Man Overboard

by J. A. Jance

  “No shit.”

  “Keep me posted, and if there’s anything more you need, let me know.”

  At eleven p.m. sharp, Stu dialed Cami’s number and was gratified when she answered the phone sounding her usual self—wide awake and chipper. “I was worried about waking you,” Stu said.

  “I was supposed to go to dinner when I got to the hotel, except I fell asleep and woke up starving in the middle of the night. Thank God for twenty-four-hour room service. I’ve been up since three, trying to get a line on my luggage.”

  “Any luck?”

  “Yes, all bad. There’s no sign of it. The concierge has a car coming for me at nine a.m. to take me out for an emergency shopping trip and then deliver me to the ship. Boarding starts at eleven a.m. I’m planning to be on board as early as possible.”

  “And that’s a good thing,” Stu said. “We’ve had some developments here. Before he died, Roger had been seeing a therapist, a Dr. Amelia Cannon. One of Dr. Cannon’s other patients, Beth Wordon, attempted suicide in San Jose, California, earlier tonight. We have evidence that suggests someone was using self-deleting text messages in an almost successful attempt to goad her into killing herself. I’m starting to suspect the same thing may have happened to Roger.”

  “Self-deleting texts?” Cami asked. “As in, some kind of RAT technology?”

  That was one of the things Stuart appreciated about Camille Lee. She was smart and quick. Nothing much got past her. “That’s right—remote access.”

  “Did you find traces of the text messages on the victim’s phone?”

  “I have two people—the victim and another witness—who both claim to have seen the most recent message, but it was gone by the time anyone else handled the phone. And no, I haven’t examined the phone. The device itself is in San Jose, and I’m in Cottonwood. What I did learn, however, is that Beth’s data usage skyrocketed in the past month. Then tonight the data consumption appears to have been dialed back down to zero about the time Beth was hauled off to the ER.”

  “You think someone was using her cell phone to spy on her?” Cami asked.

  “I do. Whoever’s behind it was maybe even hoping to have a bird’s-eye view of her suicide. This is serious, Cami. Ali and I believe we may be dealing with a serial killer who’s using suicide as a cover.”

  There was only a small pause before Cami replied. “What about Roger McGeary?” she asked. “Is his death possibly another case of remotely inspired suicide, and did the same increase in data usage show up on his phone?”

  Stu couldn’t help but smile at Cami’s ability to connect the dots. “I’m checking on that,” he said. “I used a backdoor to get into Beth’s server. I may have to tackle Roger’s data usage situation tomorrow during regular business hours here. Since you’re nine hours ahead, you may be able to get the drop on me by several hours.”

  “How?”

  “Remote access capability is cutting edge, so this guy is good. He’s also someone who was able to penetrate the Whispering Star’s server at will and who may do so again.”

  “What’s your point?” Cami asked.

  “Anything sent between us while you’re on board the ship will need to be encrypted. Once you board, go to your cabin, sign on to their server, and stay that way. If someone else could hack into their server, I’m betting I’ll be able to do the same thing.”

  “By piggybacking on my connection?” Cami asked.

  “Yes, my primary target for now will be to track down their Wi-Fi metering data. If they’re charging for something, you can bet they know exactly how much data each cabin uses.”

  “And then?”

  “If disappearing remote access messages were sent to Roger, obviously they’ve been deleted from his phone, but there may be copies of them lingering on the ship’s server. You know as well as I do that just because somebody pushes the delete button doesn’t mean the data is gone for good. The only way that happens for sure is if the file is overwritten.”

  “All right,” Cami said. “Do you want me to send you a text once I’m online?”

  “Yes,” Stu said.

  “Won’t you be sleeping?”

  “I’ll grab a few winks right now,” Stu said, “but by the time you board the ship, I’ll be up and ready to rumble.”

  Except it didn’t work out quite that way. Stu had eased out of his chair and was rubbing his aching back when an audible alarm—unusual, but readily recognizable—sounded from a computer at the far end of the room. In his rush to check it out, Stu’s feet got entangled with his desk chair and he almost did a face-plant.

  Stuart Ramey was a man of few friends, and he wasn’t one to renew old acquaintances just for the hell of it. If someone came looking for him, he wanted to know who it was and why. As a consequence, he had created a honeypot Web site and positioned it artificially low on all possible search engines so that only the most in-depth searches were liable to turn it up. Anyone who clicked on the page saw a simple message:

  If you’re looking for Stuart Ramey, the D & D King of South Phoenix High, you’ve come to the right place. The guy who created the Web site and who was supposed to oversee it turned out to be a flake. Just send me an e-mail on the link below. I’ll get right back to you.

  In all the years Stu had maintained the Web site, no one had ever responded by sending an e-mail, but that didn’t matter because Stu had loaded the site with a kind of cyber superglue that allowed him to determine the origin of all incoming searches. Commercial Web sites did that all the time. That’s why, as soon as someone looked at an item of possible interest, their computer screens immediately filled up with offers for similar products.

  In this case, as Stu followed the search back to its original source, he became more and more intrigued. The message had gone through a dozen or more servers and crisscrossed the globe several times before it finally came to a stop on Via Vistosa in Santa Barbara, California—the residence of someone named Irene Hansen. The name wasn’t one Stuart had ever heard of before, but the fact that the inquiry had come by such a circuitous route immediately grabbed his full attention.

  Who exactly are you, Irene Hansen? Stu asked himself aloud. And why are you looking for me?

  With that he forgot all about being tired or going to sleep. Instead he settled in to find out everything there was to know about Irene Hansen. And once he learned Irene had a thirtysomething-aged son named Owen who still lived at home, Stuart started looking into him, too.

  37

  Losing the Beth Wordon prize was something Odin took personally. Rather than take defeat lying down, he was prepared to make an open declaration of war against the two people who had robbed him: Amelia Cannon and Stuart Ramey. His first act on that score was to call his old pal Eduardo Duarte.

  Eddie, as he was known to only a few, was an ambitious sort who had started out his professional life as a trained navy pilot. A dishonorable discharge due to his unfortunate involvement in a fatal bar fight had left him both unemployed and unemployable, so he had made his money the hard way. He had spent the better part of the next twenty years moving drugs for the big cartel guys, all the while keeping his eye on the prize and setting aside money. At age forty, with the help of some of his relatives, he had scraped together enough money to lease a Cessna CJ1 and launch a tiny charter outfit catering to the kinds of people who needed trips that didn’t come with a lot of official scrutiny.

  Fifteen years later, he had a fleet that included several aircraft and employed a flock of pilots. He did enough legitimate charter business to keep both the FAA and the feds off his back, but the real money—and Bitcoin worked just fine as real money in his world—came from less legitimate charters. Duarte offered the kind of full-service transportation arrangements for bad guys that NetJets and Hertz did for everybody else.

  Eduardo had staff who handled most reservations for him these days, but speci
al clients—like Owen Hansen, for instance—were ones he still dealt with directly. He had maintained his pilot’s license so that, when necessary, he could do the flying himself. Once Eddie knew what Odin required, it didn’t take long to put plans in place. A CJ1 with a solo pilot was plenty of aircraft when it came to transporting a single passenger from California to the Phoenix area.

  With the Wordon/Williams wedding currently on indefinite hold, there was no need for Odin to head back to Big Sur. Eduardo suggested Watsonville Municipal as the preferred departure airport. For one thing, on weekends the FBO there had on-call supervision only and the supervisor happened to be someone Eduardo knew well. For a specified sum it would look as though the plane may have landed at that particular airport but with no record of arriving or departing passengers.

  The minivan Odin had planned on returning to LAX would now be dropped off and disposed of in Watsonville rather than L.A., and a new vehicle—another nondescript vehicle complete with a fully qualified shooter and an assortment of weaponry—would be awaiting Odin’s arrival at Gila Bend Municipal, the nearest unattended airport to Odin’s intended destination.

  With those arrangements in place, Odin booked himself into a lowbrow campground in Gilroy. For the remainder of the evening he played the part of a harmless camper. He got a kick out of watching the RVers, mostly older people with their sets of lawn chairs and their tiny traveling dogs. They were all early-to-bed types. Once the sun went down and the old coots settled in for the night, Odin summoned Frigg over his Bluetooth.

  “Where are my High Noon blueprints?”

  “Sending now.”

  Moments later a message arrived that contained the building blueprints. Studying those, Odin learned that High Noon had applied for and obtained a variance allowing for an additional dwelling unit inside their main building. That was enough to answer Odin’s lingering question about Stuart Ramey’s whereabouts. He was obviously a guy who lived to work rather than the other way around.

  Odin pored over the prints and tried to envision a game plan. When he finally retreated to his tent in hopes of a decent night’s sleep, he soon discovered that there was one major drawback to staying in Gilroy—home of the world-famous Gilroy Garlic Festival. The overwhelming scent of garlic was everywhere. That invasive odor compounded by Odin’s lingering fury over Beth Wordon’s escape made it almost impossible for him to fall asleep.

  In Owen’s memory, no one had ever said no to him, certainly not his mother nor his nanny. As for the tutors who had tried it? He’d gotten rid of them in short order. So losing Beth to Stuart Ramey and Amelia Cannon was a form of no that was beyond forgivable.

  Like Odin of old, he would swoop in and take his revenge, destroying both of them before disappearing into the ether. He had come up with what he thought was a surefire way to lure Stuart out of his back-room bunker. As a Dungeons & Dragons sort, the man probably considered himself to be some kind of cyber superhero. As such, all that was needed to entrap him would be a suitable damsel in distress, and Odin had just such a damsel in mind—Amelia Cannon. As for Frigg? She was becoming far too troublesome and unreliable and maybe even a little too smart for her own good, to say nothing of his. She was supposed to be a help, not a hindrance.

  Once this operation was over and he had put both Stuart and Amelia out of their misery, Odin would have to deal with Frigg. Sad to say, and wonderful as she had been, it was probably past time to pull the plug.

  38

  The concierge at the Grand Harbour Hotel had managed to pull a few strings. The hotel limo she had ordered for Cami drew up to the employee entrance at Debenhams department store, a full fifteen minutes before the scheduled 9:30 a.m. opening. Nonetheless, Cami was escorted inside and collected by a fashionably dressed young woman named Sarah who declared herself Cami’s personal shopper and took her in hand.

  They started with cosmetics, which were directly in front of them, then moved on to luggage before tackling the clothing end of the shopping excursion. Sarah was a salesman who, upon learning this was an expense account shopping trip, immediately went looking for fashion first and price tag second. In the end, after nearly two hours of shopping, Cami was worn out but she had a cartful of clothing that was far better than what she’d packed originally. Once the items were paid for, Sarah took Cami into a spacious dressing room, where she changed into new, clean duds while Sarah removed tags and folded everything neatly into two pieces of newly purchased luggage. Cami was happy to stuff the clothing she’d been wearing since Cottonwood into her original Rollaboard, which looked mighty threadbare and tacky next to the shiny new bags.

  At eleven a.m., totally fitted out in fresh attire, she handed her luggage over to the porters in the boarding area of the terminal and was the second passenger to board the Whispering Star. Following Stu’s directions, she went straight to her cabin and logged in to the ship’s Wi-Fi network. She immediately sent Stu an encrypted text:

  I’m on board and online.

  Before he could respond, there was a tap on the door. She opened it to find a smiling, tuxedo-clad attendant laden with her luggage waiting outside.

  “Good morning. Miss Lee?”

  Cami nodded.

  “I’m Sergio, your butler. May I come in?”

  Cami knew that Ali and B. Simpson had a butler, but it had never occurred to her that, however briefly, she’d have one herself. “Of course,” she said, trying to conceal her surprise as she stepped aside.

  “You’re one of our early . . . How do you say it . . . ?”

  “Birds, perhaps?” Cami offered.

  “Yes, early birds,” Sergio said gratefully. “Since none of my other passengers are on board yet, I’m happy to unpack your luggage.”

  Having someone else unpack for her wasn’t something Cami had anticipated, either, but not wanting to appear out of her depth, she simply nodded. “Please,” she said. And so Cami’s brand-new luggage, full of brand-new stuff that had been packed by Sarah, was unpacked by Sergio.

  As he did so, Cami consulted the notes she had brought along based on Detective Inspector Garza’s shipboard interviews. It didn’t take her long to find what she needed.

  “One of my friends sailed on this ship a few months ago,” she said, looking up from her computer screen as Sergio carefully placed her new clothing on hangers and stowed them in the closet. “I think he said his butler’s name was Reynaldo.”

  Sergio nodded. “That would be Reynaldo Hernández. This is deck five. Reynaldo usually works on deck seven. It has mostly suites, so fewer rooms.”

  Having gleaned that bit of knowledge, Cami returned to her computer screen, where Stu’s responding text awaited her:

  I’m looking at Roger’s computer. His e-mail account shows some mail coming in that day—most of it junk mail. Nothing outgoing. As for his online activity? He’s someone who routinely erased his search history every day.

  On the day he died, he visited one Web site only, although he went there three different times—a YouTube video on how to tie a bow tie. That’s it. If you can find a way to check out the data usage from his cabin, we’ll be able to tell if we’re on the right track.

  How’s the weather and how was ­shopping?

  Cami had to read that last line three times before it penetrated. Stu was asking about her shopping trip? He was concerned about something going on with her? Really? Cami had worked with Stuart Ramey for a while now, and his inquiring about something that wasn’t directly connected to one of his computer screens was completely out of character. As for Roger McGeary? On the last day of his life, he had googled a video demonstrating how to tie a bow tie and that was it? How incredibly sad was that? She typed and encrypted her own response:

  The weather is great and so was shopping. If my other luggage ever shows up, I’ll be set with clothes for life. I’m going to go out and walk around the ship and get my bearings while everybody else i
s boarding. There’s only one restaurant open right now. I may go have some lunch.

  Do you want me to leave my computer on here in the room? Are you going to try to hack into the metering system?

  She sat staring at her screen for what seemed like several minutes before there was a reply.

  Negative on the hack. I’m about to get a line on a guy named Owen Hansen. If it turns out I’m right and he’s our killer, we’ll need something solid to hand over to the cops. Whatever we get from here on out has to be totally aboveboard.

  I’ve accumulated a mountain of material on the guy. I wish you were here to go through it. You have a good eye for that kind of thing.

  Cami was dumbfounded. First the man had asked about her shopping trip and now he had given her a compliment? She was tempted to send a note asking: Who are you and what have you done with the real Stuart Ramey? What she sent instead was this:

  Will do. Over and out.

  Cami left her shipboard cabin feeling lighter than air. Stuart had said she had a good eye. Who knew? But before she went to the Terrace for lunch, she headed to deck seven in search of Reynaldo Hernández, Roger McGeary’s butler.

  39

  Frigg had serious concerns about Odin’s heightened interest in High Noon. She had already established that the company and the people who worked there represented a threat—a serious threat—and although Odin hadn’t specifically requested that she do so, she assigned resources to continue monitoring the activities of everyone connected to High Noon, most especially Stuart Ramey. Anyone smart enough to effect the last-minute rescue of Beth Wordon was indeed a worthy opponent.

  The last transmission with Odin had come from a campground in Gilroy, and the unsatisfactory exchange left Frigg with any number of misgivings. Earlier, when Odin had first disabled both the phone and his Bluetooth, she hadn’t been particularly concerned and had regarded it as an extension of his earlier order to leave him alone. But then he had requested the building specifications for High Noon’s corporate headquarters. That combined with his rage about losing Beth Wordon and his interest in Dr. Cannon’s current address made his intentions clear: Odin was about to strike off for Arizona on his own and initiate some kind of direct action against Stuart Ramey. The idea of his doing so without consulting Frigg was so illogical and ill-advised that at first the AI couldn’t give it any credence.