by Amy Vansant
“I’ll be in touch,” said Tilly.
Pandora smiled and held out what Charlotte recognized as her own phone. She’d had it tucked safely in her pocket. She slapped her hand to her hip, searching for it.
Gone.
“I knew better,” said Tilly, pulling her own phone out from her bra.
With a sheepish grin, Charlotte reclaimed her phone and followed Tilly to the sidewalk. Tilly had someone on her own phone, but she finished her conversation before they hit the curb.
“My hacker says we can come over. He’ll be outside.”
Tilly started down the road, in the opposite direction of her house.
“Are we taking my car?” asked Charlotte.
“No. We don’t need a car.”
There were no homes within walking distance that weren’t in Charlotte’s own neighborhood. “The hacker is in Pineapple Port, too?”
Tilly continued to shuffle forward. “Yep. He’s over on Sea Oat Drive. Why? Did you think he’d have to be fifteen to be a hacker?”
“Now that you mention it, yes.” Charlotte felt a flush of embarrassment. Here she was supposed to be a detective, and she’d never even noticed the interesting people living in her own neighborhood.
“He used to have a house over in Albacore, but he moved here recently.”
Charlotte smiled. “They all move here eventually.”
Charlotte spotted a man outside what she guessed was his home, wearing a white tank-top and pajama bottoms checkered with cartoon robots. In his hand he held a pink leash, but she couldn’t see the dog at the other end. Only when they moved closer did she realize why.
There was no dog at the end of the leash.
It was a cat.
The man’s gray kitty wore a matching pink harness. Its face was shaped like a sideways egg, the ears large and the coat thin and wavy. It picked its way through the bushes of his garden, stopping to sniff or dig through the mulch with a swipe of its paw. It didn’t seem troubled by the leash at all.
Cat and owner did not appear dissimilar. The cat had great tufts of white hair sticking from its ears, as did the man at the opposite end of the leash. Both were overweight. Both had whiskers. Neither looked particularly happy to see Tilly.
The man nodded in her direction and Tilly held out a hand as if she were asking Charlotte to admire a trophy. “Charlotte, this is Gryph.”
Charlotte held out her hand and the man grimaced. He bent his arm and lowered his elbow to touch her fingers.
“He doesn’t like to touch people,” muttered Tilly.
“You’re looking at the leash,” said Gryph, giving Charlotte a lazy once-over with his gaze.
“I am. Sorry. I didn’t know you could walk a cat.”
“I hate the smell of litter boxes. Reminds me of my ex-wife.” Gryph wiped the back of his hand across his nose with a loud sniff, seeming suddenly agitated.
Charlotte nodded as if she understood.
I hope the smell of litter boxes never reminds anyone of me.
Gryph leaned over and picked up the cat, who hung limp in his arms and seemed to grow three notches more annoyed. “Come on in. We shouldn’t talk out here.”
Gryph glanced around, as if every gutter, bush and bird’s nest in the vicinity had a tiny camera hidden inside. Charlotte thought him paranoid, until she remembered her home was currently blanketed in cameras. Tilly had cameras stationed all over the neighborhood for her own obsessive surveillance.
Maybe Gryph wasn’t so crazy to think he might be watched.
Charlotte motioned to the cat’s wavy coat. “I’ve never seen hair on a cat like that.”
“They all have hair. Except the hairless ones,” said Gryph opening the door.
“No, I mean the wavy hair.”
“Chip is a Devon Rex. He doesn’t shed very much, which is important for my work.”
Charlotte walked inside and felt her jaw slipping slack. She’d expected to see the usual configuration of a modular home. A kitchen, a living room, a comfy chair, some knick-knacks. The largest difference from home to home was usually whether it had hardwood, vinyl or carpet or what the occupant’s obsession happened to be. Some of the ladies loved roosters, some dolls, some collected china plates.
Gryph was his own man. The home appeared as if someone had gutted the place and turned it into a Radio Shack. Checkered vinyl squares led to a living room area, sitting empty but for tables lining the perimeter, stacked with computers from various decades. Monitors, laptops and other blinking devices she couldn’t identify covered every inch of tabletop. One table held a pile of cell phones.
It was a little like a low-rent Bat Cave.
“Hold it,” said Gryph, pushing past them and setting the cat on the kitchen counter. “Stay in the blue box.”
Charlotte looked down to find a blue-tape box had been laid out on the vinyl flooring, creating a small virtual prison.
Gryph sat his pudgy frame in a rolling office chair, the only available seating in the room.
“What do you need, Tilly?”
Tilly hooked a thumb toward Charlotte. “Not me, her.”
“Tilly said you’re good with phones?” said Charlotte, pulling hers from her pocket.
He snorted. “I invented them.”
Charlotte paused. “You invented cell phones?”
“Basically.” Gryph waved at the air. “All the important parts.”
Charlotte couldn’t help but scan the modest modular home.
Gryph pointed at her. “I see what you’re doing. You’re thinking, Shouldn’t this guy be rich if he invented cell phones?”
“Thought crossed my mind,” admitted Charlotte.
“They stole it from me. I had all the ideas and the companies banned together and stole them from me. Bell Labs, Motorola…both of them.”
“You worked for them?”
“No. I worked at home. But they must have found out what I was doing and sneaked into my house.” Gryph’s voice grew high and strained, the veins in his neck bulging. “They must have taken pictures of my circuit boards because there’s no way—”
“Okay, easy Gryph,” said Tilly holding up a hand. She turned to Charlotte. “He gets a little worked up when you talk to him about cell phones. But it’s not good for your blood pressure, is it, Gryph?”
He took a deep breath. “No.” He grabbed the cat from where it sat on the floor beside him and pulled it into his arms to stroke it.
“It helps to pet Chip.”
Tilly nodded. “Sure it does.”
Charlotte looked at Tilly and she motioned for her to begin.
Charlotte swallowed. “I have a phone number for someone we’re trying to trace, but when I call it, I think there’s another line that is then forwarded to her somehow. Like a call service. I’m wondering, if I get the first woman on the line, can you follow where she sends us? The third line?”
Gryph scowled. “You just want to know where the second phone on that side is?”
“I’d like to know everything about it, if that’s possible. Calls it makes etc. I’d like to track it—”
“You want me to clone it,” said Gryph flatly.
“Yes, I guess.”
“Do you have the sim card of the other phone?”
“No. That’s the point, we’re trying to find the other phone. We don’t have it.”
“Right. Well, one thing at a time.”
Gryph thrust out a hand. “Give me your phone.”
Charlotte hesitated. Does every person Tilly knows want to take my phone?
Gryph continued to hold out his hand. Charlotte moved to take a step forward.
“Uh uh,” scolded Gryph, pointing to the blue line.
Charlotte grimaced and stretched to hand over the phone without crossing the tape.
Gryph took the phone and then pushed off to roll his chair toward the never ending row of tables behind him. He plugged her phone into a laptop and began typing.
“Is this the number? Declan
?”
“No, it’s marked Jamie.”
“Ah, got it.”
Charlotte felt a nervous wave roll through her body. She didn’t like the idea of handing her phone over to someone who could apparently do anything with it.
“Are you sure we can trust this guy?” she whispered to Tilly.
Tilly shrugged. “Probably.”
“Probably?”
“Well, he is a criminal.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes.
Gryph unplugged her phone and rolled it back to her. “Give Jamie a call for me. Try and keep whoever answers on the phone for a bit.”
“Okay.” Charlotte took a moment to work on a reason to call Jamie and dialed.
“Dirk’s Auto Body,” said the woman answering. Apparently the donut shop had closed.
“I need to talk to Jamie.”
“We don’t have a Jamie here.”
“Yes you do. And she’ll want to talk to me. It’s about her daughter.”
The woman paused. “May I ask who’s calling?”
“It’s Charlotte. Do we have to go through this every time?”
“Hold please.”
Charlotte glanced at Gryph to find him typing again. Strings of numbers rolled across the screen in front of him.
“What do you want?” said Jamie’s voice.
“We have a development here I thought you should know about.”
“What makes you think I don’t know that already?”
“Then you know why I’m calling?”
Jamie paused. “No.”
Charlotte couldn’t help but smile, feeling she’d won some small victory.
“Stephanie’s being released.”
“She is? You found the person who framed her?”
“No.”
There was a pause before Jamie’s voice returned lower and more measured than before. “You mean they’re just letting Stephanie go for no apparent reason?”
“Yes. Lack of evidence, I guess. But she’ll be free, so there’s no reason for you to bother me anymore. That was the deal.”
“They have another suspect?”
“I don’t know.”
Charlotte heard the anger flash in Jamie’s voice. “Then you didn’t do your job, did you?”
Charlotte heard a bang and the line went dead. She looked at Tilly. “That didn’t go well.”
“I got it,” said Gryph. He stood and handed her another phone.
“What’s this?”
“It’s Jamie’s phone. Cloned. Any calls she makes or receives you’ll see.”
“Can I answer them?”
“Go to this app to listen in.” He pointed her to an app on the phone. The icon for it looked like owl’s eyes.
“Wow. Thank you. This should help a lot.”
Gryph thrust his hands in his pockets and nodded. “Great. That’ll be three thousand dollars.”
Charlotte gaped. “What?” She looked at Tilly. “I didn’t bring any money.”
Tilly put a hand on her arm and began leading her toward the door. “You’ll have it by the end of the week, Gryph.”
He crossed his arms against his chest. “I’d better.”
Charlotte was nearly through the door when she stopped and turned back to Gryph.
“Do you do tracker devices?”
“How do you mean?”
“Like a device I could slip into a person’s pocket in order to track them.”
Gryph pressed his lips tightly together as if in thought. “I could, easily enough. How soon do you need it?”
“Yesterday.”
“I can do tomorrow. Six hundred.”
“Deal.”
Tilly pushed on Charlotte’s back. “Let’s get out of here before you’re broke.”
Charlotte chuckled. “Oh I’m not paying for any of this.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Charlotte had everyone meet her at the apartment above The Anne Bonny at one o’clock to plan their trap for Jamie. Cormac wore the same clothes he’d had on the night before, though he’d removed his jacket and had untucked his shirt. It was clear he’d never gone back to his hotel to change. She pictured him on the phone all day, barking orders to someone.
What is it about Declan’s relatives? They show up and they never leave.
Cormac and Seamus sat side-by-side on a striped, gold and green sofa that should have been put out of its misery back in nineteen eighty-five. They were sharing an enormous tin of peanuts. Whatever animosity there had been between the two brothers had dissipated overnight and they looked like any two boys lazing on a sofa in front of a television, waiting for their mother to come home. Both had their feet on a coffee table so worn and scratched it looked like someone had saved it from a wood-chipper at the last second. Both wore shoes.
“Don’t take your shoes off, love,” called Seamus from his perch. “I haven’t had this place cleaned since I bought it and the floors make your feet black.”
Charlotte looked down at the orange carpet beneath her flip-flops. It had worn into a grease slick.
Charlotte shivered. “Not a problem.”
I guess it’s better than a house full of black widow spiders.
Maybe.
She padded over to a wooden chair across from Cormac and perched on the very edge of it, trying to touch as little as possible.
From her seat she had a better view of the Bingham brothers’ cuts and bruises from their scuffle the night before. Seamus had busted his brother’s lip, but Cormac had caught him on the cheekbone. A deep purple bruise rimmed with yellow cupped Seamus’ left eye, like a dark crescent moon lying on its back.
Charlotte turned her attention to Cormac. “Do you have an expense account with the agency you work with?”
Cormac tossed another peanut in his mouth. “Yes.”
“Where do you think he gets all them fancy suits?” asked Seamus, winking at her.
Charlotte nodded. “Good. I need three thousand, six hundred dollars.”
Cormac scowled. “Why?”
“For this.” Charlotte held up the phone Gryph had given her.
“What is it?”
“A clone of Jamie’s personal phone.”
Cormac’s jaw creaked open. “You’re serious?”
Charlotte nodded.
Declan appeared from the back of the apartment, wiping his hands on a towel. He seemed to grow increasingly disgusted by the towel until he tossed it toward the tiny kitchen in the corner.
“Your bathroom is disgusting,” he said to his uncle.
“I told you, it was like this when I bought the place. I haven’t had time to clean up.”
“You don’t need to clean up. You need to burn down.” Declan grabbed the back of another wooden chair and placed it beside Charlotte’s before sitting down.
“Your girlfriend made me a clone of Jamie’s phone,” said Cormac, holding up the device.
Declan nodded. “Great. You don’t mind if Charlotte does something you haven’t been able to do in—how many years is it you’ve been after Jamie?”
Cormac frowned. Apparently, Declan and his father hadn’t spent the morning working out their issues.
“He’s got you there, Mac.” Seamus laughed and slapped his brother on the shoulder a little harder than he had to. Seamus wasn’t ready to forgive Cormac quite yet either. A few more passive-aggressive taps like that and the two of them would be rolling on the ground again.
Declan looked tired. Charlotte couldn’t remember seeing him ever look so drained. The fact they’d had no sleep the night before didn’t help.
I probably look like forty miles of bad road myself.
“How are you holding up?” she asked, leaning toward him to lower her voice and still be heard.
He shrugged. “I’m good. I called in a company and bugs are dying as we speak. But I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever be able to sleep in my room again.”
“Don’t think they can get them all?”
“I do
n’t know. Hopefully. I stuffed a towel under my bedroom door and not many made it out of there before I went in with a can of spray in each hand like a gunslinger.”
Charlotte laughed. “How’d it go with Stephanie?”
Declan stretched his back, yawning as he reached for the sky. “She’s on board.”
“Oh good. Nice job.”
“Don’t thank me. She’s apparently had some sort of epiphany that has inspired her to throw her mother under the bus.”
Charlotte chuckled. “With her, probably literally.”
“How about you? The cloned phone is huge. Anything else?”
“Tilly hooked me up with everything we need.”
Seamus had closed his eyes, his hands crossed over his belly. Cormac sat studying Gryph’s phone like a child with a new toy. Feeling Charlotte’s eyes on him, he glanced up.
“Has she used her phone? Do we know this works?”
Charlotte nodded. “She used it twice on my way over here. Her assistant called to let her know she has a flight booked tomorrow morning at eight forty-five. I haven’t had the chance to look up the gate but that will be easy enough.”
“You got a flight number? Did she say what airport she’s leaving from?”
“She mentioned the flight number and I matched it with the leaving and arrival times to find the airline. She’s leaving Buenos Aires to come here.”
Cormac grimaced. “It’s tempting to have her picked up there, but no. We need to catch her in the act, and better to get her on American soil to avoid complications.”
Charlotte perked. “Oh, that reminds me. We need eyes on her from the moment she steps off the plane, which means we need to buy tickets to get to her gate.”
Cormac nodded. “Not like the good old days when you could roam wherever you wanted in an airport. I’ll send some men.”
Charlotte shook her head. “She’ll spot FBI a mile away. We don’t want her on her toes.”
“You have a better idea?”
“Yup. I have two women perfect for the job. Jamie will spot them within seconds of getting off the plane.”
Cormac’s brow knit. “You just said I couldn’t send in my men because they’d be spotted.”
“Yes, but spotting agents and spotting two doddering old ladies inspire very different reactions. Jamie’s not stupid. She knows this could be a trap. If she sees my ladies, she’ll think I’m trying to trap her. She’ll laugh to think I’d try. If she spots guys talking into earpieces...whole different ballgame.”