Sarah followed Matz to the couch.
“Tell me exactly what happened, when you noticed—”
“I always check the markets just after they open, six thirty our time.” Sarah booted up her laptop on the coffee table. “I trade our stocks and bonds from this Fidelity account.” She turned the screen toward Matz. “See?”
“What am I looking at?” Matz asked.
“The balance was over three million yesterday. Today, nothing. Zilch. The douchebag ordered a wire transfer.”
Matz got the picture. “At least we know he didn’t die off that cliff.”
“Little comfort that brings me now,” Sarah shouted, blowing her nose for effect. “These are our marital assets! I know my rights! I want to lock him up and throw away the key—!”
“First we have to find him,” Matz said calmly. “Any thoughts where he might be—?”
Shu entered, interrupting. “Are these your husband’s drawings?” He shoved an Android tablet in front of Sarah’s face.
Sarah nodded. “It’s his ‘doodle pad.’ He was working on a new emoji app.”
“Is this cartoon character supposed to be him?”
“Ridiculous, I know,” Sarah spewed. “It’s his avatar, doing things he only wishes he could do. That’s supposed to be him scuba diving, as if.”
“Why is this relevant, Shu?” Matz demanded.
Shu held up the tablet and expanded the screen. “The last picture he drew has him looking out of a window on a plane that’s heading for an island, grinning ear to ear. See what he drew on the island?”
Matz got up to take a closer look. “A flag?”
“A British flag…with the coat of arms.”
Matz nodded, impressed. “Good work, Shu.” She turned to Sarah and asked, “Does your husband have business in the Cayman Islands?”
“No. Not that I know of.”
“If that’s where he’s gone,” Shu explained, “there’s nothing we can do. The Caymans don’t extradite.”
Matz looked at the emptied Fidelity account on Sarah’s laptop. “It’s likely that he transferred all the money into an offshore bank—”
Shu snickered, “Sucks for you.”
Matz turned angry. “Remember when we talked about manners, sensitivity, and respect? This is one of those times.”
“I feel faint,” Sarah whispered.
Shu turned to an officer. “Can we get her some water over here?”
The officer headed to the kitchen.
Shu sat down beside Sarah and rubbed her neck. “That feel good?”
Sarah groaned, “I guess.”
“You’re a beautiful woman, Mrs. Wall. You’ll have no problem starting over.”
“Yesterday I was a multimillionaire. Today I’m flat broke.”
“You have this ginormous house.”
“Mortgaged to the hilt. How is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“What’s the matter with you?” Matz interjected.
“You told me to be more sensitive—”
“I told you to do your job. There’s still a chance he hasn’t left yet. Check every flight to the Caymans. Now!”
—
Brooke forwarded this video clip to Rufus’s new Benjamin Carver email account directly from her Security Video app. His flight wasn’t scheduled to leave until later that afternoon and the FBI still had time to stop him. She hoped he’d received the message in time.
This Rabbit needed to run!
CHAPTER 32
Sorry to lay all this on you when your focus needs to be on Brooke,” Jack said. “For what it’s worth, I know she loves you. She couldn’t fake that. No one could. And it’s hard to believe that she killed anyone, let alone her own father. She must have gotten caught up in something pretty awful.”
“I have to find out,” Ethan said as he headed toward the door. “I’m going to find her.”
Jack exclaimed, “You don’t have any idea where she is!”
Ethan turned back, a look of frustration on his face, and shook his head.
“What do you know about Clinton Godeaux?” Sean asked as he entered the foyer. “Other than he’s her brother?”
“Just what the FBI told me,” Ethan explained. “There were inheritance issues. Her brother suspected foul play, asked for the autopsy. The autopsy proved that the father was murdered. Seems straightforward.”
“What else?” Sean pressed.
“He secretly funded our company and used an account with just his initials—C. G.—as well as all the privacy settings. And when Brooke married Benjamin Carver—your employee, Rufus Wall—he got a face recognition match on our site and discovered that she was using the name Brooke Shaw. That’s all I know.”
“So he can find her now?”
“That’s why she’s running, I assume…” And then Ethan’s eyes brightened and he stuttered with excitement, “Unless…unless she just wants it to look like she’s running. Maybe she wants her brother to come for her. Maybe she’s leading him to her, setting a trap. She can’t go to the cops. And knowing Brooke, she’d take care of the problem on her own, without putting anyone else in danger. Including me.”
“Sounds feasible,” Sean agreed. “She kept her brother away all this time, after all.”
“As soon as our Face Match Mode goes up,” Ethan added, “she gets a driver’s license, which requires a picture that goes into the main databank we have access to.”
Jack jumped in. “So the Face Match Mode lights up and her brother knows that she’s using the name Brooke Shaw.”
“She probably got the driver’s license because she needed a legit photo ID to get a marriage license,” Ethan said, “and that goes into the public record.”
“So then the Face Match Mode lights up again,” Jack added, “tells her brother that she married a guy named Benjamin Carver.”
Ethan nodded. “She knew there would be a public record. She knew that her brother would get a match and come for her.”
“Or send some tattooed thugs to find her,” Jack said.
“She didn’t get married to run away, but to be found.” Ethan started pacing, completely consumed. “She’s trying to get her brother to come to her. But why? Why would she concoct such an elaborate system to keep him away and then lure him to her? Why would she move to Big Sur and preach mindfulness and balance to tech entrepreneurs and put such a value on privacy?”
“And there’s something about the way she was so involved with Hounddog’s company culture,” Sean added, “and the way she avoided yours.”
“She never wanted to discuss Stalker business,” Ethan agreed. “She only expressed her concern. But why? What did our site do to threaten her safety that Hounddog didn’t?”
Sean walked across the room slowly, taking some time before he answered. “At Stalker you use biometrics primarily to find people, but at Hounddog we use biometrics mostly for privacy. We find ways to block a trail and send false leads. Much of that came from Brooke. She led us down that path. Stalker and Hounddog are basically using the same technology but for opposite purposes.”
“She supported technology that helped protect privacy, for people like herself that needed to hide. Anna Gopnik told me that Brooke had put tracking devices in our phones. Brooke warned me that the police were coming for me. She sent me texts and told me where to hide. That’s how I ran into Anna—”
“The tracking apps we created for her were spec concepts never meant to go to market,” Sean said. “Our guys love working on extracurricular projects, and we encourage it as long as they get their work done. I believed her when she told me they would only be used to help people that had no other options. But I didn’t ask enough questions.”
“This explains the missing people in Big Sur,” Ethan said. “When she lived there, she was hiding, right? Maybe she
also helped other people on the run. She got cozy with tech companies that could help her develop tools to do just that.”
“To hide people who deserved a second chance,” Sean blurted. “She once told me that thousands of people drop off the grid every year, cutting all ties, changing their identities, hiding their money. Maybe that was her concept for Dancing Rabbit… The people who live there valued privacy so much. Maybe she had us develop apps to help some of them turn into ghosts.”
“That sounds more like her, helping people who deserved a second chance, a second lease on life, living mindfully. She always talked about people looking through different prisms, how there are always two sides, a paradox. Maybe the reason was because she deserved another chance. I can’t imagine what kind of justification there is for killing her father, but until we hear her side…” Ethan’s wheels were spinning, and he turned to Sean. “Any chance you have the book Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why is that relevant?” Jack asked.
“When I was running from the police,” Ethan explained, “the text told me to go inside the Henry Miller library. Anna Gopnik was hiding there. I asked her why she was faking her death. She told me that no one shares how or why they disappear. That’s how they prevent any leaks. She told me that Brooke knew that I might come looking for her. And she gave me a copy of Tropic of Cancer. Brooke’s copy. Brooke had underlined a weird passage. I thought Brooke was trying to send me a message.”
Sean grabbed his laptop. “I can download the book from Amazon in ten seconds.”
Once he did, Ethan found the section that Anna had shown him and read it out loud: “‘As soon as a woman loses a front tooth or an eye or a leg she goes on the loose. In America she’d starve to death if she had nothing to recommend her but mutilation.’” Ethan looked up at Jack and Sean.
They shook their heads.
“She’s not missing a tooth or an eye or a leg,” Ethan said. “She would starve if she had nothing but what she lost… I asked Anna, was Brooke trying to help me? Was she trying to keep me away or on a leash?”
“What do you think?” Jack asked.
Ethan’s smile returned. “I think she’s trying to tell me to shed my devices—and vices—like she told me when we were at Dancing Rabbit the first time. Remember when she took my phone away? She wants me to be the one to disconnect. Unplug.”
“I don’t understand,” Jack said. “Where did you get that?”
“If she only had what she lost, which must be her family, her broken heart, she’d die. But she has me now. And I can’t get to her with the FBI tracking me, or whoever else is listening in on this thing. Her brother was using technology to find her. He even sent goons to look for me, right? He’ll do anything to find her. He’s dangerous. That’s why she wanted me to stay away. But there’s another side to her story and I’m going to find out what it is.” Ethan set his iPhone on Sean’s coffee table. “I have to find her. Unplugged.”
“Without your phone?” Jack asked, incredulous. “How can you go without your phone?”
Ethan smiled. “They call it mindfulness.”
Just as he was about to make his dramatic exit, he stopped, froze, and groaned. “Oh damn!”
“What?” Jack asked.
“My car only has a few miles’ worth of charge left.”
Jack laughed. “Told you that car was a bad idea.”
“You can’t take your car anyway,” Sean said, approaching. “If she really does want you to come for her—unplugged—she doesn’t want you bringing cops and FBI agents, and they know what you’ve been driving.” Sean tossed his car keys to Ethan. “Take mine.”
Ethan saw the Maserati symbol on the keychain. “Much more discreet,” he grinned, unable to hide his love for fast and fancy cars.
Sean’s love for cars was even deeper. “It’s a special edition and only came in one very discreet color called deep plum. You’ll be fine.”
“Thanks. I’ll try not to scratch it.”
Jack grabbed Ethan’s shoulder just as he turned. “We won’t be able to get in touch with you. Be careful. Please.”
“I will.”
“And just for the record,” Jack added, “I’m glad you know about me, that there are no more secrets—”
“Just for the record,” Ethan cut him off, “I’m happy for you. For you both.”
“Thanks.” Jack smiled as if an enormous weight had lifted, or more like an amputated leg had just grown back. “Now go find your girl.”
CHAPTER 33
A field agent was waiting for Matz and Shu as they pulled up to the curb at the international terminal. “I’m Agent Dempsey, San Francisco division. You requested this phone from the murder victim in Santa Monica—”
“Hang on,” Shu told the field agent as he shouted at the baggage handler at curbside check-in. “Hey, you! Yeah, you. I’m a federal officer…FBI. I need the gate for flight five-eight-five. Pronto.”
The baggage handler shouted back, “Flight five-eight-five to Grand Cayman departs in five minutes. C-four. That’s terminal C, gate four.”
“Let’s go,” Matz said as she got out of the car.
Shu grabbed for Bailey’s iPhone, but the field agent pulled it back. “I need you to sign for it.”
“Christ, where?”
The field agent handed Shu a form and a pen.
Matz turned back. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I requested the murder victim’s cell phone.”
“Why?” Matz said. “Why would you do that?”
“So I can sift through all his personal data—photos, phone calls, text messages, emails—and get clues. I’m good with technology.”
“We have experts to do all that.”
“We don’t have time to wait for those hacks. I know what I’m doing.” Shu handed the pen back to the field agent. “Are we done here? Can I have it now?”
The field agent let Shu take the phone and the agents headed for C4, hoping to stop Brooke and Rufus before their plane took off.
From the moment Shu took possession of Bailey’s phone, Brooke was able to hear the entire FBI search through her Pocket Dialer app. She hated to invade, but she also professed that when you’re on the run, you must know who’s coming for you and where they are at all times. “You have to hound like a hound dog, stalk like a stalker,” she often told her Rabbits.
Now she was able to listen to the FBI agents who were coming after the newest Rabbit, Rufus Wall.
She heard Shu shout, “FBI. Do not close that door!”
Agent Matz said, “We’re looking for these passengers.”
The gate agent at C4 said, “I don’t recognize them.”
Shu told him, “Take another look.”
“What are their names? I’ll see if they’ve boarded.”
Shu said, “Benjamin Carver and Brooke Shaw.”
The gate agent punched the names into the computer. “Sorry. No.”
“Shit!” Shu slammed the counter like a passenger that just missed his flight. “Can you tell if they canceled or rebooked on a different flight?”
“I can’t retrieve that information. I’m sorry—”
“They could be flying under different names,” Matz said. “We’ll have to check the plane.”
“You heard her,” Shu snapped.
The gate agent announced with urgency, “Federal agents coming aboard.”
As they walked down the loading bridge, Matz whispered to Shu, “Settle down, Sparky. A little sugar goes a long way.”
“What did I say?”
“It’s the way you said it. Check the bathrooms,” Matz ordered Shu.
Agent Shu saw another gate agent come aboard, this one female, her Venusian form swaying back and forth as she moved down the aisle counting passenger
s.
Matz noticed Shu staring and snapped, “Stop drooling, Shu. Check the bathrooms.”
“She’s holding a list of the passengers, we should check—”
“The can, Shu. I’ll check with her.”
Shu headed to the back of the plane while Matz showed the striking gate agent the picture of Brooke and Benjamin. “We’re looking for this couple…?”
She took a look and smirked. “I know him, yeah.”
“Where is he?”
“He was on the last flight to Grand Cayman that departed a few hours ago.”
“A few hours ago?” Matz held the photo up again. “What about this woman?”
“Nope. He was alone.”
“Take another look, please.”
“He wasn’t with anyone,” the stunner said with a giggle. “He was on our standby list, trying to get a seat on the last flight, which was full. He tried slipping me cash. We don’t take bribes. But he was funny.”
“Why? Why was he funny?”
“He kept coming up to the counter to check on his status, and every time he would explain how he just got married and had to meet his new wife on their honeymoon and desperately needed to get on the plane. But he was just making that all up.”
“Why do you say that?”
“By the third time he came up to the counter, he had already asked me out four times. We don’t take bribes and we don’t accept invitations to meet customers in the Cayman Islands for all-expense paid holidays. But he took the rejection well and he literally hugged me when a seat became available and he got on the flight.”
Matz shouted at the back of the plane, “Let’s go, Shu, we’re outta here!”
—
Brooke shut off the Pocket Dialer app and sent a confirmation to Benjamin Carver’s email. She had set up an email account on the iPhone she was using (registered under a Dancing Rabbit employee) as “Administration Notification.” He knew to look in his junk mail, where Administration Notifications were usually sent. When he saw her heading, “Congratulations, you won a free trip,” he would know that he had been set free.
—
The Second Son Page 18