Broken Build: Silicon Valley Romantic Suspense

by Rachelle Ayala

  Dave thanked him and rushed into the kitchen. Jen sat in front of the phone, wiping her eyes.

  He pulled up a chair. “The blue brush—the one you picked up. Who touched it besides you and Patty Brown?”

  “Well, it was lying around.” She stared at the phone as if it included hidden secrets. “Sherry could have used it too. Why?”

  “They didn’t find anything definite on the brush you collected. The black brush has a 25% match to my DNA. Do you think it was Christy’s brush?”

  “I have no idea… She wouldn’t have given it to them.”

  “Shall we go over and ask her? We’re only about an hour away.”

  Jen stiffened and sat straighter. “But what about Abby? The kidnappers still want the memory stick.”

  Dave stretched his elbows over his shoulders to get the kink out of his neck. “They don’t have Abby. There’s no paternity match so far.”

  Jen let out a sigh. “But where is she? We were so close.”

  “No, Jen. You thought we were close. This isn’t about Abby. My money’s on Craig Pearson.”

  “You mean the CEO of BuyFriend?” Jen didn’t meet his eye. She twirled the end of a strand of hair.

  “Right. He gave you a prepaid cell phone and instructions. But he didn’t count on me finding it. He also left a voicemail offering you a job. Wait a minute…”

  A twitch began between his shoulder blades and tickled the base of his neck. He moved his face in front of hers. “Greta brought you to Shopahol, and now she’s recruiting you for BuyFriend. Craig set up the harassment, pretending to be the kidnapper. He knew about your past so he had Rey blackmail you into submission. Something went wrong with Rey, maybe he felt guilty, or really cared about you, so Pearson had his thugs kill Rey and take the code from you.”

  Jen’s eyes pinpointed, and her eyebrows pinched in the middle. “But I gave them old code, stuff that no longer works.”

  “But don’t you see? That was what he needed for the patent lawsuit. To show he had the code first.”

  Jen swayed on her feet and palmed her forehead. “I didn’t know. Why am I always ruining things for you?”

  She leaned against the kitchen counter, her shoulders hunched. Dave hugged her from behind and kissed her neck. “Stop beating yourself up. What’s done is done.”

  He cleaned the kitchen, then shoved their things into the SUV. She quietly got into the passenger seat and sat without expression as he started the engine and backed down the driveway. Was she having doubts about marrying him?

  * * *

  Jen struggled not to cry. She couldn’t marry him now. Every fight would point back to her guilt, whether it was Abby or the code, not to mention Melissa being shot and his house getting trashed. He might forgive, but he could never forget, and with no DNA, the chances of getting Abby back were slim. Unless…

  Jen went over the events in her mind. There had to be something she wasn’t seeing. She had asked Christy about the memory stick while Dave was in the bathroom. Christy admitted to printing out poems for all her friends Friday morning before school. But she swore she didn’t have it later and had no idea where it went. Sammy called her Sunday morning and told her she was in danger. He had asked his friends to do an internet search, and they found an old real estate sales record pointing to a man who transferred his Saratoga house to Dave and bought another one in Reno.

  Jen looked out the window and bit her nails. She ran through each event again, untangled the knots and teased each possibility to the end before retracing another one.

  One of Christy’s friends must have told the crooks about the memory stick. They probably rifled through her purse yet didn’t find it, but pocketed her brush instead. Somehow Sammy found out they were after the stick so he escaped with her.

  “That’s it!” Jen slapped her thigh. “Whoever wants the memory stick didn’t know it was missing until Sunday evening. They never asked before, and I only got Rey’s cell phone after returning from Vera’s. When did you get Christy’s brush?”

  “Sunday evening.” Dave replied. “Listen, I hope you don’t think I’m blaming you for anything.”

  Jen waved her hand to shush him. This was too important. “Saturday, Christy finds out she’s related to you. She didn’t tell me because she wanted to check it out. Instead she told Sammy who probably told his friends. There’s this Uncle Boo he’s always talking about who’s also Vera’s friend. They decide to use Christy’s DNA to trick you into paying ransom.”

  “Yes, I got the envelope Sunday after coming back from the mall, and they never mentioned the memory stick.”

  “Right, and after I left Vera’s house, she called Uncle Boo to finish up the food. He must have told her about the memory stick and had someone drop the phone at my apartment.”

  “You’re right!” Dave gunned the engine to pass a truck, barely avoiding a head-on collision. “So you suspect Vera?”

  “Yes, she was too quick to hand me the birth certificate.” Jen fanned her heated face as her heartbeat galloped. She kicked the floor mat at her stupidity. “I didn’t understand it until now. The baby was unnamed. It just said Baby Girl.”

  Jen’s hands stopped waving, and she stared at Dave, her mouth suddenly dry. “What if Rey’s daughter is really Abby?”

  “Wait, so she wants us to think Rey’s daughter is Emily,” Dave said. “Why?”

  Jen closed her eyes to concentrate. Everything revolved around Rey. He had given her that pink envelope and talked about the daughter they’d have. Was that a hidden message?

  “Jen?” Dave’s voice interrupted her frenzied thoughts. “If Rey’s daughter is really Abby, why did Vera invite us to dinner? Wouldn’t she want to hide her from the only two people who could possibly recognize Abby?”

  Of course Dave wouldn’t think badly of Vera. Dave, Vera and Emily could almost be Dave, Jocelyn and Abby.

  “She didn’t exactly invite us together!” Jen pushed Dave’s bicep. “More like those oysters were meant for you.”

  The SUV swerved and the tires made clattering sounds on the bot dots. Dave regained control and huffed. “Will you take it easy? I’m driving.”

  “Fine, so it’s not Vera.” Jen’s voice was too gritty and hard. “That means the girl with Patty Brown is Abby. She loses custody of the baby she had with Rey and steals Abby. Sherry finds out Patty stole Abby and sent you the slideshow on the memory stick to claim the reward.”

  Dave jerked his head her direction. “That would only work if the DNA on the hairbrush matched. Are you sure you sent in the right brush?”

  There he went again, doubting her. Jen swallowed hard as a sharp pain prodded her stomach. “Whether you believe me or not, I saw Patty brush the girl’s hair. I saw where she left it, and I only touched the handle before putting it in a plastic baggie.”

  “Okay, I believe you.” Dave tapped her knee. “Do you still have the memory stick, note and envelope they sent with the slideshow?”

  “It’s at my apartment. I found it in Sherry’s room.”

  He honked at a car that cut too close. “Something’s not right. When did you have time to take it back to your apartment?”

  “What does it matter?” Jen’s fists tightened. He had a point. She’d stuck the envelope in her backpack, but it hadn’t been there when she was kidnapped, or the police would have found it. Could she have left it on her desk at work? Or had someone rifled through her backpack while she was in the lab?

  “Jen? Are you telling me everything?” He glanced at her a little too casually.

  A buzzing sensation rattled her from head to toe. “You still think I’m causing all the trouble, don’t you? This relationship will never work.”

  Dave jerked the wheel and skidded onto the rumble strips at the side of the freeway. He braked hard and pulled onto the shoulder, then shut off the engine. “We have to talk.”

  “What’s there to talk about? You’ll never forget that I lost Abby.” She swiveled the ring on her finger.

/>   He cupped his hand over hers. “Don’t take it off. You’ll break my heart. You said you didn’t want to hurt me.”

  He had her there. A deep ache drilled through her chest. She let him kiss her and think everything was okay. She’d find the memory stick and make a copy. She’d put a stick in the bus locker and give the original to Detective Mathews. Whatever was on the stick that Dave wasn’t supposed to see didn’t matter. He’d either trust her entirely, or he’d never trust her.

  Chapter 39

  Jen glanced at the dash clock. Just after two-thirty. Dave pulled into his driveway and raced around to open the car door for her.

  “Jen… is everything okay between us?” His grey eyes were serious and downcast.

  She couldn’t answer. She didn’t know. Everything would change once Detective Mathews had the memory stick.

  “We’ll talk later.” She kissed him tenderly and stepped from his SUV.

  “Will I see you this evening?”

  She hefted her backpack and unlocked her Eclipse. “Maybe, but I have to go now.”

  Before he had a chance to counter, she started the ignition and backed away without looking at him.

  Jen stopped at Target and bought two memory sticks, red and green. She drove to the self-storage. As she suspected, Rey’s memory stick lay on the floor near the box of cards and mementos Christy had flipped through.

  She needed to transfer the files from Rey’s stick to the two new ones, but her laptop had encryption shield installed to prevent file copying. Jen walked toward the front desk. The manager of the self-storage sat at the counter reading a magazine. An idle computer lay on the table behind him.

  After giving him fifty dollars, she copied the files to the new memory sticks. She skimmed the poems and essays, and scrolled through some of the photos, but didn’t have time to study it in depth. Her heart began a death march. The stick confirmed her guilt, that Rodrigo took Abby. The poem Christy copied was even gorier. A dull, twisting mass settled in her stomach and pushed into her ribcage. She gasped for breath.

  The manager turned. “You okay?”

  “Yes. Fine.” Jen extracted the sticks and thanked the manager, hurrying out to catch her breath. She walked back to the storage unit and locked the green memory stick inside. Then she put the two red ones in her purse, pulled out Mathews’ crinkled card and called him.

  She paced, kicking a loose pebble and blowing tension from her lips. This was it. Could she pull it off? Or would she rot in jail forever?

  The detective answered on the third ring. “Mathews, what can I do for you?”

  “I’m Jennifer Cruz Jones and I want to turn myself in.” She spilled all her words in a single breath.

  A pause followed by a short grunt. “You have a lawyer?”

  “Don’t need one. Meet me at the precinct?” Jen didn’t need any delays. She rubbed her palms on her jeans and fanned her chest.

  “Ring me when you get to the parking lot.” He ended the call.

  Jen sat in her car and pulled down the vanity mirror. Her eyes were puffy and her hair was frizzy. Her fingers shook while she applied mascara and traced her lips. She finished with a light dusting of powder to cover her sweaty nose and pulled her hair into a twist. Might as well go out looking decent.

  Twenty minutes later, she called Detective Mathews out of the station.

  “Let’s get a cup of coffee. How’ve you been?” He shook her hand.

  “Horrible.”

  They walked to a Starbucks. After ordering, they slid into a booth next to a window.

  Jen took off her sunglasses as the long rays of the sun dropped below the horizon. “Well, this is it.”

  “Sure, talk to me.” He stirred his latte.

  She took the two memory sticks out of her purse. “Here. All the evidence you need.”

  He stared at them. “Tell me.”

  She pointed to Rey’s stick. “I lied to you, like I lied to everyone else. I’m guilty of copying code for Rey.”

  At his raised eyebrow, she continued. “He gave me this stick, but before I could copy the files, I dropped it into a mass of wires, so I copied the code to another one. When I went outside to look for him, a man mugged me and took the stick with the code. They jumped into a white sedan and left. I went back into the building and slept in the lab. Then I found the stick the next morning.”

  “I knew you were lying. I just didn’t know why. Did you kill Rey?”

  “No.” Jen looked straight into his eyes and pulled Rey’s phone from her pocket. “But this is Rey’s missing cell phone. Someone left it on my doorstep Sunday night.”

  Matthew’s eyebrows shot clear to his hairline. “What?”

  Jen fished the packaging materials and note from her backpack and handed them to Mathews who perused it.

  “A woman called and said she wanted Rey’s memory stick back, that there was a poem on it ‘Key in the Door.’ She told me to leave the stick in a locker at the downtown CalTrain station. The key should be in the envelope.”

  Mathews turned the envelope. “Nope, nothing in here.”

  She grabbed the envelope and looked, then emptied her backpack on the table. “Crap! It must have fallen out in my apartment. Anyway, here’s what I want you to do. Take the real stick, and I’ll be back with the locker key. You can follow me to the CalTrain station and watch me put the fake stick into the locker and arrest whoever picks it up.”

  Mathews wagged Rey’s stick. “What exactly do you think is on this?”

  Jen blinked hard. She was aware how guilty she looked, but she couldn’t help wringing her hands. “Mr. Jewell’s daughter, Abby, was kidnapped six years ago by my fiancé, Rodrigo Custodio. I swear I didn’t know about it. The poem on the stick, ‘Key in the Door,’ tells how he did it.”

  Hot tears trickled down her cheeks, and she made no effort to wipe them. “I would never hurt Mr. Jewell. If I had known, I would have given my life to stop the kidnapping. But he’ll never believe me now. Everything’s on the stick, pictures of Rodrigo with me, Rodrigo with Abby just before the kidnapping. He tried to give me money after we broke up, but I wouldn’t take it.”

  She sniffed and held out her hands. “Arrest me.”

  He stirred his latte and shook his head. “I have to have grounds other than a cockamamie story you cooked up.” He tapped the table with his long fingers. “Why are you so eager to be arrested?”

  Her chest heaved and nausea bubbled in her gut. “I didn’t kill anyone, not Rodrigo, not Rey, and definitely not Jocelyn. If I’m arrested, the real killer will relax and you can catch him.”

  He held up his hand. “Whoa, slow down. Jocelyn?”

  The room spun as Jen tried to slow her breathing. “Read the poem ‘Ghost Ride’… chop shop… white car.”

  Mathews patted her shoulder. “I’ll take Rey’s stick and have a discussion with the D.A.”

  “I’ll cooperate to the fullest.” She dabbed her eyes with a napkin and put the copied stick in her purse.

  He took her left hand and looked at the ring. “You love him, don’t you?”

  “Yes. More than anything. Find his daughter. Please.”

  The detective stood to leave. “I’ll let you have another evening with him. See you tomorrow morning.”

  She turned her ring upside down and tucked the diamond into her palm. She’d have to return it before they arrested her. But for now, she’d treasure it secretly.

  * * *

  Jen stepped into her apartment and locked the door behind her. She turned on the lights. It looked just the way she’d left it. Her jacket was on the floor, and the locker key lay on the carpet near the bed.

  Her phone beeped with a text message from Praveena: Lester’s having trouble with labeling the auto-update fixes. Can you take a look?

  Jen slumped into a chair at the kitchen table and booted her laptop. What now? Last time anyone tried auto-update it had wedged all the servers. She tapped a message to her group, letting them know she was on it. Soo
n, she was busy with patches, labels, and preparing the build system to link in the new changes.

  Her stomach growled. It was close to nine and she’d forgotten to eat. Leaving her laptop open, Jen rummaged through the cabinets for oatmeal and peanut butter.

  The lock clicked and the apartment door opened. Jen’s breath caught in her throat. Patty Brown, Sherry’s friend, stepped in, followed by Bruce and Emily, Vera’s six-year-old niece.

  Jen looked from one to the other. “W-what are you doing here? Where’s Sherry?”

  And what was Emily doing with them?

  Bruce approached her; his hefty frame blocked the exit from the kitchen. His eyes narrowed and he tackled her, twisting her arm behind her back. Pain shot through her elbow and up to her shoulders.

  “Bruce, what are you doing?” Jen shouted. He was her coworker. Why was he with Patty?

  Adrenaline spiked painfully through her limbs, but she couldn’t get loose. He wrapped her wrists with plastic cable ties and Velcro-strapped her to a chair. Patty stood over her, sneering as if she smelled a skunk.

  “What’s going on?” Jen struggled against the bonds, looking at Emily who sucked on a lollipop. “Why do you have her here?”

  Patty slapped Jen’s face. “Where’s the memory stick?”

  Jen’s cheek stung and she opened her mouth to scream, but Bruce gagged her with a stinky tube sock. Patty grabbed Jen’s purse and dumped the contents. “Ah, here it is. I waited for you at the CalTrain station all evening.”

  She pocketed the stick and jumped to the laptop. “How wonderful you left yourself logged in.”

  “Uncle Boo, why is that woman tied up?” Emily asked between licks on her lollipop.

  Uncle Boo was Bruce?

  “She’s an Evil Woman.” Bruce knelt by the little girl’s side. “She’s trying to blow up the world, and Superwoman over there has to stop her.”

  “Should we call the police?” Emily asked.

  “The police can’t stop her. Only Superwoman can.” He opened the fridge. “Hey, you want milk or apple juice? How about tuna or Spam?”

  Emily wanted apple juice and tuna. Bruce served Emily the food, and they sat on the couch. He flipped on the TV. Jen’s chest tightened and her stomach clenched. Why were they acting as if this was a social visit while she was tied up?