by Marlie May
Manuel snorted and once we were back in his car, he explained. “I snuck into my father’s office at home and ran the CIA agent’s license plate.” He buckled. “We can’t share that information without me owing him more explanations than I’m ready to give.”
I frowned. “Is this the first time you’ve used his computer for…research?”
Manuel shook his head, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask exactly what he’d been up to.
“If Mr. Somerfield’s doing something Dad didn’t approve of,” I said. “People could be hurt.”
He drove his car from the lot and out onto the road. “We don’t know that for sure. All we have is a CIA agent stopping to visit Mr. Somerfield, which may mean nothing. And we have that letter which, while suspicious, doesn’t give us enough to draw any conclusions.”
“We could look at it again.”
“Why don’t you do that and let me know if you find anything new.”
“I will.”
Manuel dropped me off at my house. I wanted to invite him in, but he said had to get home, that he’d promised to spend the afternoon with his sister.
Inside, I rushed to Dad’s office but while I reviewed the letter, I didn’t see anything we’d missed the last time we’d read.
I flopped on the sofa and stared blankly at the TV.
What did this all mean?
The TV gave me no answer, but I knew one thing about all this. I was scared. Because this wasn’t just about discovering who’d murdered my parents, the crewmen, and Brianna.
This could be about saving thousands of lives.
The next day, Sean came by after school to deliver my homework. He dragged a chair over to where I lounged on the sofa and sat.
“Those formulas you sent me?” He clicked his tongue. “I’ve gotta say, basic chem sure is getting complicated.”
“It was a bonus assignment.” I pretended I was absorbed with what he’d written in my notebook because I hated lying to him. If I looked up, he’d read it all over my pink-cheeked, guilty face. Let alone in my shifty eyes. I didn’t want him finding out Brianna’s death might’ve have been caused by someone who wanted to murder Dad. Not until I could prove it.
“That’s a hefty bonus assignment,” Sean said. “We’re not even doing stuff like that in my AP class.”
My shoulders drooped. “So, you couldn’t figure them out?”
“Oh, I did.” He tapped his temple and his smile loosened his face and took over his entire body. “It’ll take more than little old formulas like these to stump me.”
“What are they, anyway?” Scooting around on the sofa, I propped my heels on the coffee table. I tossed him a protein bar and peeled back the wrapping of a second one, taking a bite.
“The formulas are for chemicals.”
“Kinda figured that,” I said around a bite.
“Yes, but some of these have aromatics, which are those rings in the structures, suggesting that these chemicals are stable until they’re combined. Like this one.” He turned his phone and pointed to one of the photos. “But, it's not just the formulas. You've also got binary here at the bottom of the page, all the zeros and ones repeated.”
He’d lost me before aromatics.
“This is complicated stuff,” he said, frowning down at his phone.
I'd say so. “What would someone do with chemicals like these?”
“Basically, they’d build explosives. And my guess for the binary is that someone is trying to write these explosives into a code, maybe to trigger it electronically or whatever. It’s cool, like something the military would use. Or the Unabomber.”
“Who?”
“Some guy who sent bombs to postal workers. Planted one on an airline once.”
“That’s horrible.” I gulped, suspecting how all this might tie into my parents’ murder. “And these formulas are similar to what that Unabomber would use?”
“Not necessarily. These are more specific chemicals that, when combined, could cause a lot of damage. Like ammonium nitrate, for example. And hexanitrodiphenylamine, which was used in World War Two by the Japanese but was discontinued because it was too toxic. Some of these chemicals, when combined like they are in your assignment, can be pretty explosive. Stronger than TNT.”
TNT.
Mr. Somerfield and Dad had designed finance apps together. Nothing like this. I had a sneaking suspicion why Mr. Somerfield might need formulas for explosives, however.
“You sure you’re not hoping to make a few bombs on the side?” Sean asked, his eyes gleaming.
“Of course, not.”
He laughed and tucked his phone away. “Anyway, that pretty much sums up your homework. I assume you only needed to identify the basic premise of the formulas. Or do you need to do more with them?”
“I think that’s all for now.”
“Perfect.” He tossed his empty protein bar wrapper into the bucket and stood. “I’d love to stay and hang out longer because I know you’re bored out of your mind, but I’ve gotta go. Swim practice. I’ll see you later?”
“For sure.”
As Sean was leaving, my aunt rushed through the door and banged around in the foyer. “I’m only here for a sec, Janie. I’ve got a meeting downtown.” She poked her head into the parlor. “I left soup for you in the fridge. Are you okay heating it up for your supper?”
“Of course.”
She smiled. “Great. I’ll be back later. Don’t wait up for me!”
Thankfully, my favorite librarian came by before I had to resort to heating soup—again—for supper. Aunt Kristy had decided soup was the best thing for healing.
Manuel held up a bag and the smell of spices drifted through the air. “Mexican.”
We sat in the kitchen and munched through loaded beef and bean burritos with a side order of nachos. Nothing beat gooey melted cheese dribbled all over everything. I could live on the stuff.
While we ate, I explained to Manuel what I’d learned from Sean.
“Why would a computer app designer lock chemical formulas in a fireproof cabinet?” he asked.
“Good question.” It didn’t take much brain power to come up with some very good reasons. “If someone wanted to blow something—or someone—up, they’d need a way to do it. This isn’t something you can Google without the government catching on. The bigger question is: where did he obtain the information?”
“We should tell my father about this,” Manuel said.
We both reached for the last nacho but he beat me to it.
“Hey.” I scowled. Not that I needed another greasy chip. I’d eaten my weight in burritos already tonight.
“Next time, I’ll bring two orders.” He broke the last chip in half and offered a share to me.
Chewing, I leaned back in my chair and drained my soda. After, I gathered up the wrappers and stuffed them deep in the trash to hide the evidence. The soup police would be home soon, and I’d catch hell for cheating.
Turning, I leaned against the counter. “How would we tell your father about the formulas without letting on where we found them?”
Manuel wiped the island off with a damp sponge then tossed it toward the sink, missing. I caught it before it fell on the floor. “If we could find more clues that point to Mr. Somerfield’s guilt, the police could get a search warrant.”
If only it could be that easy. “We don’t have enough evidence.” Yet.
We walked into the parlor, and I took up residence again on the sofa. Manuel dropped down beside me.
“Any suggestions for finding more evidence?” I asked.
“Follow him? Break into his office again?”
“Set him up and record him making a confession?” Which wasn’t going to happen. He was too clever to be caught like that.
“Let’s think about it,” Manuel said. “It’ll have to be something solid if we hope to convince my father.”
“In between, we can look up those entries in Dad’s notebook.” I held up my phone. “I took p
ictures of them.”
Pulling my laptop onto his thighs, Manuel looked up the first on the list. “Actually,” he said. “This one is the name of a company.”
“Maybe they’re all business related?” Which didn’t explain why my father had kept a notebook of business transactions in a locked box in his closet. Why not put it in his desk or in one of the file cabinets in his office?
Manuel whistled low. “The first three are payday loan companies.”
“Those places that give you a cash advance on your paycheck?”
He nodded.
“Why would my father need anything like that?” I shook my head. “My parents weren’t wealthy, but they didn’t have money problems as far as I knew.”
“Another mystery, then.”
“Are they all paycheck loan companies?”
“This one is simple.” He pointed to a line on the second page. “Credit card company.”
“Maybe that was a bill.”
“Why keep a record of a credit card payment among a list with paycheck loans?”
“This is shady, no matter how you look at it.”
“I agree.” He pointed. “The only other entries are for the rehab place we already looked up online.” He closed out the search engine and dropped my computer back on the coffee table.
“Let’s call them.”
Manuel pivoted around to face me. “Confidentiality laws will keep them from saying anything.”
“I have to try.” I pulled my phone and dialed.
Someone picked up, announcing, “Journey to Recovery!”
“Could I speak to someone in billing, please?” I asked.
The man connected me.
“Hello,” I told the woman in billing. “I’m managing Julian Davis’s estate after his untimely death.”
“I’m terribly sorry to hear about his passing.”
Me, too. “While going through his books, I noted three payments to your facility over the past ten years.”
“What was the name again?”
I repeated it.
Clicks on a keyboard came through the line. “You’re correct. I do see three payments.”
“I assume they were payments for some of your services.”
“Indeed.”
“Can you tell me what kind of services?”
“I’m sorry, we can’t give you that information without a release.”
I smacked the sofa cushion beside me. Okay, time for a different tactic. “Is there anything else owed on the account?”
“I cannot release that information, either.”
Covering the mouthpiece, I grumbled.
“I’m sorry,” the woman continued. “You do understand that we need to maintain the confidentiality of our clients.”
“I do. But if the estate owes this account any money, no payment will be made for some time. There’s probate to go through, the estate to execute.” I wasn’t sure the legal terms I was throwing around worked, but people used them all the time in TV crime shows with good results. “Any outstanding balance would remain unpaid until the estate was completely settled. That could take years.” Elevating my voice, I borrowed her words. “You do understand, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.” She sounded flustered. Good. “An outstanding balance is not an issue in this case.”
“It’s not?”
The woman huffed. “Of course not. The account was paid in full when service was rendered, as is expected.”
“Are you sure? Because I could swear—”
The woman’s voice grew shrill. “As executor of the estate, you know that Kristine Davis hasn’t been a client in this facility for well over a year.”
Though I’d already guessed, I hated having my assumption confirmed. Kristine Davis.
Aunt Kristy.
“Excuse me,” the woman said. I could almost hear her slapping a hand over her mouth but she recovered from her slip fast. “What was your name again?”
No need to share further. I ended the call and turned to Manuel. “These bills. The payments to the lenders, the rehab place, all of it.” Hell. If what I suspected was true, well, I was in even deeper trouble. “I don’t believe any of them were debts incurred by my father.” I told him what the woman had accidentally revealed.
“You think all of this relates to your aunt? Why would she need all this money?”
“She told me she’d had a problem in the past, but she didn’t say what it was.”
“You’re suggesting she was in rehab three times?”
I shrugged. “Must’ve been. What if this is a record of payments made for her? That would mean my father had been giving her money for the past fifteen years.”
That argument at the fair. Mom had implied Aunt Kristy had been asking for money for a long time, which correlated with my theory about the payments in Dad’s notebook.
“At this point, we really don’t know what the loans were for. Even if we called the companies, I doubt we’d get an answer.” He read from one of the paycheck loan sites. “From what it says here, you get the loan and then pay it back with a hefty fee. If you can’t pay the loan right away, you have to pay another bunch of fees. I imagine they pile up until sometimes, you end up owing a lot more than what you first borrowed.”
“Sounds like a crappy deal to me.”
“These companies wouldn’t care why you needed the money. As long as they have direct access to your bank account, they’re happy.”
Or, in this case, access to Dad’s bank account.
I tossed my phone onto the coffee table. “We’re stalled.”
“Only for now. I’ll sound out my father about this tonight when I get home.”
Chief Sancini thought Manuel punching a Senator was bad, but his jaw would drop if Manuel started quizzing him about paycheck loans. “Maybe tell him you’re researching this for a school assignment?”
“That would work.” Manuel slid his arm back along the back of the sofa and smiled. “Hey, what time did you say your aunt would be home?”
I hadn’t. “Late.”
“No eight-o-clock curfew tonight?”
“My sentence has been lifted.” My voice had gone husky. I scooted in closer to him. Could he read what I was thinking on my face? My investigation into the yacht murder might be on hold, but there was something else I could look into. “What do you think we should research now?”
This boy could read me well. “My lips?”
The next day after school, Manuel swung by to pick me up.
“Where to?” he asked as he pulled out onto the main road.
“I want to question the people who were first on the scene.” During the day, I’d photographed the accident report but avoided looking at the pictures. I hadn’t discovered anything new from the report, however.
“My afternoon is yours.”
Our first stop was Mr. Andrew Berry, the man who’d witnessed the ship burning from the beach. Unfortunately, he only repeated what I’d read in the report. He’d been walking his dog on the beach—he lived locally. He’d seen what he thought was fireworks and hadn’t been concerned. But by the time he returned from his walk, he realized it might be more serious and called 9-1-1.
It was a long shot, but we drove out to the Big Berry Island Coast Guard Station, hoping to speak to whoever had been involved in the search and rescue. We parked out front and walked into the building, where we were told Bettina Jones could help us. The man at the desk led us to her office and pulled the door shut behind us.
“Have a seat.” Bettina pointed to two chairs across and dropped into her own. “What can I do for you two?”
“We’re investigating a yacht accident.”
She frowned. “Is this some sort of school project?”
“Yes. Sort of an…” My voice trailed off.
“We’re part of an afterschool club where we research unsolved crimes,” Manuel said.
Damn, he was good. I wouldn’t have thought of anything that interesting all o
n my own.
Manuel continued, “Each group is assigned a mystery. We research the case, try to come up with potential suspects and motives with whatever we can find, and write a paper on what we believe is the outcome. Purely speculation, of course. But it’s fun.”
He really should make a career out of this.
“Naturally, if the case is suspicious, or we find out anything that might be of use to either you or the police,” he said. “We notify you immediately.”
He was so good, even I believed we were working on this supposed project for this fictional club.
But I was sitting here like a useless blob so I nodded to lend credibility to his story. Since I fumbled when it came to even one tiny untruth, it might be best for me to play the silent partner in this interaction.
“You mean, you’d look into something like the Costa Concordia?” she asked.
I frowned. Italy. I think.
“Not exactly,” Manuel said. “We try to stay local and small. I actually meant something like the Davis yacht accident that took place in July.”
“Oh, that’s a current incident.” Bettina turned to her computer and started typing. “Let me see what I can find in our records.” She clicked through the file and the leaned forward, studying the screen. “Interesting.”
I gripped my knees so tightly, my fingers pinched. “What’s interesting?”
“Oh, sorry.” She flapped her hand in the air. “Nothing all that exciting, actually. Just that one member on board escaped. Not that a survivor is unusual in these circumstances. This didn’t happen far from shore, and the Coast Guard was notified promptly. We take pride in rescuing as many as possible in an accident like this. But this survivor couldn’t remember a single detail about the accident. This made it difficult to recreate the event.” Her eyes zoned in on me. “What did you say your name—”
“A fire caused the yacht to sink, correct?” Manuel asked, redirecting Bettina’s attention. He’d pulled out a notebook and was scribbling furiously.
Distracted, she stared at her computer. “Yes. That’s what it says.”
“We understand it started in the galley.”
“Or in the main cabin,” she said. “Which is adjacent to the galley.”