by Karen Singer
“He what? Oh my God!”
“It’s okay,” Jenni replied. “I shot him before he could shoot me.” She held up her purse and touched the bullet hole in it. “I think I’m going to need another new purse though.”
Sally stared at the bullet hole. Then looked to Jenni. “How bad is the person you shot? Did you kill him?”
“According to Detective Phillips, he died on the way to the hospital. Aunt Sally, he was connected to the same men who tried to kill me down at the hotel. It’s all connected.”
“Jenni, why do they want you dead so much?”
“You’ve got me. I haven’t a clue. And neither does anyone else.”
“Can we get protection for you from the police?”
Jenni shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. I would think that if the police or the FBI were that concerned about me, they would have offered.”
“And they didn’t? But they’ve tried to kill you…twice now.”
“Three time, actually,” Jenni corrected her. Twice on the island.”
“All the more reason they should be protecting you.”
“Maybe,” Jenni replied. “Actually, we’re hoping that now that I shot this one, that nobody else will be coming after me.”
“I hope not!” Sally replied. “But how can we be sure?”
“That’s just it, Aunt Sally. We can’t. Nobody can. Nobody knows who they are.”
“They know that they’re after you for some reason. Isn’t that enough?”
Jenni shrugged again. “I guess the police and the FBI aren’t as concerned about me as Mr. B is.”
“The FBI? They’re involved in this too?”
“They have been, Aunt Sally. For a long time now.”
Their conversation was interrupted as Robbie and Shirley came over. “How are you Sally?” Shirley asked.
“I’m not sure. All I know is that I’m very worried about Jenni. Why do they keep trying to kill her? Shouldn’t she be under some kind of protection? What if they try it again?”
“We’re hoping they won’t try it again,” Robbie replied. “But trust me, we’re going to be staying vigilant.”
“But she shot someone! And she said he was going to shoot her!”
“That’s true,” Robbie replied.
“Sally,” Shirley added, “If Jenni hadn’t shot him like she did, he would have killed her, and Robbie, and me. He was there to do just that. Kill all three of us. He had a gun right up against Jenni’s head, and she still had the courage to reach into her bag and shoot him instead…right through her purse!”
“That’s what Jenni told me,” Sally replied. “I just know I’d feel a lot better if she was somewhere out of their reach.”
“Sally,” Robbie said. “From everything you’ve told us, you two don’t really have anywhere else you can go, do you?”
“Uh…no. Not really.”
“Then we’re doing the best we can for her right now. Besides, I’ve got a personal reason why I’d like Jenni to stay close.”
“What’s that?”
“We have no proof of anything,” Robbie replied. “But Jenni here has managed to dig out more about what’s going on than anyone else, the FBI included. I won’t feel safe for myself or Shirley, until these people are all found and eliminated. And if Jenni has managed to do more than anyone else so far, then personally, I want her staying on the job until we do find them. It’s in her best interest. It’s in our best interest. And I think it’s in your best interest too.”
“I still don’t like it,” Sally replied. “I’m still scared.”
Jenni grabbed her arm. “So am I. But I need to figure this thing out. It’s like everything else I do. I’ve got to try.”
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“I heard a rumor. There was a shooting today.”
“There are shootings every day.”
“This one was at Bosch Investigating”
“Ah,” Vahram replied, pleased to hear it.
“Pasha is dead.”
Vahram’s pleasure quickly turned to alarm. “Pasha!”
“The word is he died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.”
“No! Not Pasha!”
“I’m afraid so.”
“What happened?”
“From what I heard, Jenni shot him, while her gun was still in her purse.”
“The Jennifer woman! Again!”
“I’m sorry to bring you the bad news, but I thought you’d want to know.”
“Yes. I…appreciate it.”
“Can I do anything?”
“Kill the Jennifer woman!”
“You know I can’t do that!”
“No. Of course. Thank you.”
Vahram hung up his phone. Pasha was dead. How could that have happened? Pasha was his favorite. Pasha was the one who helped him the most. He pulled back on the joystick on his motorized wheelchair and backed it away from his workbench. He pushed the stick forward, turning the chair and heading toward the door. A simple car accident three years ago had robbed him of most of the use of his legs. He could stand, but barely. Walking without help was out of the question. He could manage for himself, but for so many things, he needed help now. As much as he really wanted to, it wasn’t physically possible for him to go after and kill the Jennifer woman by himself anymore.
It was so frustrating! As was she! Retribution against her was going to have to wait a little bit, but it would come…eventually. It would have to wait until he could get more help. Competent help! He was working now on a way to get that help. With that thought in mind, he turned his thoughts toward the plan he had been working on for some time now. The plan that he would send to Baghdad in hopes of getting not just more money, but people. Once he had those people though, killing the Jennifer woman was on the top of his list…before they put his plan into motion.
Chapter 22
Jenni looked up from her computer and swiveled around in her seat toward Mr. B’s office. Mr. B was out of the office just then, trying to track down a missing husband that didn’t want to be found, so it was just her and Shirley in the office. It had been three weeks now since she had shot and killed Pasha, and there hadn’t been any signs of trouble anywhere. Things had slowly quieted down and Jenni could tell that even Shirley and Mr. B were starting to relax…some. Mr. B was still a bit edgy and more protective than he used to be, but he wasn’t as bad as he had been.
Her weekly paychecks had been a surprise. She knew that for other people, they probably weren’t that great, but to her, they were far more money than she had imagined. She knew the company was doing more business too since there had been a few referral cases from both the police and Agent Conifer at the FBI. It seemed they both trusted Bosch Investigating now when there were cases that their offices couldn’t or didn’t want to handle.
After her first paycheck, both Sally and Shirley had insisted she get herself a bank account. Unfortunately, the account had to carry her Kyle name, but the credit card for it said Jenni Finch on the front. Jenni treasured that card. She had immediately put it to use ordering new breast, butt and hip pads like she had before. Two sets! The moment they arrived and she could get them on, she felt much better about herself. She was back to normal again.
The gun she had shot Pasha with now resided at the police station. It hadn’t been released yet. She had a new gun in her new purse now. Mr. B had bought it for her right away, and he insisted she continue to carry it. He even went so far as to make her pull it out every few days so he could check. After the way Pasha had surprised her that day though, Jenni was more than willing to carry it everywhere. She also felt a little easier about having it in her purse now that her permits to carry it were in her wallet. The police had never brought that problem up the day she had shot Pasha.
She swiveled her chair around further until it faced Shirley’s desk. “Shirley, can I talk to you about something?”
Shirley looked up from her computer. “Sure. What’s up?”
Still sitting in her chair, Jenni rolled it over to the back of Shirley’s desk. “I was thinking about doing something.”
“What’s that?” Shirley asked.
“Finding a doctor now.”
Shirley’s eyebrows raised. She smiled. “You’re ready?”
“I’ve been ready my entire life. But…well…I think I’ve got enough money now to pay for it. That is, if you keep paying me.”
Shirley smiled. “Don’t worry about that. And the business right now is doing better than ever. Robbie raised his rates a bit too. So what’s your problem?”
“I’ve been kind of checking out all the gender psychiatrists in the area, trying to narrow them down. Can I go over them with you and see what you think?”
“Me?”
“You might come up with something I should check on that I didn’t think about.”
Shirley realized that this was a momentous thing for Jenni, and she was doing everything possible to get it right. “Sure,” Shirley replied. “Let’s see your list.”
--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---
Vahram was pleased. The man he had shipped the actual hard drive to had selected the buyers for the individual projects and concluded the transactions. Vahram didn’t know who had ultimately bought the information and he didn’t care. His contact had put it up for auction on the dark web and had handled all the details so that he could never be traced to it. The bank transfer into his offshore account had just completed. The man had taken twenty percent of the final amount for his fee, but the remainder, his share that was now in his account, was still over six hundred thousand U.S. dollars. By far, the most money ever!
Getting that hard drive had proven to be more bothersome than it should have been. He used to work as an electrical engineer for Proto Dynamic Industries. He had once been on the same team with Frederick Granger. The accident that had cost him the use of his legs, had also cost him the ability to do the work they needed him to do. He got a small check from the company every month now. He was grateful to get it, but it wasn’t the money that he got that he cared about. When he had worked there, he had stolen plans for three different projects. All had been sent back to Baghdad, and all had been later sent to his contact to auction off on the dark web. He got good money for each of those plans, but nowhere near the amount he had just received for the information he had sold this time.
After his accident, he had no way to steal anything anymore. His funding had eventually dried up, and so had the number of people who he could influence. Losing the use of his legs had thrown him into a major fit for several years. He had been so angry and depressed. Things had gotten so bad, that the people he had been working so hard to bring around to his cause had finally dwindled down to just Pasha, Bijan, and the policeman. Pasha and Bijan were family of course. They wouldn’t leave him.
Eventually, he had recovered his sanity. Even stuck in a wheelchair, he decided there had to be some way he could strike back against the country that had taken his beloved Jamileh – and his legs. But to do that, he needed money. He also needed more money to live.
In desperation, he decided he had to try something else. Under his direction, Pasha and Bijan had begun breaking into some of the better homes in town and stealing their electronics and jewelry. With his electronics and computer background, getting into any of the computers wasn’t exactly difficult. He found what he could, which was never much, then he wiped the machines and sold them along with everything else. But that money hadn’t been what he really needed. Stealing things like that wasn’t really striking terror into the hearts of the enemy. Other than causing anger, all it really gained him was a few dollars.
He finally figured out a way to get back to what he had really been sent to America to do in the first place – steal secrets. Although in the back of his mind, his true goal now was to bring about the total destruction of the entire country. Somehow.
After his accident, he had maintained his friendship with several of the men on the prototype team. He had easily decided that Granger would be the easiest one to manipulate. Through his friendship with Granger, he had learned that Granger was getting desperate for money. Granger liked to live way above his means. He liked to make people think he had far more money than he did. When the truth was, he couldn’t pay his bills.
Eventually, he had started making suggestions to Granger. Little bits of suggestions at first. Eventually, those little bits of suggestions became bigger ones, all of them laced with the logical truths he wanted Granger to think about. One logical step on top of another, until he had finally convinced Granger to do the stealing for him. And that’s when everything went bad.
His arrangement with Granger was that Granger would get seventy percent of their profits, while he would get thirty percent for taking care of selling the information. But suddenly Granger decided to get greedy. He told Vahram that after he stole the plans, he was going to try to market the information to some other companies by himself. Vahram couldn’t allow that. Everything he had worked so hard to accomplish with Granger would be wiped away. And worse, Granger himself would wind up with all the money.
Vahram had met Granger’s pathetic nephew Todd. He knew the boy was nothing but a troublesome punk. He had Pasha and Bijan make friends with Todd. It had taken them only one little suggestion to Todd to bring him happily into their little business of breaking into houses. Todd had loved it. Getting Todd to learn his uncle’s security code had been easy too. Todd had jumped at the chance to rip off his uncle, who had criticized him far too often. Stealing everything from his uncle was Todd’s way of getting back at his uncle.
Vahram tried his best to stay close to Frederick Granger. The idiot man had even phoned him the day he had managed to smuggle the company’s external hard drive out and bring it home. And that was when Vahram had made his one biggest mistake. He had told not only Pasha and Bijan about the drive, but he had told them to let Todd know about it too so that between the three of them they would stand a better chance of finding the thing. Unfortunately, Pahsa and Bijan had impressed on Todd how valuable the drive was.
The three boys had gone into Granger’s house. As they lifted everything they wanted to steal, they had searched diligently for that hard drive, but they never found it. Vahram had been angry and disappointed. He could only think that Granger had hidden the thing somewhere, probably not in his house.
And then Granger himself had called him several days later, looking for a friendly shoulder to complain to about the break-in. And right there in that conversation, Granger had admitted that the hard drive he had stolen had been taken too. Since Vahram was sure that Pasha and Bijan didn’t have it, that could only mean one thing, Todd must have found the drive and not told anyone else.
He sent Pasha and Bijan to question Todd, who had previously denied finding the thing. Todd of course, still insisted that he didn’t have it. Vahram knew better. Before he could do anything about it though, that woman, that Jennifer woman, had hitched a ride on the back of their truck and found the storage garage. Todd had been arrested right after that, and there was no longer any way of getting to Todd to pressure him into giving them the stolen drive that had been lost.
In the meantime, Granger was going crazy over the stolen dive. As sympathetic as Vahram tried to be toward him over the loss, Vahram now held nothing but contempt for the man.
Granger finally bailed his nephew out of jail in hopes of getting the hard drive back. But surprisingly, Todd had remained faithful to his friends Pasha and Bijan and insisted he didn’t have the thing. At the first opportunity, Vahram had sent Pasha and Bijan to find Todd and force him to tell them where the drive was, and then to kill him. A bullet through his knee was all it took for Todd to tell them where the drive was and to turn it over. The moment he had it, Pasha killed him.
Once he had the drive, Vahram thought things were finally back on track, until he learned that Granger was still making a major nuisance of himself and he had learned that the J
ennifer woman had somehow figured out about the hard drive.
From there, it seemed like everything he tried to do to protect himself and what they were doing went wrong. And everything that seemed to go wrong, somehow revolved around that cursed Jennifer woman. The woman who had now shot and killed Pasha. The woman who had unknowingly left him with no help at all…for now.
But he had hopes that all that would change. Soon!
--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---
“Aunt Saaallyyyy,” Jenni sang teasingly.
“What.”
“You’re texting again.”
“So?”
“So you’ve texted every single night this week.”
“So what?”
“So who is he?”
Sally said nothing.
“What’s his name?”
Sally barely glanced at Jenni before going back to the conversation she had been having through her phone.
Jenni laughed. “Every night this week, and you won’t even let anyone know who it is? Love! Aunt Sally, you’re crazy about him!”
“Get over it, Jenni,” Sally replied, purposely not looking at her. “You know he’s too far away for us to even think about any kind of relationship.”
“So, what’s his name?” Jenni asked again with a slight giggle.
“Ugh! Ray. Okay? Ray. Raymond. Raymond Halsey. Now leave me alone!”
Jenni giggled again. “Are you thinking of going down to see him?”
Sally threw her head back against her chair in frustration. “Jenni, it’s an eight-hour drive just to get down there. It’s too far!”
“Oh, I’m sure if you two like each other so much, you could find a way.”
Sally refused to let Jenni know that she and Ray had texted a lot more than Jenni knew about. She refused to tell Jenni about the late nights they had talked quietly on the phone. “Jenni,” she said. “I’m not going down there to see him.”