Detour

by Kurtz, Sylvie

  “I don’t even want to know how you learned that.”

  I shrugged. “Get locked out of the house often enough and it becomes a survival mechanism.”

  The corridor was dark and reeled with gyrating shadows from the oaks stirring in the moaning wind outside. The old building, feeling its age, creaked and cracked. Azalea branches scratched against the windows lining the path. The other end met us with another locked door, which I picked open.

  “Next to the library.” Wyatt stood guard while I let us into the room.

  A small conference table took up most of the center of the room. A dozen cubicle desks and half a dozen computers lined the outside of the room, separated by a bookshelf here and there and a bigger “teacher’s” desk near the windows.

  “Not too many hiding spots,” Wyatt said. “If Antonio is mixed up in this, he’d have to have a ton of files to make the con work.”

  “Files get smaller and smaller all the time.”

  “But concrete proof doesn’t, and he’d have to keep some around in case someone turned against him.”

  Sitting to rest my ankle, I started with the desk, keeping my search methodical. “If I were a piece of blackmail material, where would I hide?”

  “A bank vault.”

  “No, I’d have to depend on other people to get access to it. Not good. Criminals tend to be paranoid.”

  “Then he’d keep it closer,” Wyatt said. “At home. He’s always there.”

  “The second place the cops would look if he ever came under suspicion.” I turned to the small filing cabinet behind the desk. “It’s here somewhere.” Had to be.

  While I searched the bookcases, Wyatt turned on the computer on the main desk.

  I came to a glass-fronted case filled with CDs, videotapes, a VCR and a couple of Walkman CD players. The lock wasn’t even a challenge. Not that the glass fronts would have made it impossible to steal the contents. Interactive English-as-a-second-language lessons on tape for the VCR and on CDs for the computer and Walkmans.

  “It’s going to take time to hack into the system,” Wyatt said.

  “You can hack?” Curiosity piqued that an honest man like him could be so devious, I stood beside him. His fingers blurred over the keyboard, spewing out a series of letters and numbers I couldn’t keep up with.

  “If you want to protect a system from hackers,” he said, “you have to be able to do what they do—only better.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Footprinting—gathering target information. It’s like when you went into Allied Defense. You didn’t just walk in, you gathered information about the plant, the security and the best route to get in. I’m harvesting information about the system.”

  “What’s it telling you?”

  “All the users who have access to this machine. Most people use easily guessed passwords and this little program I’m typing lets me get inside quickly.” He stared at the gobbledygook on the screen. “Looks like most of the users are underprivileged.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “They don’t have access to the administration. Okay, let me read some more. There’re a couple of strange files, but I’m not seeing anything interesting. I’m going to try and get superuser control.”

  “I’ve always liked superheroes.”

  “Super Geek at your service.” The keenness of his eyes and the flush of his cheeks told me he was way more into this than he’d admit. Like a hound on a scent, he wasn’t going to stop until he had his prey treed. “There are a couple of added security measures here. It’s going to take time.”

  “We have less than an hour until someone comes to lock up the church.”

  “I’m not exactly comfortable here. In case you’d forgotten, we’re breaking and entering. Again.”

  “We could take the whole computer with us.”

  “I think we’ve done enough borrowing as it is.”

  Thinking one of the language CDs might have something more interesting than lessons, I stuck a CD into another computer and watched a staged scene unfold. Vocabulary words flashed on the screen at regular intervals.

  Forty-five minutes went by before Wyatt blew out a frustrated breath. “Something’s missing.”

  “What?”

  He ran both hands through his hair and pinched the back of his neck. “I don’t know. There are files I can get to, but they don’t make sense—as if they need something to interface with.”

  I glanced at the CD playing on the computer. “Like a CD?”

  “Only if it had a program with some sort of key.”

  “Look at this.” I showed him the strange blip that came and went almost before the brain could register what it was.

  “Let me see.” He stuffed the CD in the reader of his machine, let his fingers do some magic. “Unbelievable.”

  I looked at the screen. Wyatt clicked the icon on the CD. It flashed away the language lesson and left behind a password inquiry. Wyatt found a way in and decrypted the files there with a master key he’d unearthed.

  “And you call what I do scary,” I said, amazed at his skill.

  “Actually, this system wasn’t very hard to hack into.” Wyatt jerked a shoulder in an aw-shucks gesture and scrolled almost faster than I could read. “Someone called El Patron shopped trade secrets to a French competitor.”

  “Antonio?”

  Wyatt shrugged. “He sold them the information found on Sofia’s BlackBerry and on other computers that were supposed to be sanitized for Allied Defense.”

  Wyatt pointed at the screen. “According to this, the French—a company called Systèmes Electroniques Agnant—will be coming out with similar product to the HART. They were sold details of the HART, costs and strategies. The French used this to understand what happened and fixed the HART’s fault. It’s slated to come out next month.”

  “Smart. Gives them just enough time to have the government put together that HART plus plane equals crash. Then, voilà, they’re the heroes with the solution.”

  A change overcame the stillness of the room as headlights slashed the mist outside the window in blurry ribbons.

  “Someone’s coming,” Wyatt growled. “We have to get out of here.”

  He started to turn off the machine but I stopped him. “We can’t leave without the evidence. I’m not going to let Antonio get away with murder. For that, I need proof.”

  Fingers of one hand drumming on the desk, Wyatt copied files while I stuffed a whole stack of the pseudo-learning CDs in my tote. Footsteps echoed on the wet pavement.

  “Ready?” he asked as he pulled the CD out.

  I nodded and headed for the door. Wyatt followed. Clinking keys rattled from the direction of the church. I moved toward the exit at the opposite end of the school. Just as we were about to exit the building, the door opened and a light flashed into my eyes, blinding me. I stepped wrong on my sore ankle and stumbled back, right into Wyatt’s arms.

  “You!” Inez’s voice ground like worn gears. “I should’ve known you’d be mixed up in this. You were the first person I thought of when I noticed the break-in.”

  “You didn’t call the police?” I went over the layout of the place in my mind for an escape route.

  Inez’s smile spread like a stain. “Who says I didn’t?”

  “We’ve been here for over an hour. Their response time is slow but not that slow.”

  The smile blinked off. “The signal comes to me, not the police.”

  “Why would you answer the alarm?”

  “I took over running the program after Sofia died. Continuing her work is my tribute to her good soul.”

  But an alarm that went straight to Inez? That made no sense—unless there was something here to protect and that meant…

  “El Patron,” I said. “You’re El Patron.”

  “El Patron is a protector of our people,” Inez said, voice wire-taut, yet mocking. “A figurehead who helps immigrants find homes, good jobs and learn the language of their
adopted land.”

  Antonio walked in through the door that linked the school with the church. “What’s going on?”

  “This is not your business, Antonio.” Impatience snaked out of Inez. “I told you to wait in the car.”

  “Who are these people?” He squinted. “Wyatt?”

  “They are the ones who would destroy all that gives meaning to my life.”

  Not taking my eyes off Inez, I said, “She gets the people your program helps to steal information for her, then she resells it to your clients’ competitors. The really neat part is that, if things go sour on her, she’s got it all set up to make it look as if the whole thing was your idea.”

  Antonio blinked at his wife. “Inez? Is that true?”

  “Where do you think the money for our lifestyle is coming from? Your salary? That’s a joke. You pump it all back into your damned garbage business. And my dear father left everything to his son.”

  Tendons jutted at Wyatt’s neck. “You killed Sofia.”

  “She cast those dice herself when she caught me downloading the contents of her BlackBerry.”

  “Madre de Dios, Inez. You murdered your own daughter. How in God’s name could you do that? Your only child!”

  “Not my child.” She spit the words out as if they tasted bad. “Your child. You forced yourself on me. I never wanted her. Or you. Because of her, I had to marry you so that my family would not turn their backs on me. Do you think I wanted to be a garbage man’s wife? My family was respected. We had money, status, prestige. I lost it all the day I married you.”

  Antonio reached a hand out to Inez. “I loved you from the first day I saw you, querida.”

  “You loved that I was a Castille. Isn’t that why you didn’t fight me when I asked you to take my name?”

  “I loved your spirit.” Antonio moaned as if someone was ripping out his heart. “Sofia was your flesh and blood.”

  “I never loved either of you.” Rime coated Inez’s voice. “I tried to make the best of a bad situation. I tried to mold her, to show her the way to freedom. But like you, she made all the wrong choices. She repudiated me. She chose you.” Inez turned her angry mouth and viper eyes on Wyatt. “She chose him.”

  “You took all her things,” Wyatt said. “You made a shrine out of them.”

  “I had to make sure there was nothing to implicate me. The added bonus was that doing so hurt you.”

  “Inez…” Antonio started toward his wife.

  Growling like a monster coming to life after a long sleep, she lifted a gun from the folds of her black dress. “Take another step and you will join your daughter.”

  “You killed my child.”

  “You killed her spirit with your iron rules long before I killed her body. Her death was necessary. She was about to bring down the whole operation. She didn’t care that I’d sacrificed my life for her. If you want to be angry at someone, be angry at her.” Inez jerked her chin in my direction. “And her, for forcing me to kill her twice.”

  Antonio’s dark eyes flashed hot with temper. “You would kill my heart again?” His hand shot out, grasping Inez’s wrist. “I won’t let you.”

  Mean fingers wrapped around the grip of the revolver, Inez squeezed the trigger. The bullet exited with a muffled swoosh, thanks to the silencer.

  Papa! Sofia shouted.

  Antonio, mouth wide open, stood still, holding his bleeding arm. “Inez? I gave you all you asked. How can you do this to me?”

  With an eerie calm, she shot him in the head.

  His body folded into itself and dropped to the ground.

  Making a shield with his body, Wyatt launched me toward the door.

  “Stop or I will shoot.” Inez turned the gun on us. “I hate taking the garbage out, but this time I’ll have to do it myself.” She aimed the muzzle at Wyatt’s face. “Tell me where the chip you stole is or your lover will die.”

  “Antonio needs help,” Wyatt said.

  “He is nothing. He knew his place. He overstepped his position and paid the price. Where is the chip?”

  “We don’t have it,” I said.

  Her finger squeezed the trigger.

  Stop her! Sofia screamed.

  “Wyatt! No!” I whirled instinctively. His body slid into my arms but I couldn’t hold him and caved to the ground. “Inez, what have you done?”

  “The chip,” Inez said. “I want it. Now.”

  “I don’t have it.” I tore the sleeve off Wyatt’s shirt and pressed the cotton against the spreading stain at his head. Cold heat needled my chest. He couldn’t die. I wouldn’t let him. Wyatt, don’t go. Hang on. “The chip’s at a testing lab in Massachusetts.”

  My senses hyped to the max. I had to live. I had to get out of here. I had to save Wyatt. A whole map drew itself with a big you-are-here X right in the middle. A rush of fear, then anger, then an almost trancelike calm barreled through me as fast as an SST.

  There was no getting past the gun unless I was already dead.

  Okay, Sofia, I said, letting down my defenses. She’s yours.

  My skin sizzled, then trembled at the loss of self, at the storm happening inside as Sofia banished me from my body. The prickling feeling, like just before lightning strikes. A rip of energy, like being struck by lightning.

  My head tingled, standing my hair on ends. Pressure crushed my skin, my muscles, my bones. Pain sliced. Cells ripped. A nuclear blast and then…nothing.

  Numb and helpless, I floated somewhere along the ceiling.

  Inez’s index finger stroked the trigger. A stone showed more emotion than she did standing there pointing a gun at my body. If any conflict played inside her, it was buried deep.

  Sofia’s cry shivered the air as she took over my body, moved through its heaviness.

  A smile crawled over Inez’s lips as she aimed the gun once more.

  “I tried to love you, Mama,” Sofia said. “I did everything you wanted me to do so you would love me. Except for Wyatt, I did everything just as you wanted. I got an education. I got a job. I spent all my spare time running the Open Hand and Heart Program. And without knowing it, I gave more. I gave you names. I gave you weaknesses to exploit. How could you use me like that?”

  “Survival.”

  Anger exploded out of Sofia. In a move Leo had showed me, she spun my body off the gun’s line of sight and hit Inez’s arm from the outside in, shoving the gun away from me. Simultaneously she struck Inez in the face in a downward motion.

  They grappled for the gun. The barrel turned toward my body.

  No, Sofia, don’t grapple. Don’t tense. Snake your hand, strike like a jackhammer. Stomp step. Take up her space. Occupy her line.

  With a warrior’s cry, Sofia battered her mother with frenzied chaos.

  Inez dropped the gun. It skittered across the polished floor. They both dove for it. Inez grabbed it. Before she could wrap her hand around the grip, Sofia let out a primitive scream and struck her mother’s face with her left hand, coming up with the gun in her right hand. Crabbing backward on her behind, she leveled the gun at Inez in a two-handed grip.

  As focused as a laser, Sofia’s aim was true.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  Two to the heart.

  One to the head.

  “Survival,” Sofia whispered, panting. Not giving her mother a second look as she fell.

  Sofia turned to Wyatt and stroked his blood-matted hair. She kissed him deeply, tenderly. “Wyatt, my love.”

  Wyatt groaned and blinked open his eyes. “Sofia?”

  Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Oh, my love, how I’ve missed you!”

  “Forgive me.”

  She shook her head. “There is nothing to forgive, my love. And you must stop this useless guilt. None of this was your fault. The only happiness I ever felt in my life was with you. I love you, Wyatt. More than I can say. I will carry that love with me always.”

  “Sofia…” He reached a hand toward her.

  She pressed a kiss in his palm
, then flattened it against her heart. “Goodbye, my love. I release you. Be happy.”

  Sirens blared as police cars surrounded the church. The blue-and-white lights whirled through the deluge pouring outside, giving the tableau below me the look of a gruesome watercolor painting.

  A fork of lightning stabbed the sky. Thunder growled and shook the windows.

  Sofia’s spirit separated from my earthbound form. For a moment we met, spirit to spirit.

  “Thank you,” Sofia said. Her smile was radiant. “The light, I see it, and it is beautiful.”

  I could see it, too, haloed around her translucent form so purely it filled my heart to overflowing. “Go in peace, Sofia.”

  Pain pierced every atom of my body, collapsing me on top of Wyatt as the world went black.

  Chapter 18

  Saturday, May 13

  I sat hunched over my desk, making sure every detail was included in my report so I could close this last case. Only two weeks had gone by, but Texas seemed a lifetime away.

  The police had questioned Wyatt and me for hours after the church incident. The whole HART glitch had exploded on the news, and the blame game was still going on. The military had yanked the system out of all its aircrafts and had no plans to reinstall it in the near future. Tracy was safe—well, as safe as a pilot could be jockeying heavy metal objects into the stratosphere.

  It turned out that Rey was ICE—Immigration and Customs Enforcement—working undercover. Immigration had recruited him a few years back when the flood of immigrants sponsored by Antonio and his company had raised eyebrows. They’d never expected to uncover an international industrial espionage operation. He was playing Inez’s lapdog to gain her trust and to gather the proof he needed to bring her down when I interfered with his operation. I still didn’t like Rey, but he had tried to make Sofia’s death count for something, and he had tried to protect me from Inez.

  After the dust settled, Wyatt had asked me to stay, and leaving him had been the hardest thing I’d done since the transplant.

  “What do you mean you’re leaving?” he’d asked, blustering like a blue-norther.