Ashes to Ashes

by Campbell, Jamie

  The balding guard picked up the phone that was sitting on the desk and started dialling. The blonde strode back and stood in front of Jasmine and Caleb again. He didn’t say a word. The telephone conversation was louder than the guard’s discussion. Jasmine listened. She could hear enough of the voice to make out what was going on. He was calling someone, probably the police, to explain about what had happened. She could hear him asking what action they should take now.

  Jasmine’s mind was going at a hundred miles an hour. She pictured the police coming and hauling them down to the station. They would be questioned, interrogated and then charged. Then there would be bail, a court case, it would be in all the newspapers and her grandparents would find out. The chain of events would go on and on, until eventually they would be thrown in prison for the rest of their natural lives. Her prison cellmate was Big Bertha, who would make Jasmine her bitch. A slave for life to do her bidding.

  She was snapped out of it when the phone made a loud clunk as it was hung up.

  The blonde guard returned to the desk and another whispered conversation took place. Jasmine absolutely dreaded what would happen to them next. She tried not to let it show on her face. A guilty conscience would give away their true purpose there. The blonde one seemed to get angrier, the balding one just shrugged. Their voices started to rise.

  “You spoke with McBain?” the blonde one enquired.

  “Yes, that’s what he said. I’m not making it up, boss.”

  “We can’t do that! We don’t know what they were doing here!”

  “I know, I’m with you, but orders are orders.”

  “He’s crazy; the old man’s lost it.” They broke apart and returned to the centre of the room.

  “It’s your lucky day. We’re letting you go, but you are to leave and never come back – comprende?” He had his hands on his hips, glaring. They nodded and stood up, slowly, waiting for the catch.

  Jasmine bent down and replaced the contents of her handbag. She was careful in her movements, just in case the guard tried to stop her.

  The guard by the door opened it and held it. Jasmine and Caleb walked through briskly, the remaining guards following closely. They went straight for the car, which was still in the car park exactly how they left it. They got in; Jasmine found the key and started the engine.

  She drove towards the gate, in a state of shock. As they approached it, the front boom gate was raised and they drove straight through and onto the main road. Then she gunned it, trying to put as much distance as possible between them and the laboratory.

  “What was that all about?” Caleb said.

  “I have no idea. Do you know if McBain is a policeman?” She couldn’t believe it either.

  “I don’t know. He’s not the police chief, I’m sure of that.”

  “Whoever he is, I’m in love with him. That could have turned out so much worse.” She pulled into Caleb’s street.

  “I’ll ask around tomorrow, see if I can find out. What did you do with the USB drives? Did the guards get them?”

  She parked the car at the kerbside outside Caleb’s house and turned the engine off. She reached into her bra and pulled out the drives. Smiling, she held them up. “Secret hiding spot.”

  “Brilliant! Those things are just so handy for so many things.” He took the USB drives from her. “What are you going to do with them?”

  “I’ll trawl through them and see what Mr Bailey is working on.”

  He handed them back. “Will you be okay going home?” He opened the car door, getting ready to leave.

  “Of course I will. Thanks for your help.”

  He climbed out and bent over. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

  “Okay. Hopefully I’ll have something by then.” He closed the door and she did a u-turn, heading back to her apartment.

  Chapter 11

  Jasmine had gone straight to bed when she arrived home the night before – counting her lucky stars, but exhausted from the whole experience.

  She couldn’t believe they had actually been able to break in and get access to the CEO’s computer. She also couldn’t believe how close they had been to being arrested.

  The guard’s reaction to the release order had been puzzling. Obviously, he hadn’t agreed with it, yet he still carried out the instruction. Whoever McBain was, he must have held a hell of a lot of authority at Avalon Laboratories. Either that or the guards were just plain scared of him. She considered the two possibilities and decided it was definitely the first situation. She doubted whether the guards could be scared of anyone.

  She showered and dressed before having a light breakfast of fruit salad and muesli. She turned her computer on and plugged in the first of the USB drives. The folder popped up with the contents. They were mainly Word and Excel files. She started with the first one on the list and systematically opened each one in turn, scanning through the document, and moving on to the next one. Any files that needed closer inspection, she copied onto her hard drive.

  At lunchtime, she switched over to the second USB drive. The files were largely the same as the first drive. There was lots of Excel files, a few PDF’s, and a handful of files that Jasmine wasn’t sure what they would open with. Windows wasn’t identifying any programs on her computer that they matched. She copied them onto her hard drive with the others.

  By mid-afternoon she had finished with the second drive. She removed it and picked both of them up. Walking into her kitchen, she got a zip-lock bag out of the drawer. She slid them in and sealed the bag tight. From her pantry she took out a box of cornflakes and placed the bag inside, shaking it afterwards to make sure they weren’t just sitting on top.

  She went back to her computer and opened up the folder of the saved documents. All in all, there were 97 of them. She started with the Word files, again checking the first in the list and then kept going.

  Further review of the files, didn’t reveal anything except that the offices were very well run. There were standard operating procedures in place for everything, from sorting the mail to delivering the finished goods. What was strange about it though, was that the CEO himself had been the author of the documents. Either he was abysmal at delegating, was a control freak, or he had way too much time on his hands.

  She deleted the files that she had checked – whose responsibility it was to buy milk of a morning was not high on her agenda. Having finished wading through the Word documents, she started on the excel files. Mr Bailey may have been obsessive about procedures, but he sure knew his spreadsheets. Some of the files contained extremely complex formulas. They would link dozens of pages together, massive amounts of data, all to come back to a few numbers.

  Jasmine thought they looked like scientific algebra of some sort. She recognized some of the abbreviations from her high school science class, but that’s all. It could have all been hieroglyphics to her and she wouldn’t have known the difference. She moved these ones to a file on their own.

  She waded through budget after budget, but found nothing out of the ordinary to explain why the business had been so profitable and the turnover so much higher every year. The budgets outlined every product line, the direct costs, and the overheads. Everything looked reasonable from an accountants’ prospective.

  She returned back to the files that were made from an unknown program. She tried changing the extension but nothing would open them. She burned them onto a CD and glanced at her watch. It was almost 4:00pm – time for her meeting with Chase. She permanently deleted the items in her recycle bin and closed the computer down.

  Grabbing the keys and the CD, she locked the apartment and walked downstairs to where her car was parked. She looked down and remembered she still had old Mrs Foster’s number plates on her car. There was no one around the complex so she quickly replaced them with her own. She crept over to the Ford Laser and screwed the number plates back on. Satisfied with her handiwork, she returned to her car and floored it to Chase’s house.

  Chase was
a ‘Have not’ too, but what set her apart from most people was her extreme distrust of everyone and everything.

  According to her, the Government controlled everything and their spies were everywhere. To her credit though, she had made her paranoia into a business. She was an IT enthusiast and specialised in securing business computers and servers from hackers, disgruntled employees, or anyone else that might want to cause some damage.

  She was a data protection queen and had built up a respectful reputation in town because of it. Chase ran her business from home, a small two-bedroom house on the fringe of downtown Avalon. She mainly worked on-site at the clients’ premises, only doing the mundane administration at home.

  Jasmine knocked on the front door and looked up. She smiled and waved at the discreet security camera positioned below the roof hip. She knew the knocking was only a formality. Chase would only answer the door after looking at the security monitor.

  The door opened halfway, giving Jasmine just enough room to walk through into the hall. Chase was dressed in long black pants with a black polo shirt. Embroidered on the pocket was her slogan ‘Avoid the Chase, be Protected’. She was tall and with a very good body. She wore her dark hair in a high ponytail religiously. It always reminded Jasmine of Lara Croft from Tomb Raider. She didn’t look anything like you would expect a paranoid techie to look like.

  She had converted one of the bedrooms into an office. She ushered Jasmine in there and indicated to a seat. The room was full of computers and the related equipment. Motherboards were piled high in one corner, empty computer cases nearby. The place was a mess, but an organised one. A total of three screens were lit up all in a row.

  “Jazzy Jaz, what’s up?” Chase removed some papers from another chair and sat down.

  “I’m kind of in the middle of a personal quest, how about you?”

  “Same old. Tell me about this quest; it sounds a lot more interesting than anything I’m doing right now.”

  Jasmine recounted her story, including only the most relevant details. She didn’t mention the break in from the night before. “So, I’m hoping we might be able to get the full autopsy report.”

  Chase grinned. “I like a challenge!” She swivelled her chair around to face one of the computers and started typing. “You said Dr Frasier from the Avalon Public Hospital?” Jasmine nodded. “Grab yourself a drink from the kitchen if you like. This might take a little while.”

  Jasmine went to the kitchen and opened the fridge. There was a whole shelf dedicated to Coca-Cola and Red Bull. She found some water and poured herself a glass. She looked around the room as she sipped. The walls were painted a green colour, almost the colour of a lime, but a fraction darker. There were no paintings or pictures around. The whole room was stark to say the least. Chase had lived there ever since she graduated from high school, but you would never guess that from touring the house. She could have moved in yesterday.

  She wandered back to the office. Chase was leaning over the printer, watching pages eject one by one. “I’m just printing everything now.”

  “Wow that was quick. I thought you said it might be a bit of a process.” She joined her at the printer.

  “What can I say? They really need my help down at the hospital.” She smiled and grabbed what was in the print tray. The printer stopped and returned to silence. Chase flicked through the pages.

  “Are you really sure you want to see these? They are, umm, graphic. There’s pictures and stuff.” She made a face as if she had just smelt something rotten.

  “I thought there might be, but you never know. Maybe something in there will help me let them rest in peace.” Chase put the pages into a manila folder and handed it over to Jasmine. She didn’t open it, just held it over her chest under her crossed arms. “Thanks, I really appreciate it. Oh, hey, would it be stretching our friendship if I asked you for another favour?”

  “Ooh, I don’t know. Breaking one federal law really is my quota for the day,” she joked. “Fire away.”

  Jasmine opened her handbag and pulled out the CD she had burned before leaving home. “I have a CD of some files that I can’t open. I don’t know what program they were made in. Any chance you could have a look and point me in the right direction?”

  Chase took the CD and sat down at her computer, putting it in the tray that had sprung open. The CD drive whirled into action. She started typing, opening up a few programs and trying them each in turn. She started frowning, deep in thought.

  “It’s not the program type that’s the problem. The files are encrypted – highly encrypted. Where did you get them?”

  “Do you really want to know?” She waited. Chase nodded. “They are from a computer at Avalon Laboratory Industries, where my father used to work.”

  “So, you don’t know what exactly is on them then?”

  “No, I tried a few programs, but just couldn’t get them to open to have a look.”

  “I can tell you now; no one goes to this much trouble to encrypt something that’s not important. This is complex stuff.” Her head was moving closer to the screen, enthralled with the files. “You’re going to have to leave these with me. It’s really going to take a while to crack these babies.”

  “You are the best Chase, I owe you one. Thank you so much.”

  “Hey, what’s life without a new challenge? I’ll give you a call when I work it out.”

  Jasmine let herself out, still clutching the folder close. When she got into the car she placed it on the passenger seat and stared for a moment. She knew she had to look at the contents, but knew she wouldn’t be able to forget what she was going to find out. After a moment, she turned on the engine and drove home.

  After she arrived, she made sure to walk past Mrs Foster’s car – still parked where it always was – and check the number plates were still intact. She climbed the steps to her apartment and opened the door, making sure to lock it behind her. She did a quick scan; everything was where it was supposed to be.

  She placed the folder on the kitchen table and fixed herself a ready-made TV dinner. Five minutes in the microwave and it was good-to-go. She stared at the folder as she ate. It was daring her to open it, but she wanted to make sure dinner was over and done with first. She had a feeling she would lose her appetite as soon as she opened the envelope.

  She finished with the meal and threw the container away. She washed her hands and sat back down, the folder in front of her. After a moment, she pulled it closer and opened it. Jasmine flicked through the pages; there was a lengthy report about the doctor’s findings, two drawings of an outline of a person, and a few photos. She pulled out the photos first, reminding herself that it was always less painful to pull off a band-aid quickly.

  There were three photos in all, each one of something on a stainless steel table. The first was of a few black bones, obviously Julia Parker’s. The second and third were of a very charred body. The arms and legs were just black sticks, the torso and head more recognisable as a human being. The face looked like a melted candle; the eyes, nose, ears and mouth were all just a black mess. One of the pictures was taken side on, the other taken from the person’s feet with the head in the distance.

  Jasmine felt ill, she couldn’t believe the person in the photograph was her father. The same man that had tucked her into bed at night, the same man that had explained why the sky was blue, and the same man that had made her feel like she was the most special little girl in the whole wide world. That was how his life ended – in a black charred mess lying on an autopsy table.

  In a way, her mother’s photo was much easier to handle. Even though there was less of her left, the bones didn’t resemble anything human. She couldn’t associate them with her mother; they were just a few bones. They could be anyone; they didn’t even have to be human.

  No, it was definitely her father’s photos that were upsetting her. She couldn’t pretend to herself any longer.

  She started crying again, as the enormity of her loss overwhelmed her
; she missed her parents, she missed the family she used to have, she missed feeling safe and settled. Her grandparents had done a wonderful job, but they couldn’t replace them – no one could.

  She put the photographs away and focused on the report. She reasoned that if she was going to be upset, she was going to make sure it wasn’t prolonged. Better to be upset once, rather than have to start reading the report tomorrow and get upset all over again. She braced herself and started reading.

  The reports used a lot of medical terms that Jasmine didn’t understand. They referred to various parts of the body, or so she assumed. Her mother’s report was very simple. It named the few bones, stated they were severely burned and left it at that. Cause of death was unknown, however, it was assumed to be caused by exposure to fire.

  Her father’s report was much lengthier. They had performed what seemed to be a thorough autopsy. They had been able to weigh and document most organs. Sid Frasier was right; he appeared to be a healthy man. There had been no formal identification of the body.

  The body was beyond recognition, so having a loved one view the remains was out of the question. They had attempted to identify him by his dental records; however, they couldn’t locate any to compare with. Jasmine remembered how much he had hated the dentist and smiled at his defiance.

  In the end, it had only been circumstantial evidence used to identify both of the bodies. They were found in John and Julia Parker’s bed; therefore, that is who they were presumed to be. They had no reason to think otherwise, nor had anyone else. She kept reading through the report, but nothing stood out as being anything but a tragic accident. The comments made by Dr Frasier looked to be the standard spiel.

  She gathered all the documents and photos and placed them in the folder. It hadn’t revealed anything new but at least she had faced her fears. She picked the folder up and stored it in the cabinet under her desk. She didn’t think it really belonged with her bank statements and tax receipts, but wasn’t sure what else to do with it.