"What are you doing?" I watch as she slowly turns her head and looks towards me.
"Just missing him," I notice she has his baseball uniform in her lap. "He never even got to wear this." She pulls it close to her face.
"We'll get him back." I sit down next to her. I'm not sure I’m going to be able to do what he wants me to do to get him back. I reach out and touch the smooth texture of Tommy's red and white baseball uniform. A few days ago was supposed to be his first game. This was the first year he decided he wanted to play baseball. He never had any interest up until last year when he approached me and indicated he wanted to give it a try. We worked every night on hitting and throwing until both our hands were full of blisters, but he was ready. We were all so excited for the first game. I don’t even know if they ever played. I think that was the night I went to the field, but I don’t know anymore. I close my eyes and try to imagine Tommy standing out at third base fielding grounders. "What time is it?"
"It's just after noon." I look around the room surprised to see the time on Tommy's clock. I can’t believe I slept that long. "Sorry I slept so long."
Michelle looks at me. Her hair is pulled into a pony tail. "I'm glad you did. I'm charging your phone downstairs."
I look at the uniform again. "Thanks." She places her hand on mine. "Where's our clock?"
"It's in the guest room. I wanted to let you sleep as long as you could. I know you always look at the clock." I try to smile, but my mouth doesn’t cooperate. "Why are you so sure we're going to get him back? It's been almost a week now."
I look away. I want to tell her I'm not, because I don’t think I can kill a man, but instead I just say "I just know."
"I hope so. Are you going out today?"
"I don’t know. I might head down to the police station to see if I can find anything out?" She looks at me curiously. "I'm sure there isn’t anything, but it just makes me feel like I'm doing something." She nods. I can’t believe today is Monday, two more days until Wednesday.
"The officers had to leave, so we are by ourselves now?"
"What?"
"Stanton came by this morning and said they would be better served having them investigate the two murders to get us closer to Tommy. They left all the phone equipment here and said to call right away if we hear anything." I nod my head not really sure what to think. "So I guess that means they don’t think they are going to call right?"
"I guess, but they probably feel they will have better luck working the murders."
"I'm so scared for him if he's still alive." I look at her.
"He is still alive Michelle." She looks out the window. I can see the sun's rays shining through the half-closed blinds.
"Why are you so sure? Is there something you're not telling me?" I look up at the ceiling at the spot where I found the camera. It was located near the light, impossible to see unless you were looking for it. I know there has got to be microphones in here somewhere.
"I'm just sure. I know we would have heard something by now if he wasn't okay."
"How do we know he's not lying out there in the woods somewhere waiting for us to come find him?" I pull her close.
"Michelle, he may only be thirteen, but we raised him to be able to handle things. If he were in trouble I'm confident he would figure out what to do. We just have to keep our hopes up and give the police a chance."
"It's been almost a week. I think that is a chance."
"They're doing all they can." She quickly releases herself from me.
"How would you know? You’re never here." I try and pull her back, but she squirms away from me.
"It's the only thing I can do Michelle. I feel like I need to keep looking for him.
"We'll go look some more. I'm going to clean up his room." I slowly stand up and kiss her on the forehead. She keeps her eyes on the uniform and begins to fold it neatly along with Tommy's other clothes. I walk to the doorway and watch her fold a few more shirts. I really want to tell her how I know he's okay and show her the video but I can't, so I quickly walk out of the room and down the stairs. I find my iPhone in the kitchen plugged in. I push the home button and check for any messages. There are none, so I pour bowl of cereal and sit at the kitchen table. I decide to turn on the TV in the kitchen; it's a small 22 inch LCD we bought for Michelle to watch when she's cooking. I turn it on to a local news channel and the first thing I see is a picture of the young teller I saw in the bank. The news anchors are showing pictures of her and her fiancé. I can't believe how young she looks. They show a picture of the outside of the bank and my heart skips a few beats just seeing the place again. I quickly click the off button and decide to call Jim and Brian. I dial Jim's number first. He answers on the second ring.
"Hi Sheldon, anything new?"
I shake my head and answer no. "Have you guys had any luck finding out anything about how the website was hacked?"
I don’t hear anything for a minute. "I told you it traces back to that Sorenson guy." Well, it turns his computer is being used as an attack computer."
"What do you mean?"
"Brian was able to access his computer and he found tons of trojans and executables that were set up to run malicious programs. The computer was being used as a launch pad for an attack, so we shut it down. I hope you don’t mind."
I stand up and look out the window in the back yard. I watch a small blue bird lift off a branch and fly into the sky. "No, not at all. Do what you have to do. We're you able to find out anything about where the programs came from?"
"Not yet, but Brian thinks he can trace them back to the origin. You know how he is. He won’t give up." I nod. "He thinks with the combination of what was on our servers and what he found there, he'll be able to figure it out. He said it will just take a few days." I want to say I don’t have a few days, but I thank him and he promises me they will call as soon as Brian cracks the code which I know he eventually will. The guy just has a knack for getting to the bottom of things and he won’t stop until he gets there. I remember last year we had a mysterious issue with printers shutting down for no apparent reason that lasted a few weeks. I would come to work in the morning and find Brian asleep on the floor in front of one of our many large network printers where he had spent the night trying to figure it out. It turns out one of us had somehow written a task on one of the servers to shut them down in the middle of the work day, but it wasn't showing it anywhere. Brian figured it out and solved the problem, great guy to have on your team.
"Thanks for working on it. Please let me know what you find."
"You got it. We're going to take this guy down."
"Great. Just don’t go to the authorities until you let me know okay?"
"No problem. Is there something else going on here? You don’t think this is related to your son's disappearance do you?"
"I don’t think so, but I want to make sure."
"Okay. We'll keep digging. Let me know if you hear anything about Tommy." I hang up the phone and as soon as I put it back in my pocket, it begins to vibrate. It's another text message. I quickly read through the text. It says, "I hope you’re doing well Sheldon. More details will come for Wed night." As usual the text vanishes immediately after I finish reading it. Suddenly, I get an idea. I throw on a jacket and head for the Tahoe. On the front seat the cameras are still there. I head directly to work. I enter through a maintenance door to avoid any contact with anyone. Luckily, the IT staff is located near the maintenance section and my office is right around the corner. I quickly brush into the maintenance office. Luckily, no one is in there so I call Jim and Brian to me. A minute later, they both appear at the door with surprised looks on my face.
"What are you doing here? I just talked to you." I nod and scoot the chair closer to a desk.
"Please come in and shut the door." They both shuffle in and sit on the chairs in front of me. I can see the anticipation on their faces. "I was wondering if you guys could take a look at these." I point at the pile of small cameras on
the desk. They both lean in closer. Brian picks one of them up in his hands and twists it around looking at it closely.
"Are these IP cameras?" I nod. "Where did you get them?"
"Let's just say I found them and I need to find out anything you can find out about them." I look down at the cameras. Each one is about the size of a battery. "Like the IP address and where they are being broadcasted to."
"That may be tough, but I might be able to get something off the memory if it hasn’t been flushed." I nod at Brian and look at Jim who nods back as if he understands.
"Is this related to the website thing?" I nod at Jim again. He reaches down and gathers up the remaining cameras. Brian is closely examining the one he picked up.
"I hate to say this but is there any way you guys can get on this right away. I mean do your work here first. I'll pay you."
They both shake their heads. "No, don’t even suggest that. If this has anything to do with what I think it does, we will do this right now." I try and smile at Jim.
"You can use my office if you want. How's everything else going around here?"
Brian quickly sets the camera back down on my desk. "It's been a slow few days after the virus fiasco. We're doing upgrades on servers now."
"Sounds good…you guys are the best." I stand up and tap each of their shoulders. "I've got to go. Please don’t mention this to anyone, and don’t go to the police before you talk to me."
Jim looks up at me. "Are you sure there's nothing you want to talk about." I shake my head no and thank them again. I drive around for the next few hours, passing both Sorenson's office and house multiple times. I'm tempted to stop by, but I just keep driving until I decide to head back home. Michelle is in the kitchen eating a bowl of cereal. We talk for a moment and then I head upstairs and step into Tommy's room and sit on the bed. All the clothes are gone and the room is spotless. I click on the video of Tommy and imagine he's sitting in this room with me. I try and see myself shooting Sorenson, but I just can’t go through with it. I don’t know what I'm going to do. I can’t let Tommy down, but on the same hand I can’t kill someone in cold blood. I watch the video a few more times until Michelle calls my name to tell me I have a phone call. I run down the stairs and pick up the phone.
"Hello."
"Hi Mr. Smith, this is Douglas Sorenson. You came by my office the other day." I feel my stomach begin to flip as I realize I’m supposed to kill this guy in two days. Michelle is looking at me wondering who I'm talking to. I whisper Sorenson's name. She shrugs her shoulders.
"How are you?" I lean against the counter.
"I'm fine. Remember you asked me if I can think of anything that might help to let you know." I feel a tinge of excitement begin to grow. I look at Michelle who is waiting for another response from me. "Well I think I may have something. I'm not sure if it will help or not, but the guy in that picture from the school is a former client of mine."
"What?" I feel Michelle step closer to me. "Are you sure?"
"Yes. I have his file right here. His name is Frank Harris. I haven’t gone to the police yet. I figured I would let you know first." Michelle leans in to listen.
"Do you have his address?" I can’t believe it. We may have him. Sorenson gives me an address in the town next to us. He says it is a few years old, but as far as he knows it is valid. I thank him over and over again. Hang up and give Michelle a giant hug. We both run to the garage and I quickly back the Tahoe out of the garage.
Chapter 13
"Shouldn't we call Stanton and let him know what we're doing?"
I nod to her. "Let's just check it out first." We pull into a middle class neighborhood. It's similar to ours, but the houses are a little newer and the yards a little more manicured. We make a few turns and listen to the soft female voice on the GPS guide us. We slowly turn onto a small narrow road with only a few houses on it. It is a cul-de-sac, and apparently the largest houses in the neighborhood reside on. The sides of the road are covered with trees, so it's difficult to see the house numbers, but as we reach a small circle at the end of the road the GPS cries out "destination reached". Michelle and I both look at each other. I can feel the excitement jumping off us as we pull in front of a large brick colonial. It's the kind of home that appears to be cared for. There isn't a shrub out of place and the yard is green and cut in parallel rows. I'm not really sure what to do. There are two cars in the driveway; two late model BMW's.
"What do we do?" I place the car in park in the middle of the circle just beyond the house.
"I think we need to see if Tommy's in there."
"Shouldn’t we call the police now Sheldon." I look all around us. The next closest house is barely visible across the street and looks like no one is home. I turn the ignition off.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm going to head up there and just look around. Why don't you stay here just in case." She nods, but looks a little nervous. "I have a good feeling about this."
"If you're not back in about five minutes, I'm calling Stanton."
"That's fine." I lean over and kiss her softly on the cheek. "I love you."
"I love you too. Please be careful." I slowly step out of the Tahoe. I see Michelle slide over to the driver's seat and turn the ignition back on. I wave to her as I walk towards the house. It has a large driveway and to the right of it is a heavy band of trees and bushes. I creep across to that side of the yard. The house is far enough away from the street, so unless someone is looking out one of the upper floors they aren’t going to see me. I'm hoping Tommy is in one of those rooms. I try and imagine entering the bedroom he is in and pull him out of there. I can feel my heart beating faster as I move through the shrubbery. Luckily, it is only knee high so I have no problem climbing through it. I angle towards the far right side of the house staying under the cover of the trees. I'm not really sure what I’m looking for or what I'm actually going to do, but I know I must keep going. A few minutes later, I am parallel to the side of the house. There are two windows on the second floor on the side, but I'm way too far away to tell if they're occupied. I decide to continue on around to the back. I suddenly stop when I hear voices. I carefully kneel down beside a large evergreen and peek around the side of it. There are two men facing me about fifty yards away in an enclosed pool area. They are both looking in my direction. I can almost feel their eyes burning into me. I gently get down to the prone position. It's one I'm comfortable with after my time in my Army. I don’t move a muscle. I can hear them talking and it sounds like their voices are getting louder. I slowly lift my head and can see them walking in my direction. They both are holding hand guns out in front of them and appear to be in their thirties or forties dressed in shirts and ties. I'm not sure what to do, so I start crawling back in the direction I came. I'm trying to be as quiet as possible, but with all the small twigs below me, I know they must be able to hear me. I decide to get up and start running. I sprint back through the trees leaping over the small groups of shrubs until I end up on the driveway. I can hear them yelling at me from behind but I don’t stop. I run all the way to the Tahoe and hop in the passenger side startling Michelle. She instinctively begins driving around the circle and up the street. I look behind me and see the two men run out onto the road. They are waving their guns behind us, but they don’t fire. We just keep going. I explain to Michelle what happened and she insists that we call Stanton. I agree and he tells him to meet him around the corner in about fifteen minutes.
"So what do you think?" Michelle pulls the Tahoe over onto the side of the road.
I'm out of breath. "I'm not sure what was going on back there, but they saw me and started coming after me."
"Do you think they have Tommy?"
I shake my head. "I don’t know. I only made it to the back, but one of the guys resembled the one in the picture." I watch Michelle almost smile. "But it was hard to tell because they were far away."
"I hope he's here Sheldon. How much time has gone by since we called Stanton?"
I look at the clock on the dash. "It's been almost fifteen minutes." A minute later we see Stanton's unmarked pull up next to us. I fill him in on exactly what happened and tell him that one of the guys looks like the one in the school picture. I see his expression change from one of disbelief to one of excitement.
"I'm going to go down there and see what's going on." He looks down the road.
"I'm coming with you." I walk towards the passenger door.
"You know I can’t allow that." I ignore him and climb into the passenger seat. Michelle turns the truck off. "We'll be right back. Stay put. I called a few other officers so you may see some cars come by. She nods. I figure Stanton probably doesn't want to go alone, so he reluctantly agrees that I can come along, plus he knows there's no way I'm going to get out unless he forces me. I direct him back to the cul-de-sac and we pull up in front of the house. The two BMW's are still there, but there is no sign of the two men. We get out and begin to walk up the driveway. I see Stanton's hand rest on his gun as we approach the front door. It's a double door painted dark green. Stanton knocks loudly on the door. No one answers. He continues to knock and after a minute he waves at me to step back. He is looking up at the second-story window right above the front door. "You see that?"
Fatal Decision Page 9