Willow Glen Heist

by Alec Peche

  Willow Glen Heist

  Alec Peche

  GBSW Publishing

  Copyright © 2017 by Alec Peche

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to my first reader and my editor. Thanks to Liza Paolini for doing another review of the manuscript.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Also by Alec Peche

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Solve a nine year old bank heist? Retired detective Natalie Severino sent Damian Green an email detailing the crime. He vaguely remembered hearing about it in the news a decade ago. The SJPD had hired her as a consultant to close some of their two hundred cold cases. He’d already helped Natalie solve a couple of cold cases involving murder; a bank heist should be easier. Natalie was the detective, Damian was the computer whiz, able to break into any system or analyze any complex set of data. It was a great partnership as he wanted to sit quietly on the sidelines feeding Natalie helpful information but he absolutely wanted his name kept out of the press. Damian stared out to sea thinking about the variables involved in such a case.

  Damian, Ariana and Hermione were seated on the deck of the catamaran, anchored off of the Australian Barrier Reef. They’d taken a private charter to Madang in Papua New Guinea, stayed overnight and then picked up the boat and loaded it with provisions for a week of sailing and scuba diving. Ariana’s dog, Miguel had also joined them.

  It had taken a while to get used to the noise of water slapping against the hull. When out in the open sea between the two countries, it sounded like a drum beating constantly. Damian had slowed the boat down just to lessen the noise. It had taken a day and a half to reach their destination, but they had stopped and snorkeled or scuba dived in a few places along the way. Once they got to the reef they moved south along it, never diving in the same place twice. It had been a magical week with no worries that any of them might be under attack. This lunch was their last meal before they would head to Cairns and the plane ride home to California.

  “This was the most wonderful vacation,” sighed Hermione and then she wistfully added, “The only thing missing was Mom and Dad.”

  Damian and Ariana looked over at the thin, wiry fourteen year old with short cropped black hair. Her natural haircolor had been a shade of red and with lots of sunblock, she’d avoided getting sunburned this past week.

  “We’ve found not a clue to their whereabouts,” mused Damian. “Are you interested in telling me more about your parents so I can find them?”

  Hermione paused weighing the pros and cons of telling Damian about her parents and as she decided multiple times before, she shook her head ‘no’.

  The three of them had created a little family over the past four months. Hermione lived with Ariana, but visited Damian’s home on Red Rock Island located inside San Francisco bay several times week. He’d found her asleep in his dinghy when he returned late one night to his home. She’d been on the run from a group of men that had broken into her family home and either kidnapped or killed her parents.

  Damian had created a new identity for her and enlisted Ariana’s help in caring for the teenager. They knew they were substitute parents until the fate of her own parents was determined. They hadn’t contacted the authorities as they didn’t want her lost in the foster care system and frankly Damian thought he could be as good as the police in finding her parents. So far, despite coming to know Ariana and Damian very well, Hermione had failed to break her silence on her parents.

  “Okay, you know you can tell me whenever the mood strikes you,” Damian said trying to lighten the air between them. He was over six feet tall, and sun and grief had etched lines into his forty-something face. Like Hermione, he was heavily muscled from swimming, as well as running on his treadmill. His hair had never looked whiter than after the week in the South Pacific sun.

  Hermione looked a little relieved and nodded.

  Just then, Miguel whined as he’d done the past week indicating he wanted to go overboard for a swim. The dog was a Portuguese Water dog who loved the water, and it was so much warmer here than at his home in San Francisco. Damian opened the gate to the stairs at the back of the boat and the dog dived in. They had a ball that floated and so he was the luckiest of dogs playing fetch off the coast of Australia.

  “I’m happy we didn’t have any middle of the night interruption like we did in Cozumel,” Ariana said keeping an eye on the dog. “Damian, your plan of landing at that small airport in Papua New Guinea, and the rental of this boat has kept us safe. I’m also glad we’re not returning to Madang; I didn’t enjoy the noise of the waves hitting the hull. You’re a brilliant vacation planner.”

  “We could have been hit by pirates leaving Madang, but I had our weapons ready,” Damian said with a smile.

  Pirate attacks in this region of the world were rare but still happened. Damian used his engineering smarts to devise a self-defense system for the boat. He had a motion detector on the boat that could sense another boat approaching from a mile away. He brought a drone, water balloons, and three power washers, all containing his signature pepper juice. It would have blinded any pirates that got close. Still if they shot enough holes in the catamaran, they could’ve sunk. He was even prepared for that with scuba sets ready to go at all times each packed with an inflatable life raft. If all else failed they’d leave the ship and go underwater for a bit, swim away and then resurface with life rafts. He’d also fashioned a mask and breathing apparatus harness for the dog and he was glad he hadn’t had to put that to the test.

  Damian was a modern day MacGyver, capable of building anything to meet his needs. He owned many patents and collected hefty royalty checks based on his ever expanding list of inventions. Even during this vacation, he’d been experimenting with wave and solar energy to power the catamaran. He was returning the boat with nearly full gas tanks as they had been able to generate their own power about four hours into the voyage.

  He also set up a satellite communication system that protected their location. It bounced from server to server around the world before hitting a server in Iceland which was a long way away from their current position.

  Ariana sought to change the subject and asked, “You said you received an
intriguing email from your detective friend. What new case does she want you to work on?” Her brunette bob was drying around a face remarkable for its dimples that appeared when she smiled. Shorter than the teenager and the man, she was a compact figure.

  “It’s a nine year old bank heist.”

  “A bank heist? I thought the robbers never got away with robbing banks and doesn’t the FBI solve those kinds of cases?”

  “That’s good question; you’re right about the FBI. I’ll ask Natalie why this is the local police’s case.”

  “What did they steal?” Hermione asked.

  “Sixty million in cash and jewelry. They got both the money in the vault and they opened some safe deposit boxes that people stored expensive things in.”

  “Wow that’s a lot of money and double wow that they have never been caught,” said the teenager.

  “Fortunately, they robbed the bank after hours, so no one was hurt.”

  “Yeah, that’s good,” Hermione replied. “So why weren’t they caught? I thought they took your picture every time you entered a bank. Wouldn’t it be easy to figure out who you are?”

  “These guys drilled underground so there were no cameras on them until they reached the vault and they had something with them that caused the vault camera to fail.”

  “How about serial numbers?” Ariana Asked. “I thought that banks kept track of serial numbers.”

  “I thought so too, but that must not be the case,” Damian replied. “Once we return home, I’ll have a lengthy discussion with Natalie about the case and get all of those details.”

  “Aren’t you going to be working on your new company?” Hermione asked.

  “I just do what Ariana says I need to do in regards to the company. She has the lion’s share of the work getting it going. So I’ll still be able to give Natalie some time for her cases.”

  “How about me?” Hermione asked. “I thought you were going to teach me how to play water polo so I could try out for the team.”

  “We could do that right now if you want. We’ll use the back steps to represent the net. You have to hit the first or second step. Anything higher is higher than a water polo net and is out of bounds. We’ll use Miguel’s toy ball as the ball. Ariana will be one team and you the other. So whoever has the ball is playing offense with the other person playing defense. I’ll defend the stairs as goalie to both of you.”

  Soon they were having a raucous time playing the game along Damian’s guidelines. Damian gave them some tips between each ten minutes of play time and he could see improvement by both women. Hermione had stamina from her training as a swimmer, but Ariana was slyer and in the end she won.

  They decided to have one more dive, and then shower and clean up the boat for their journey to Cairns. Their plane was to leave with them at seven in the evening and would arrive home the next day in San Francisco.

  Later that night all three of them were asleep on fold-out beds as the plane journeyed back to the United States. They all had challenges ahead once they arrived home. Damian had a company to get up and running with Ariana’s considerable help and Hermione would start school in two days.

  Chapter 2

  Damian entered the limousine that would carry them to their respective homes. He rarely ordered a limo for anything, but because of the dog and the scuba gear, they had a large amount of luggage and gear. He’d had an acquaintance check on his cats in his absence, making sure they had sufficient kibble to eat. It was the longest he’d ever been away from them and he would have to get back in their good graces.

  He escorted Ariana and Hermione into their house making sure there were no strangers inside and bringing their luggage in. He continued the journey across Marin County and south across the Richmond San Mateo Bridge to his home on Red Rock Island. They’d landed in the middle of the day on a Friday, just missing the worst of the commuter traffic where a forty minute journey could become a two hour journey. As he crossed the bridge, he could see his island in the distance and he was happy to be home. This was the longest he spent away from the island since moving there nearly seven years ago.

  His wife and two girls had been murdered by a convict that was mistakenly released from prison over seven years ago. Natalie had solved the case and killed the convict during his arrest when he tried to kill her. His first six years had consisted of two visitors to his island - Natalie and Mike, who provided water taxi service and parcel delivery for him.

  Since Hermione arrived in his life, both she and Ariana had been to his home multiple times as well as Natalie’s son and his fiancée. Angus Walsh, an employee of his new company had also visited. His first six plus years had been quiet and productive, but since Hermione entered his life, he found himself doing things for her that he might have done for his youngest daughter if she’d survived.

  The final hurdle was in getting Hermione to trust him and Ariana. Damian might be one of the top ten computer geniuses worldwide, but he had been unable to trace her parents to determine if they were dead or alive. Like Hermione he’d seen the security footage that captured her parents struggling, then being taken out of their home in canvas bags, but it was unclear as to whether they were dead or alive. Hermione’s name had been changed from Hannah to Hermione, and they had done what they could to change her appearance. She knew some secrets about her parents that she hadn’t shared with him, and he’d been unable to trace them or even identify who they really were. He could only hope that someday she would trust him, as he had her hidden so well that her parents would never find her.

  As usual, he sighed with frustration that he couldn’t figure out the mystery of Hermione’s parents. Oh well, it would come someday; unless her parents were dead and not looking for her. She went back to school on Monday and would try out for the water polo team after school that day. He and Ariana would be in attendance to cheer her on. Over the weekend they planned to play two more games in the bay with a proper net and ball and wetsuits as the water was too cold to stay in for long even if you were working hard staying afloat.

  Jet lag began to catch up with Damian as they’d crossed eighteen time zones on their way home. He’d take a short nap, and then go fishing to get Bailey and Bella their first fresh fish meal in some eight days. He also wanted to finish the construction on Hermione’s room. He knew it could have been built quickly if he’d just hired a team but he couldn’t stand having strangers on his island as he didn’t trust them to keep their mouths zipped about his home. The room was small and windowless and in the back of his lab, but he used a plasm screen to simulate a real window. He had a camera on the side of the island that was the source for the screen so she’d see a lot of fog, a little sun, and the darkness of night. She’d have to use his bathroom upstairs, but she wouldn’t stay here that often and really all she needed was a bed and some privacy. She’d picked the paint color and it was called ‘evening peace’, a sort of light purple-silver color. All that was left for him to do was paint the room and install the door. He had a bedroom set that she chose from IKEA all ready to be installed once he finished painting. By Sunday, he thought in the middle of a big yawn, she could stay overnight with him in comfort or just have some place to go when she visited.

  He laid down for that quick nap with thoughts of everything on his to-do list. When his cell phone alarm chirped an hour later, he was groggy but ready to tackle some of the stuff on his list. Then his cell rang with an incoming call from Natalie.

  “You’re back! How was your scuba diving trip?” Natalie asked.

  “It was great. The coral reefs are very beautiful. Now I’m trying to shake off an eighteen hour time zone change.”

  “What do you think about the bank heist cold case? It would be a real feather in my cap if I could solve a case that the FBI and detectives couldn’t solve at the time!”

  “Natalie, it sounds interesting and I have a few ideas, but before I dive into this case, I’d like to read whatever cop file you have on the robbery.”

  �
��Sure I can get you that. I’ll just scan it here and email you shortly.”

  “Besides the glory of this case, why else are you interested in this case?”

  “It’s the mystery of it, I suppose. I remember the case at the time and thinking it would be solved quickly. Our best detectives were on the case and were joined by the FBI. Surely all of those smart and talented people would solve the case. But the days went by and other than understanding how the robbery occurred, they never made any headway and it remains unsolved to this day.”

  “So what’s different now that you think you can solve it?” Damian asked.

  “Fresh eyes for one thing, plus I’m a good detective, and I’ve got you. Your talent is in putting together obscure pieces of data so that things make sense.”

  Damian had to laugh at Natalie’s description. If one of his computer science professors heard her explanation, he would have been affronted as so simple an explanation for what a computer scientist needed to do to manipulate data so that it made sense.

  “Ah right, I’ll help as usual. It’s nice working on a case that isn’t a murder. I hate reading the gruesome details of some of your crime scenes. I’ll also admit that I would like to outsmart these thieves. I’m a little fuzz brained at the moment, but when my head clears in the next twenty-four hours, I’ll read the case and give you a call. Are you going to be around this weekend?”