by Jean Rabe
“Probably costs just as much.” Diego stood behind her and pointed.
The computer’s tower was a simple black box about nine inches wide, twenty-two inches high, and not quite that deep. It had a metal mesh front lit panel with neon blue lights, making it look eerie.
“You’re the computer guru.” Piper got up and gestured to Diego, who pulled three jump drives out of his pocket. They’d download information as a precaution, and then take the towers with them.
“I’ll get the specifics first,” he said. “I can get detailed part information if I run an application designed to do that. It might already have one installed, or we could potentially install one. I want to know the computer before I dig through it. I’d say she built this herself or had someone build it for her.”
“She built it,” the boy said. He’d crept up silently. “She bought the parts with her tutoring money and built it. She said she’d build me one for my birthday.”
“Has a thousand watt power supply driving the processor.” He rattled on about gigahertz and gigabytes. “Dual graphics cards, looks like a pair of GTX 1080 bridged together, solid state drives, Samsung Evos, those are some of the fastest. Check out the liquid cooling system on this one, too! And those fans are going and not even making a whisper. Looks like she got it hooked into all four of those big monitors at once! This baby would easily rock ArcheAge, Final Fantasy, EVE Online—”
“What?”
“Look, she’s also got a virtual reality headset. And this little device, it’s a programmable radio transmitter. No idea what she’d use that for. Here’s full-surround sound system. And this chair. Your perp is one serious gamer. The chair is a Herman Miller Aeron. Expensive. This chair is over a grand. The self-built computer? She’s probably got four or five grand in it. But this one?”
Diego rolled over to the third system.
“I didn’t know computers were your specialty,” Piper said, noticing there was also a police scanner wedged between the systems. “It’s not in your file, the computers.”
“I’m a gamer,” he cut back. “Gamers don’t list gaming on their resumes. I picked up weight-lifting to counteract the time I spend on my butt in front of a monitor. Yeah, I know some stuff about computers.” He let out another whistle.
“That’s my sister’s favorite,” the boy offered. “She got that one last month.” He was not as defiant as when they’d first arrived. “I hear my dad upstairs.”
“Would you please go get him?” Piper asked.
She heard him pound up the stairs hollering “Daaaaaaaaaaaaad!”
“This is a Digital Storm, for someone with an unlimited budget. With all the options—and I’m guessing it has all of them. I can’t log in, password protected. If it has all the options it’ll run you between eleven and twelve thousand. It’s a gaming system, but she might have other stuff on it. You can use it like a regular system.” Softer, “But why would you want to?”
He pointed to the four monitors set up behind the systems. “Twenty-seven inch monitors like these, and this one a thirty-six, probably a grand each, maybe more depending.”
“Go back to the one we got into.” Piper paced behind him, heard an argument going on upstairs. “We’re looking for things that tie her to members of the genealogy club, Mark Thresher, PayPal, eBay, see if she banks online, anything recent that might point to her location, though it is more likely her dad can supply that, and—”
Diego rolled to the middle computer and groaned as his fingers flew across the ergonomic keyboard. “The data files are wiped. It’s there, I mean. Deleting stuff isn’t getting rid of it, but eventually it’ll become unrecoverable. The more recently they were deleted, the more likely it is that they can be recovered. A computer-smart person can make sure they can’t be recovered by scrubbing it with random data, but that takes a little bit of time, and she was probably in too much of a hurry for that. It’s gonna take work to revive the information. We’ll need to take this to the office. And I’ve got skills, but probably not enough to—”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
37
Thirty-Seven
“What the bloody—”
“Mr. Keaton,” Piper said. She gave him an abbreviated version of events, and her belief that his daughter, Cassandra Cassidy Blossom Keaton, had been stealing money from senior citizens. She left out the possible murder charges and damage to the department cars; she’d talk about all of that when Cassidy was in custody.
Andrew Keaton was pale. “I don’t know where Cassidy is. I have to call my wife.”
“I need to find Cassidy,” Piper emphasized. “I need to find her right now.” Because she was certain the girl was fleeing, tipped off at the high school by JJ’s inquiries, and when she noticed the sheriff’s vehicle in the library parking lot. Cassidy’d had enough time, either before or after flattening Oren’s tires, to wipe data files on one computer, abscond with her laptop—because she most certainly had at least one laptop—and take to the road. A girl with that much money, and that sharp—she had the means to get out of the county. Maybe out of the country.
“Does Cassidy have a passport?”
He nodded.
“Does Cassidy have a car?” Obviously, Piper thought. Stupid question.
“A beater Celica. One of the women she tutored gave it to her.”
Maybe, Piper thought. Or maybe she stole it after Melanie Taylor died.
“Please look for Cassidy’s passport.” Piper’s warrant didn’t include that. “Tell me if it’s missing. And tell me where you think Cassidy might be.”
“I don’t know where she is. School? With the computer club maybe. These computers.” Keaton stood rooted, watching Diego disconnect the towers. “I knew they were expensive, her computers. She told me those old people gave her a lot of money, for all the tutoring work.”
“Mr. Keaton, they didn’t give her this much money.”
“Stole? My little girl stole?”
Finally it’s sinking in.
“Stole. Sweet Jesus.”
“Mr. Keaton? Where might Cassidy go?”
He blinked. “Wait! I have an app on my laptop. I can track Cassidy’s and Tim’s cell phones. Never told them about it. I trust them. I just, you know, a parent wants to know where their kids are. I don’t use it. But I have it. I can use it. Should have put it on my phone. That’d be easier. But it’s on my laptop and—”
Piper nudged him toward the stairs.
Diego had picked up the Genesis, cradled it against his chest. “I’ll have to take these out one at a time.” He walked around Keaton and started up.
“That app, Mr. Keaton. Will you help me? Help your daughter? We need to find her.”
He nodded. “Sure. Yes. Oh sweet Jesus. I should’ve been paying more attention.” He staggered like an extra in The Walking Dead climbing the stairs. He took Piper to his office and pulled up his laptop. He opened it and turned it on, called his wife with an earbud phone he put in. “I can’t tell her everything,” he said to Piper. “Not on the phone. She’ll be hysterical, might have an accident and— Sweet Jesus.” He clicked some keys and a map appeared. He clicked some more keys, typing in a number.
Piper memorized the number, probably Cassidy’s cell phone.
A blip appeared, moving.
“Oh sweet Jesus,” he repeated.
Piper noticed a picture on his desk—Cassidy and Tim in front of a flocked white Christmas tree. More pictures of the kids and Mr. and Mrs. Keaton hung around the office. Everyone seemed happy.
“She’s on sixty-six, near Hatfield. Should I call her?” He reached up to tap his earbud.
“Please don’t, Mr. Keaton. I don’t want her panicked. Bad things happen when people get panicked.” Not that Cassidy already wasn’t.
“All right.” Keaton forced back a sob. “So what should I do? What do you want me to do?”
Piper thought fast. “Check her closet. See if she packed a suitcase, if stuff is m
issing. That passport, see if—”
He opened a desk drawer. “I keep all the passports here, and—” He retrieved a small leather folio, opened it, and spilled the contents on his desk. Three passports. “Oh sweet Jesus.”
“We need to move, Mr. Keaton. Check the closet. See if she—”
“All right.” He pushed away from the desk, nearly knocking her over. “Tim! Tim, come here.” She heard Keaton and his son bounding up the steps, and when she went out into the hall she watched Diego taking another tower out.
“Oren’s here!” he announced.
Piper hurried to the staircase.
The Keatons thundered down.
“Her backpack is gone, Sheriff, laptop, duffle. Some clothes. Her closet was stuffed with them, and there’s room now. A lot of things are missing. Oh sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. What can I—”
“Is your wife on her way?”
“Yes. But she works in Owensboro. It will take her—”
“Diego!”
“Yes, Sheriff Blackwell.” He hurried back in. She noticed he wasn’t sweating; carrying the heavy computer pieces was easy for him.
“Stay here with Tim Keaton. Mrs. Keaton will be here in twenty, thirty minutes. Don’t alarm her, and don’t tell her too much.” She spun to Keaton. “Mr. Keaton, Oren and I are going to find Cassidy. I’m going to ask you to join us. Bring your laptop. Lead us to your daughter.” She reached up and took the bud out of his ear. “And no phone calls. To anyone.” She added, “Please.” Then she put the earbud in his pocket. “Let’s move! And pray she doesn’t toss her cell phone.”
Piper settled in the back seat next to Keaton so she could watch him and the laptop. The screen was difficult to read because potholes on the street made for a bumpy ride. He tethered the laptop to a hotspot from his phone.
Oren had commandeered JJ’s Explorer. “Your kid did a helluva number on mine,” he grumbled. “Punctured tires, bleach in the gas tank for good measure. One of the patrons saw her pour bleach in the tank, yelled, and she took off. Jumped into that Celica you’ve been obsessing over, Sheriff, and squealed away from the library. Someone had called the Rockport Police Department, and they got there as I was heading down the sidewalk. They gave me a ride to the department. I was in too damn much of a hurry to hoof it the whole way.” Softer, “And too damn old.”
“My Cassidy?” Keaton asked. “My Cassidy did that. Bleach? Tires? Sweet Jesus. She’s a good girl, Sheriff. This can’t be happening.”
“Just tell us where she is, Mr. Keaton.”
He turned the screen so Piper could watch better and asked a variety of questions, which Piper declined to answer.
Piper had a lot of questions tumbling in her head, too, about Cassidy’s friends, spending habits, social life or lack of it, drugs, alcohol. All those questions would wait until after they had her. Get the girl first, then get all the answers. Find out if she acted alone.
The burning one was why steal from elderly people who trusted her? What sort of a girl could do that? Evil enough to hack pacemakers? She’d probably killed Mark because he was pushing the money issue, had contacted Piper and the bank, was making a little noise about it. Maybe Lattimer had, too. Killed them to shut them up. Bled them dry financially. Even with all the precautions Mark Thresher had taken, the secrecy, the night meeting in the park, the ADT system at his house, the six-foot chain link fence with barbed wire on top it. Small county. People knew things, especially a computer-savvy one like Cassidy—who probably had access to all Mark’s passwords. He’d had one of those little books like she’d given to others in the genealogy club. She probably knew all his passwords.
“She’s on six six two now,” Piper told Oren. “Probably headed to Evansville.”
“Catch up to her,” Mr. Keaton urged. “Just don’t hurt my baby girl. Whatever she’s done. My fault. I didn’t pay enough attention. My—”
“Not your fault,” Piper corrected. “We’ll catch her.”
“It’s that beater,” Keaton breathed. “It chugs. Thank God it’s on its last wheels. We’ll catch her. She can’t get far, not fast. She was going to wait until she got to California. She’s going to Caltech.”
Was going to Caltech. Now she’s going to prison for a very long time.
“Wait and get a new car out there, something that meets California emissions. Cassidy is very ecologically minded. And she won’t toss her cell phone. Kids—they’re attached to cell phones. That’s a six hundred dollar phone she has. Bad for the environment to toss electronics.”
“Bought with tutoring money?” Piper regretted the question.
Keaton nodded. “Yeah.”
Piper listened to him nervously chatter and continue asking questions she ignored. The passport thing bothered her. The girl was probably going to leave the country. She remembered the bank mentioning that the stolen money had likely been funneled to the Canary Islands or somewhere else safe. The girl was probably going there. How much had she amassed? How long had she been pilfering from the county’s senior citizens?
“How long has she been tutoring, Mr. Keaton? How many people has she been working with?”
“Oh, various groups, down into Owensboro, too, at the big senior center there where my wife works as activity director. Cassidy’s been going with her mom on Saturdays ever since her freshman year. Four years.”
Sweet Jesus, Piper thought.
“So if her beater car won’t get her far, she’ll either pick up another one if she’s got enough cash on her. Maybe in Evansville or Henderson. But Evansville has an airport.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Keaton’s knuckles were white where his hands gripped the laptop.
Oren radioed Teegan to contact the Evansville Regional Airport, Vanderburgh County Sheriff, Evansville police. Piper gave a description of Cassidy, which Keaton improved on.
“I’m guessing airport because of the passport. If she gets to the airport before us,” Piper said, “they’ll stop her, Mr. Keaton. It will be all right.” If she was headed to the Evansville airport it would only be to get a flight to a larger city where she could get something international. They needed to reach her before she got on a plane.
“She won’t get to the airport first,” Keaton said numbly. “We’ll catch up. That old Celica. It really is a beater. I bet it doesn’t go over sixty-five. Wait! She’s stopped.”
Piper leaned over. “Newburgh. Right on the river. Oren?”
“We’re five minutes out from Newburgh, and I’m going seventy-five. You said no lights and siren.”
“Why would she go to Newburgh?” Keaton mumbled. “Nothing’s in Newburgh. She doesn’t know anybody in Newburgh. Newburgh’s a nothing burg.”
“The river’s there,” Oren put in. “Right up against that itty bitty city is the big river.”
Maybe Cassidy Keaton was going to take a boat.
38
Thirty-Eight
It had taken about fifteen minutes from Keaton’s driveway to the edge of Newburgh, a town of about three thousand just east of Evansville. It was in Warrick County, and so Piper called their sheriff to let them know what she was doing; he’d already been on alert for the girl.
Piper had been here a few times when she was in high school, once doing research for a history paper on the Newburgh Raid. In the eighteen hundreds it was one of the largest river ports between Cincinnati and New Orleans, and had been the first town north of the Mason-Dixon Line that Confederate forces captured during the Civil War. Re-enactors gathered yearly to do battle.
It was a pretty place, with a charming downtown filled with specialty boutiques and antique shops. There were good restaurants along the riverfront. It was a place to live if you worked in Evansville and desired a slower pace when you came home.
And apparently it was where Cassidy Keaton intended to hop on a boat.
But why not Evansville? The big city had better river traffic. Better chance to book a boat.
“Why come here?” Oren mirrore
d Piper’s thoughts. “Newburgh? What the hell?”
“She’s at the Old Lock and Dam,” Keaton said. “I don’t understand why she’d—”
“Oren?”
“Almost there, Sheriff.”
“Keep the siren off.” She heard Oren growl, like she hadn’t needed to tell him that.
In the distance they saw the Celica, trunk popped, driver’s side door open, car empty, at the parking lot. The old Newburgh Lock and Dam was a recreation area now, complete with cement boat ramp that Cassidy Keaton was standing on.
Except she wasn’t getting into a boat.
The sign nearby said JERRY W. HUMPHREY SEAPLANE BASE.
A single-engine white and blue floatplane, Ohio Angel on the side, had come in low and pulled up, the prop still turning. Cassidy tossed in a duffle and a backpack, and jumped in just as Piper and Oren got out of the Ford. Piper ran.
They’d told Keaton to stay in the car, but of course that didn’t happen.
“Cassidy! Cass!” he hollered as he and Oren raced after Piper. “Cassssssssssssss!”
Piper hadn’t expected a floatplane. But neither had she expected that a teenager was capable of killing two elderly men just for money. In a heartbeat she’d left Oren and Keaton behind, good arm swinging, feet pounding across the parking lot, over a strip of grass, and then onto the cement landing.
Cassidy had closed the door and was yelling something to the pilot. Piper couldn’t make it all out, except for the, “Go, go, go!”
The plane moved away from the ramp, and Piper sprinted down the cement, feet touching the edge of the river as her leg muscles bunched. She leaped with every measure of her strength, right arm out and fingers grabbing a strut and Nikes landing hard against the pontoon. Slippery, she almost fell.
The plane rocked from the sudden impact, and she ducked under the single wing and grabbed the strut closer to the pilot’s door. Looking in she saw it had four seats, but only two were occupied—Cassidy in the back, and the pilot in the front, big duffle on the seat next to him.