The Ivy Nash Thrillers: Books 4-6: Redemption Thriller Series 10-12 (Redemption Thriller Series Box Set)

by John W. Mefford

  A bird chirped from a tree limb hanging over the front steps of the modest, Tudor-style home in the historic King William District of San Antonio that Stan shared with his wife, Bev, and their son, Ethan. He said it reminded him of some of the small New Jersey towns, where some of his family lived.

  I reset the timer on my watch. “You ready for a good run this—”

  “Hold on.” He held up a finger on his left hand, but I could also see the nub on his right arm move. I tried not to stare. He disappeared inside for a moment.

  I was anxious to pick Stan’s brain on a couple of topics, the fake-kidnapping case involving Megan Espinoza, and the search for dirt on Zeke, something that I’d need to keep discreet. At the same time, I didn’t want to add any extra burden to his life. I’d have to be careful how I approached the topic. At least on the fake kidnapping case, I hoped he’d see me as a benefit to his investigation. We’d worked in that capacity in the past. Of course, that was before his arm was amputated. His outlook on life since then seemed to be less jovial, more about surviving every day. It made sense to me. But I knew that was no way to live.

  I spread my feet, leaning forward until I could feel my hamstrings stretch. I thought about the previous late-night search for information on Petro Udovenko. I learned he was a former member of the Soviet Union’s Red Army more than three decades earlier. Since then, there was no evidence to suggest he was even alive. But I knew my method of retrieving information was limited. I needed access to data only people in our intelligence-gathering community would hold. Stan had a cousin who worked for the FBI out of the Boston office. Nick Radowski was a leaner version of Stan and more self-disciplined on the eating front. He’d actually turned into a marathon runner in the last year or two. Something about being ribbed by his longtime partner, a snarky female agent named Alex Troutt—Nick’s words, not mine.

  I met Nick a few months ago when official FBI work brought him to San Antonio. His case overlapped with my ECHO business, and we ended up working together to capture a predator. It felt like we’d worked well together, had a pretty good connection. Would he give me a few minutes of his time to at least offer some options on how I could find out more information on Udovenko? That was what I wanted to bounce off Stan. I was hoping he’d see that part of the discussion as a distraction from his real job.

  Even though I knew the pace of our jog would rival that of a tortoise, I continued to stretch as multiple birds chirped overhead. Through the dense foliage, I could see a few wispy clouds that would likely burn off, leaving us with another blue-sky day. At least this one was supposed to stay under a hundred degrees.

  While Stan had yet to actually state that he hated running or otherwise working out, it was obvious that exercise was not something that Stan enjoyed. But running in this heat might be on par to Stan being forced to eat kale every meal for a year. Born and bred in Brooklyn, Stan was a meat-and-potatoes man. Well, that and any junk food he could get his hands on: donuts, candy bars, greasy burgers, you name it. But he was working on it.

  At least three times a week, I’d shown up no later than seven a.m., and we’d go on a jog. His goal was to run in the Boston Marathon next spring. To make that happen, he had to run a marathon in Dallas by December, where he would hopefully qualify for Boston.

  Given where he was in his training, that was no more than a distant dream. And, frankly, one I wasn’t sure he really wanted. Every day since Stan had lost his arm, he’d accepted one challenge after another during his recuperation. He wasn’t the kind of guy to back down, but I’d also seen his frustration redline on more than one occasion. I couldn’t blame him. In fact, every time I saw him struggle to function in life with only one arm, it just added to my guilt. My stalker, my monster, had done this to him. While Milton Weber had avoided a long trial by admitting everything he’d done and was now safely tucked away in prison, the wake of his destruction was something that would never go away. He’d killed countless people and maimed Stan—all because of his twisted vendetta against me.

  “Okay, I guess I’m ready now,” Stan said as he popped back out of the house.

  I noticed what looked like donut crumbs in his mustache, but I chose not to point it out. “Everything good?”

  He glanced at the door as he slipped a headband over his coarse head of hair. “Ethan had one of his episodes. But he finally calmed down.”

  Ethan was autistic and, like some kids on the spectrum, experienced times when he couldn’t deal with certain stimuli or other people. Then he would lose control, throw a tantrum. To me, Stan and Bev were heroes in the way they handled Ethan, but I could see the stress it caused both of them.

  “I’m sure you’ll feel better after a good run.”

  He grunted, and we walked down the steps, then headed north on Madison.

  “Oh, your shoe’s untied,” I said, coming to a stop after jogging past just one house. He stopped and tried to use the drawstrings on his shoe specifically designed for someone with one usable hand.

  “Dammit all to hell,” he said.

  “Got a problem?” I said, reaching my hand toward his shoe.

  “I got it. It just takes me longer.”

  I gave him all the time he needed to use his one good hand to untangle the laces and pull the drawstring taut. He’d actually become pretty good at using his prosthesis, but he’d left it on the couch. As he stood up, I took in the Stan Radowski workout attire: a blue Dri-FIT shirt that made him look seven months pregnant, a pair of baggy basketball shorts that had me wondering if he had an ass, and a shiny pair of green and blue running shoes with white athletic socks pulled up to his knees.

  We jogged three blocks to the end of the street, then turned left onto Turner.

  “Not sure I can make it much farther,” he said, huffing out each word.

  We’d only jogged about a quarter of a mile.

  “Let’s try to make it to the park up ahead.”

  A loud grunt, but he pushed forward, and about ten minutes later, we made it a full half mile. Leaning against a tree, he gasped for air for a good five minutes. Then he went straight to the water fountain.

  “You going to make it, old man?”

  He turned his head and gave me the eye.

  “What? You’re older than me.”

  He wiped his mouth, stood up. “It’s not my age. It’s this.” He grabbed a chunk of fat at his waist.

  “Stan…” I bit the inside of my cheek.

  “What?” He splayed his arms—rather, his arm and his nub. It looked kind of funny. Did he see me smile? His eyes shifted to his right arm, then looked back at me.

  I was just about to apologize when he let out a loud chuckle. I started giggling, and in no time, we were both crying from our fits of laughter.

  “Oh damn…I needed that,” he said, wiping tears from his face.

  “Glad I could get you there,” I said.

  “And then some. Oh my.”

  15

  We began to walk through the park, trees providing decent shade, so we weren’t pouring with sweat. My love of parks had waned since I was abducted by Milton earlier in the year. I used to think that every park had at least one place that was its serenity. Now, I wondered the opposite: where was the most secluded location that offered the best opportunity for a psycho to kidnap you, or even kill you?

  But with it being in full daylight, I was able to keep my pulse in check. My eyes, though, darted around like I was being hunted.

  “I hear you got a visit from Megan Espinoza.”

  “You knew? Do you secretly work for the NSA?”

  He tried to arch an eyebrow, but his headband had both eyebrows already there.

  “Word got around the station very quickly after the responding officer returned from the ECHO building, where Megan’s car apparently had mowed over a street sign.”

  “Oh, that. Megan’s got issues, without a doubt. But I think they’d still be mostly invisible had she not been victimized by the people who pulled off t
his fake-kidnapping escapade. Even hours later, I could see that she was still reeling from the possibility of losing her daughter, Annie.”

  He shook his head, his lips pursed. “It’s the worst fucking thing you can do to a parent, outside of actually taking their child. The way Megan described the call…it literally made my heart race. I really felt for her, and that’s saying something, given my tendency toward skepticism.”

  We came up to another fountain, and Stan stopped to drink more water. It was as if his body had been put through a three-hour boot camp instead of a snail-like, fifteen-minute crawl. “Is Megan…” he began to say, water drooling from his mouth. He wiped it away. “Is Megan hoping you can find these hackers before the cops can? Feel free to jump in and help. I got no ego. But it won’t be easy.”

  I put my hand on his back and immediately regretted it, with the sweat and all. “You used the term hackers.”

  “So far, we’ve confirmed more than a dozen cases like this. We’ve brought in local FBI support to help us track their online presence. The thought right now is that it’s a small group of people who are nothing more than computer hackers. They search for data on possible targets, then use certain technology to pull off the life-like call, where you hear your kid screaming or whatever. They might even employ one or more real actors.”

  “Hackers. Never thought about that angle. Any idea of their location?”

  “About two hundred. The tech guys were able to pull some packet information from a cell tower before it disappeared into never-never land and the IP bounced around the entire planet. These people aren’t just one step ahead of us, they’re about ten miles ahead of us.”

  “Did you share this with Megan?”

  “I told her we had indications that the group could have ties to the computer hacking industry, but I’m not sure she heard me. She was very emotional, almost belligerent. But we let it pass because we knew what she’d been put through. You know how it goes, the hacking theory is just that—a theory, until proven or disproven.”

  “Makes sense,” I said, my eyes aimlessly scanning the dirt as ideas bounced around my mind. “I guess the question is: why her?”

  “Huh?” a distracted Stan asked.

  I followed his eyes to see him staring at two kids no taller than my waist who were standing next to a woman and gasping and pointing at Stan. She was trying to keep their hands down, but it wasn’t working. The nub had apparently frightened them.

  “Hey, Stan. Let’s head back to the house.”

  He didn’t move. He just stared. I could hear the kids mumbling their fears to their mother. I looked into Stan’s eyes. They were flat, as if he’d been punched in the gut. I could see his pain, identify with his embarrassment—the sense of not feeling like a complete person.

  I turned, tapping him on the shoulder. “What do you say we go back to your house, and then after you clean up, I’ll run you by Smoothies and Stuff? They have this great new—”

  “I’m not a little kid, Ivy. I can handle it.” He turned and started walking. Out of Stan’s view, the mother and I traded glances. She shrugged, as if she had no control over her kids’ emotions. I knew she didn’t, but the timing sucked.

  I caught up with Stan, who said, “Hey, if I happen to find anything on this Espinoza case, I’ll be sure to share it with you.”

  He suddenly started jogging, although it was no faster than our walk. I kept that to myself and started jogging at the same slow pace.

  “You want me to do the same, right?”

  His eyes looked straight ahead.

  I acted like he’d responded. “That would be cool. Thanks.” I thought of another angle. “What if we agree to share everything, because, of course, that will only catch these assholes even faster. But we can put a wager on whoever gets there first.”

  “You want to bet on who solves the case quicker?” He chuckled. “The shit you think of…” he said, his voice trailing off. Then his voice came back to life. “What would we put on the line?”

  “I don’t know. Money, a good dinner…”

  “A trip to the World Series?” He glanced my way with a grizzly smile on his face.

  “So that’s what you want.”

  “Maybe. What about you…if we were to do this?”

  I could sense he was into it. Getting him focused on something, anything other than feeling like a freak, was my goal. It was working, so far. “Let me think that one over,” I said.

  We jogged another ten minutes. About a hundred yards away from his house, he took off in a sprint, or what should be called a Stan sprint. “What are you doing?”

  “Kicking your ass,” he yelled over his shoulder.

  I laughed so hard I didn’t catch up until he’d reached his mailbox. “Didn’t know you had such a competitive streak in you,” I said.

  “I think you woke it up with your wager idea.” His sweatband did little to slow perspiration rushing down his red face. “I might be…” He took another couple of breaths. “I might be broken, but this old guy still has some fight left in him.”

  He sounded like he felt he was on his last leg of life, which was ridiculous, so I focused on his positive energy. I would have put my arm around him then, but the task was just too gross. And I wasn’t exactly feeling fresh.

  Stan huffed and puffed for another couple of minutes, giving me a minute to think through our next step for finding the fake kidnappers. The government agencies appeared to be very focused on tracking the hackers. Good for them. Cristina and I would never match their resources, although Cristina wasn’t exactly a technical neophyte. Still, I wondered how the hackers knew about the Espinoza family. Did they have access to tax returns? Maybe they simply searched through hundreds or even thousands of returns to find someone with a young child and a family whose income was in the top five percent.

  “Stan, can you get me the names of the other victims of this fake-kidnapping crime?”

  “Uh…”

  “Remember, if you want to make this a wager, we did agree to share our information. It’s only fair, especially with all the resources at your disposal.”

  “Resources. I know you PIs like to think we can just kick up our feet and let the wheels of the investigative machine do their thing, but it doesn’t work like that. Hell, I have to beg and plead to get the pens and notepads I like to use.”

  I considered reminding him that was probably because his method of documentation was antiquated—notepads used from cop shows in the 1980s.

  “I bet you’ve figured out a way around that.”

  He smirked. “I did get to know the guy in purchasing. He likes these brownies that Bev makes. Seems to do the trick.”

  I nodded. “You see? You do have all the resources you need, even if they’re Bev’s homemade desserts. So, the names of the victims?”

  “I still don’t know what I’m getting into. If I somehow lose this wager, either by luck or some technicality—”

  “Technicality, my ass.”

  “I’m just ribbing you, Ivy. What would I be on the hook for?”

  “If you want a trip to a game in the World Series, which I know you’re assuming would include the Yankees…”

  “They only trail the Red Sox by two games. I got this feeling this could be their year.”

  “Okay. I’ll try to think of something comparable and let you know. So, the names?” I knew he was being hesitant because of his natural instinct to keep official information inside the department. It seemed like we did this song-and-dance routine every time I tried to inch my way into a case. But I’d always tried to provide value for Stan and the SAPD. Ask for a favor, give a favor.

  “Let me get into the office, track down the names, and figure out a way to get those to you.”

  “Cool. Thanks.” I reached over to touch his elbow in appreciation, but he’d already pulled the bottom of his T-shirt upward to wipe sweat off his face. I was both blinded and repulsed by his white, hairy belly.

  “For the love
of God, Stan, can you cover up your Jabba belly?”

  For a moment, I was mortified that I’d voiced my thoughts out loud, more or less. Thankfully I hadn’t. It was Nick. He was standing at the top of the front steps.

  “What are you doing here?” I said, a smile splitting my face.

  Still looking svelte as ever, Nick hopped down the stairs with the ease of a tap dancer. “Big boy here didn’t tell you I was flying in?”

  Stan stretched his shirt over his belly. “Didn’t know you’d be here this early.”

  Nick gave me a half-hug. “I took the red eye. Last second change of plans.”

  “Did an investigation bring you back to the land of never-ending heat?” I asked.

  “Not officially. This is more of a working vacation, but I can work remotely for a few days, and then spend my time busting his balls a little bit. It’s time to get in shape, cuz. We’ve got a marathon to get ready for.”

  Stan ripped off his sweatband and threw it at his cousin. Nick nimbly moved out of the way. Then, Stan hopped forward, trying to rub his sweat on Nick. But again, his cousin was too quick.

  “Skinny fucker,” Stan grunted.

  Nick and I both laughed, then he said, “This is going to be a hell of a week.”

  16

  Gathered around the kitchen table, the three of us gabbed nonstop until Bev waltzed in and gave us the signal to quiet down, saying Ethan was tired after his episode earlier and had conked out while playing some online video game in his bed. Though the whites of her eyes were covered with webs of red lines, she looked put together as always—the opposite of Stan—even if her figure wasn’t that of a model. She wore flowing dresses that fell to her calves and walked with a quiet grace. Part of me wondered if she’d been into ballet as a youngster, although she was very top-heavy, so it was hard to say. With her beehive hairdo, she kind of had the vibe of a “homemaker” from the days of black-and-white TV. I’d seen repeats on cable from a show called Father Knows Best. The name of the show was enough to make me gag. But Bev had it going on, her own style, her own way.