagine them together long term with their obvious personality differences. She was an uptight elitist, and he had a down-to-earth easygoing nature. But stranger things had happened. And they did say opposites attracted.

  He caught her looking at him and smiled. His attitude toward her had certainly changed since she’d arrived that morning. She had to wonder how much of that was directly related to the absence of Kim. But it could just be his nature. She’d only known him for two days. She told herself it was foolish to make assumptions about his character.

  They ordered in a ton of Chinese food around five, and it was delivered right before the captain walked in.

  “Looks like I’m right on time as always,” he joked, joining them at the conference table. He stuck his hand out for Cameron to shake. “I’m Gil Lovett. You must be Ms. Caldwell ”

  “Cameron,” she said, grinning. She immediately liked the man. “Nice to meet you.”

  “And you as well. I’d like to thank you for coming forward with the information you had. Most people would’ve buried it. I heard it cost you your job. I’m sorry about that, and I’m sorry about your friend. It’s a damn shame.”

  “Thank you,” she said as she took a deep breath to steady herself from the emotions starting to well up. She’d been able to put it out of her mind all day while working with the police. The guilt and loss were too overwhelming to dwell on. She took another breath. “I appreciate that. And I appreciate you letting me help. It feels good to be able to contribute to catching whoever did this. I think that’ll help, when they’re finally put away.”

  The captain held her gaze and nodded once sincerely. She knew then that he understood how she was feeling and would be as accommodating as he could be.

  “Now, catch me up. Where are we?”

  They took him through what they had learned during the interviews.

  “Doug also discovered an identical chip in Mr. Minsky’s apartment in the city,” Will told him. “It looks like he was the only target.”

  “What’s the motive?” the captain asked. “I can’t see the benefit. Is it financial gain? If so, how? Is it personal?”

  “We don’t know,” Alan answered.

  “I think the best way to look at it is by who could’ve done it,” Cameron said, then walked to the murder board and flipped it to the other side. She picked up a dry-erase marker and wrote three names at the top of the board: Trey Howell, Matt Rodriguez, and Tessa Wells. “These three people are the most likely suspects as to who made the chip. They have the technical knowledge and access to Minsky’s hubs. Once we figure that out, we’ll have a better idea of the motive for this whole thing. I also think the absence of an HTH in Matt’s apartment is important. My guess is whoever planted the chip on Mark Minsky did the same thing to Matt. He found out, and that’s why he was killed. Which, if true, would rule him out as the doer.”

  “I get Howell and Rodriguez, but Tessa Wells? Does she have the technical knowledge to do this?” the captain asked.

  “She does,” Cameron answered. “She may have her MBA and be running sales at SE, but I found mention of a computer science major in her undergrad work and some programming awards she won in college. Combined with the resources she had at SE, she could’ve done it.”

  “But not Minsky or Reece?”

  “No, Reece is strictly a lawyer. Nothing technical in his background. And while Minsky is definitely into technology, he doesn’t have the knowledge to design and build something like this. He’s a user, not a maker. He’d have to contract it out, and that would be noticed.”

  “Hmmm, interesting way to look at it. But all your suspects have alibis. They were all at the party together.”

  “They were,” confirmed Will. “But Kim’s suggestion was spot-on. They all have access to the SE helicopter. We’re also running the charter manifests from the companies who provide service to the Hamptons to see if anyone used that to travel. The timing’s tight, but one of them could’ve snuck out, went back to the city, and committed the murder before returning to the party for the toast at eleven. We’re also checking social media for pictures taken the night of the party to see if we can’t exclude some of them.”

  “Good work. Looks like you’re making some progress. How’d it go with the ADA? Any trouble there?”

  “No,” Will replied. “She was pleased that we found another chip but didn’t add anything significant.”

  “What’s your next step?”

  “We’ve got interviews with Wells and Reece tomorrow. In light of what Minsky’s wife said, it may open up some more avenues as we search for a motive. It seems Ms. Wells has had intimate relationships with all our suspects.”

  The captain’s eyebrows rose at this. “All of them? Well, that is interesting. What about the car crash in New Jersey? Have the Bergen County police found any leads?”

  “Not yet,” replied Alan, glancing at Cameron. “They’ve confirmed foul play and are looking at suspects now. I’ve worked with the detective in charge before, and he’s agreed to keep me posted if they bring anybody in.”

  Cameron paused eating her Szechuan chicken at that. So, it was confirmed. Casey was murdered. Deep down, she knew it wasn’t an accident, but hearing it out loud was different somehow. She couldn’t help but blame herself. She’d gotten him involved in all of this in the first place. She could’ve just ignored it. Put the chip back where she’d found it. If she had, Casey would still be alive, and she would still have a job.

  She shook herself out of that train of thought. Looking back didn’t do any good. She couldn’t change what had happened, but she could help catch his killer, and maybe with a little luck and by keeping SmartTech out of this whole affair, she could manage to get her job back as well.

  After giving herself her little pep talk, she pushed her food away; she wasn’t hungry anymore. She looked up to see Detective Justus looking at her thoughtfully.

  “It’s late, guys. Maybe it’s time we call it a night,” he said.

  “Agreed,” said the captain. “Good work today. Keep me posted after your interviews tomorrow.” With that, he left the room.

  Cameron began packing up her equipment as well. She laughed to herself at the differences between her and Detective Justus’s work bags. Hers was full of electronics. Laptop, iPad, chargers, two phones, Raspberry PI, backup batteries, flash drives, etc. Will’s was all paper.

  The long day was starting to take its toll, but she was dreading going back to her apartment alone. She hadn’t been back since the break-in the night before, and her place was still a disaster. She’d have to clean the bedroom at least before she could get any sleep. Hopefully they hadn’t trashed all her pillows.

  “Are you going to stay at your apartment tonight?” Will asked.

  “Yep,” she replied. “I can’t stay at a hotel forever. And now that everything is out in the open, no one has a reason to come after me.”

  He nodded. “Do you want to go grab a drink first? Then I’ll take you home and check it out for you. Just to be on the s
afe side.”

  “Sounds good,” she agreed, relieved. As tired as she was, she wanted to avoid the reality of her apartment for a little while longer.

  “Al, you in?”

  “No,” he answered. “You two go ahead. I should go home and beg for forgiveness from my wife for getting rid of our HTH. I think she was starting to like AIME more than she likes me.”

  Cameron grinned. “I can relate. I knew I had a problem when I started thanking mine. I’d ask her to play a song for me and thank her when she did. It only made me realize how close to the singularity we are.”

  Alan laughed, shaking his head at her.

  “What’s the singularity?” Will asked.

  “You’ll need a drink before I even start trying to explain the singularity to you,” Cameron teased.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  If you go to a bar with a cop, can he arrest you when you leave for being drunk in public?

  Will took Cameron to a bar a few blocks away from the police station, but not the local cop bar. He didn’t want them to constantly be interrupted by his coworkers, though he couldn’t explain why. And it wasn’t something he was looking too closely at. He also wanted to take her somewhere a little more upscale. Something like he assumed she was used to. Although she had seemed right at home in the old Irish pub last night, so maybe not. It was so hard to tell with women.

  He ended up taking her to a quiet wine bar. It was classy but not pretentious, and he needed something with a little more bite than his usual beer tonight, and they had a great liquor selection as well. The lighting was dark, but there were lamps on the tables. It was a nice effect in contrast to all the dark wood. He liked the feel of it and found himself hoping she did too. They got a table near the bar, and their server was with them immediately. Cameron ordered a pinot noir, and he got a scotch.

  “So,” he said, “Kentucky? How’d you get from Kentucky to NYC?”

  “Ah, you did your homework on me, I see.”

  “We did. We had to treat you just like every citizen bringing us information on a case.”

  “So, like a suspect?” she teased.

  “Yeah, pretty much, but it didn’t take us long to rule you out.” He liked that she was grinning. He knew women who would’ve been offended at the background check, but Cameron didn’t seem to be.

  “So Kentucky. Um, I got here by way of California. If you want to move up in my business, you have to go where the jobs are. And as you can imagine, there’s not a lot of opportunity in Kentucky in luxury smart homes. Being a woman also added a degree of difficulty. But I was fortunate. I had a job I hated in California, but it turned out to be a good stepping-stone. The funny part was I hated the job so much, I’d been interviewing for another position for a long time. They fired me while I was on my way to a job interview. Ironic, huh? Regardless, I didn’t get the job, but the position was with SmartTech, and they had an opening in New York. They asked me if I’d move, and I agreed. Thirty days later, I moved here.”

  “Wow, that’s quick.”

  “Yeah.” She laughed. “If anyone asks you how soon you can move across the country, don’t tell them thirty days. It’s a bitch.”

  “Unless you count my military years, I’ve never lived anywhere but New York.”

  “Do you live in the city?”

  “No, I’ve got a place in Greenpoint.”

  “Cool. I’ve worked on some neat projects there.”

  “Not in my building, I assure you,” he said. “Are you okay, about your job?”

  That was the moment the waitress brought their drinks. Cameron took a big sip before she replied. “This helps.” She grinned at the wine in her hand. “No, I’m not okay. I loved that job. I was good at it. I worked hard for it. But I’m not going to write it off just yet. I don’t believe in borrowing trouble. I’ll wait and see what happens and deal with it then.”

  “Very levelheaded of you.”

  “I’m trying to be. With everything that’s gone on this week, it’d be easy to freak out, but that wouldn’t do anyone any good. If I can stay focused on what’s in front of me, everything will work out just fine. Besides, I can get a new job if I have to. I’m extremely hirable.”

  He grinned back at her. “I bet you are.”

  “What about you?” she asked. “Did you always want to be a cop?”

  “Definitely not.” He chuckled. “I was a mess in high school. To use a cliché, I ran with the wrong crowd. My family didn’t have a lot of money, and there was no way I was going to get a scholarship to college. My dad sat me down one day and told me I was going nowhere fast, and I could continue down the path I was on and have to move out immediately after I graduated high school—if I graduated high school—or I could join the military. He thought for sure that would straighten me out. I might’ve been a troublemaker, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew what my prospects were as an eighteen-year-old kid in New York City, and they weren’t good. So, I joined up.”

  “And did it straighten you out?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He smiled, taking a sip of his scotch. “I spent eight years in the service. When I got out, I just couldn’t see myself doing anything else. I couldn’t imagine working in an office nine-to-five every day. I had some friends from my unit who’d joined the force, and they seemed to like it, so it felt like the right move for me.”

  Their drinks were dwindling by then, and the waitress noticed without any prompting. She asked them if they wanted another round. They agreed quickly, and she was on her way.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Most days,” he replied honestly. “Some days more than others. You can’t imagine some of the things I see, but something is satisfying about putting criminals in jail. It feels like I've accomplished something at the end of the day, and I enjoy that.”

  “And your family? Was your dad happy to see you get all straightened out?”

  “He died while I was in the service, so, unfortunately, he never got to see it. But I like to think he knows.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He accepted his fresh drink from the waitress. “It was a long time ago.”

  ***

  She nodded and enjoyed the quiet for a bit. She wasn’t usually a fan of extended silences but sitting with Will was comfortable. They both enjoyed their drinks and the lulling piano music through the bar. It went against her better judgment, but she was starting to like the guy. It’d been a long time since Cameron had met a man she was interested in. That was the price she paid for spending eighty hours a week at her job. And she had a strict no-dating policy in her workplace. As one of the very few women in her industry, it was an edict she stood steadfastly by. She’d had one boyfriend at work before, and once was enough. It might not be fair, but there was a double standard at play. If you weren’t careful, you could quickly lose the respect of your peers, and people could assume you’d slept your way to the top. It was an assumption Cameron took pains to avoid. She wanted to be judged on her merit, regardless of the effect it had on her dating life.

  “I don’t mean to spoil the mood, but I did have a thought regarding the case.”

  Will sighed but was still smiling at her. “Let’s hear it.”

  “Why didn’t the killer remove the chip for the HTH at Mike Minsky’s New York apartment? They searched my place but didn’t try to get the chip back from him before we could find it? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Good point. All right, let’s go through the timeline. The killer found out the chip had been discovered when they received the transmission from the upload on Tuesday night. They immediately took action and went for Casey, but they didn’t recover the chip, so they looked at your place. They found out the chip had been sent to the police from the Wednesday night transmission. The logical step would’ve been to go after any remaining doctored devices today after they
knew we’d check.”

  “So that leaves only two possibilities. Either the killer assumed it was too dangerous to try to get it and not worth the risk since we already had one of them, or the killer was unable to get to the chip today.”

  “Tessa Wells and Brandon Reece went to San Francisco today. They wouldn’t have been able to go for the chip,” he said excitedly.

  “Exactly,” she said, reaching up with her glass to clink with his. “See, I knew watching all that Law and Order would pay off.”

  “But what’s the motive? Why spy on Mark Minsky?” Will wondered out loud.

  “I can think of two reasons. One, it was Tessa, and she’s legitimately the most industrious stalker in the world. That would also explain why the HTH would be missing from Matt’s apartment. She dated him too and was spying on him as well.”

  Will gave her a sideways glance before replying. “I have a hard time seeing that. What would the point be? What could she get out of it? And it seems way too advanced for some relationship drama.”

  “I agree, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen. She could be trying to see if they’re seeing other women, or how they felt about her or any number of things.”

  “Still seems farfetched. What’s your second motive?”

  “If it was Brandon, it's assuredly business related. He’s the legal force behind the company, but both Matt and Mark were the financial backbones. Matt’s product and Mark’s investment. You’d have to dig to find the contract to see what percentage each one of them is getting, but I’d be willing to bet it's significant. I’d bet they were getting more than the rest of them. A lot more.”

  “Money’s always a good motive, but even if their pay wasn’t equal, Brandon can’t be hurting for money. SE is raking it in. He’s got to be getting a healthy chunk. And he’s got family money as well. That guy is never going to be hurting for cash.”

  “Maybe,” she agreed. “But in my business, we have a saying. ‘Never sell with your own wallet.’ What you think of as a ‘healthy chunk’ might not have been enough for Brandon. And some people, regardless of how much they have, always want more.”