Critical Vulnerability (An Aroostine Higgins Novel Book 1)

by Melissa F. Miller

  “How so?”

  “Apparently, SystemSource received an infusion of cash from a private investment group right around the time that the Mexican bribery attempt took place. From what I understand, that transaction may not have been reported—I don’t know the details, so it may not have been something they were required to report as a material change—but it was certainly material inside the company.”

  “Because of its size, you mean?”

  He leaned forward, eager and excited, like a greyhound with a rabbit in its sights.

  “Not exactly. It’s more that the investors had a particular interest in one aspect of the company’s business, and that put pressure on certain departments.”

  He twisted his mouth into a knot of exasperation. “Don’t be coy.”

  “I’m not trying to be. It’s just . . . I have someone inside the company helping me. I don’t want that person to be exposed.”

  He seemed to bristle at the secrecy, sitting up straighter, but said, “Okay. Go on.”

  “The investors were most excited about SystemSource’s ability to monitor and modify systems remotely.”

  “You mean the customer’s ability to monitor and modify their systems remotely,” he corrected her.

  “No. I mean what I said.”

  She waited while comprehension filled his eyes.

  “You mean—?”

  “Yes. SystemSource’s software contains a critical vulnerability. And I think the investor bought into the company specifically so he, or they, or whoever, could exploit it at will.”

  He blanched. She recognized the queasy expression on his face from her own reaction when Franklin had told her.

  She forged ahead. “Somewhere, somehow, the FCPA case must expose that.”

  “Is it in the motion in limine?”

  She nodded, impressed by how quickly he was piecing it together.

  “I think so—either in the motion or our opposition. And I know what I have to do, but I can’t involve Rosie. She’s my direct subordinate, and it’s too big a risk. But please don’t feel like you have to do it, though, okay?”

  He sighed. “Aroostine, I told you. I want to help you. What’s the favor?”

  “Okay, I swear it’s not witness tampering, but what I need goes way beyond a favor into, um, possibly sanctionable conduct.” She paused to let that statement sink in.

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  He tilted his head and looked at a point over her shoulder for a moment, considering what she’d said.

  Then he snapped his eyes back to hers. “Okay.”

  “Okay? Just like that—okay?”

  He nodded and opened his mouth to speak but the shriek of the kettle releasing steam sounded from the kitchen.

  “Hang on. I’ll be right back.”

  She trailed him into the spotless galley kitchen and leaned against the refrigerator while he poured the water and fixed the tea. She watched his precise, economical movements and wondered if he could possibly be serious about taking the risk she was about to ask him to take.

  He turned, balancing a saucer in each hand, and started when he saw her standing there.

  “Oh, hey, here.” He passed her a blue Fiestaware mug on an orange saucer.

  “Thanks.”

  “Let’s go sit.” He nodded his head toward the living area and waited for her to lead the way back.

  She returned to her spot on the sofa near the window. To her surprise, instead of taking the mid-century chair across from it, he sat next to her.

  A sudden worry that his help might come with strings attached flitted into her mind.

  “I’m married,” she blurted. Her skin grew hot as soon as she said the words, and she knew her face was red.

  His eyes widened and the lemon slice he’d been squeezing into his tea slipped out of his fingers.

  “Oh? Well, you’re just full of surprises tonight, aren’t you?”

  She set the saucer and mug carefully on the table and resisted the urge to hide her face in her hands. Instead, she straightened her spine and met his curious gaze.

  “I guess so. While I’m sharing, here’s another tidbit. I’m a member of the Lenape Nation. My parents drank themselves to early deaths, and my grandfather took care of me until he died when I was seven.”

  A sad shadow crossed his face, and she knew he was feeling sorry for a little Native American girl. She hurried on with the story.

  “He was good friends with this white couple—the Higginses—who adopted me.”

  “I thought that was frowned on—taking a minority kid out of her own culture?”

  She had neither the time nor the inclination to engage in a discourse about white aggression toward native culture or the fact that the Lenape Nation wasn’t officially federally recognized—or that Pennsylvania officially had no Native Americans at all. It was all too complicated, politicized, and irrelevant to the issue at hand.

  She shrugged off the question. “They were good parents. Anyway, they paid for me to go to this liberal arts college about thirty minutes away, and that’s where I met Joe—my husband.”

  Mitch picked up his cup and sipped it but made no comment, so she pressed on.

  “We got married the summer before I started law school. Joe was very supportive of my career”—she paused and cleared her throat before continuing—“up to a point.”

  He waited.

  “When I interviewed for the position at Justice, he came with me to check out the city.”

  “But—?”

  “I don’t know what happened. He said he was on board with the move, but when it came time to actually pack his stuff up, he said maybe we should make sure I was going to like it here—you know, before he upended his entire life. To be fair, I wasn’t at all sure I was cut out for the Department of Justice. I’d never lived in a big city before, and prosecuting federal crimes isn’t exactly what I’d had in mind when I opened my little law office. So, we agreed I’d give the AUSA job a try, like a probationary period, and if it turned out to be something I really wanted, he’d make the move.”

  “And?”

  “And it was, but he didn’t. So, I’ve been living here, and he’s been living back home.”

  She traced a circle around the saucer with one finger.

  “So you’re in a holding pattern? I don’t see a wedding ring.”

  She laughed. “We were twenty-two and broke when we got married. I said I didn’t need a symbol of ownership to prove anything.”

  A small grin creased his face. “Young love.”

  Her own grin faded. “A week ago, I probably would have said a holding pattern was a good way to describe the situation. But on Tuesday, I was served with divorce papers at work.”

  “This Tuesday? Like the day after your botched surgery?”

  She nodded. “It’s been a bad week.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  He started to reach for her shoulder, maybe to give her a sympathetic squeeze, but drew his hand back stiffly.

  “And then it got worse.”

  “Now, that sounds impossible.”

  She swallowed around the lump in her throat and forced the words out. “Someone’s been tracking me. He’s using SystemSource’s programs to remotely stalk me. I think it’s the investor I told you about, or someone connected to the investor. He’s behind everything that’s happened lately. My missing filing, the fire, my dental surgery, all of it.”

  Mitchell let out a long, low whistle.

  “Yeah. And he found out about Joe.” She stared down at her lap and ignored the tears that began to fall. “And somehow, he managed to abduct him.”

  Mitchell’s warm hand found hers.

  “I believe you, but you realize how crazy this sounds, right? Are you sure?”
/>   She extracted her hand, pulled her phone from her bag, and said, “He texted me a picture of . . .”

  She stared down at the screen. The world froze in place. Her heart caught midbeat.

  “Aroostine?”

  His voice sounded distant, faint and garbled.

  Her pulse was hammering in her ears like a trapped bird beating its wings.

  “Sorry. I have a new text. It’s from . . . him.”

  She knew it was from Franklin, actually, forwarding the man’s instructions. But she didn’t want to get sidetracked into a discussion of who Franklin was and how he fit into the picture—not with her heart thrumming in her ears so loudly it was making her dizzy.

  He scooted closer to her on the couch and peered over her shoulder, his leg brushing against hers. This time, though, the contact had no effect. Her eyes were pinned to the video that began to play.

  Dark half-circles shaded Joe’s sunken eyes. Stubble on his chin and cheeks didn’t quite hide the sallowness of his face. He looked spent and dirty. But not injured, she hurried to reassure herself.

  He began to speak in a stilted, mechanical voice. He sounded like Joe imitating a robot.

  “He’s reading this,” Mitchell whispered.

  She nodded but didn’t move her eyes from the video.

  Joe’s rage shimmered under the surface as he recited the man’s demand that she throw the case. He finished his assigned lines and glanced away from the camera for a moment, then he looked back and said, “Your mother’s fi—”

  The video ended.

  They sat in silence for a moment.

  Mitchell exhaled shakily and spoke first.

  “How’s your mother mixed up in this?” he asked.

  Aroostine closed her eyes briefly and considered her response. Full disclosure, she decided. He had the right to know what he was getting into.

  “Not my mother. Franklin Chang’s mother.”

  Mitchell stood.

  “I don’t know who Franklin Chang is, but I know I’m going to need something stronger than herbal tea for the rest of this story.”

  As he walked toward the kitchen, he turned and shot her a look over his shoulder. “I’m thinking Scotch. Should I pour one or two?”

  This response, she didn’t need to consider.

  “Two.”

  It was nearly midnight when she stood to leave, a little unsteady on her feet from the combination of booze, emotion, and exhaustion. He insisted on bundling up and walking her down to the street to wait for a cab.

  They stood shoulder to shoulder in tired, drained silence and stared out into the gray half-light. She wondered if she’d ever get used to the lack of true darkness that attended the city at night.

  After a minute, a Red Top cab cruised down the block slowly, probably circling Foggy Bottom’s bars and restaurants in search of a fare going back to Arlington. Mitchell flagged it down, and the driver eased to a stop at the curb.

  “Good night,” she said as she slipped into the backseat, feeling awkward all over again.

  He grabbed the door and held it open while she leaned forward to tell the driver her address. As she settled into the backrest, he leaned in and studied her face.

  “I meant what I said. I’ll help you. But you need to think this through. Are you sure you need to risk your entire career? If you want to go to the police, I’ll go with you.”

  The cab driver turned his head to the side and stared studiously out toward the street as if he weren’t listening.

  She opened her mouth to respond, but Mitchell shook his head.

  “Don’t answer tonight. Sleep on it.”

  He shut the door softly and stepped back.

  The cab driver returned his attention to the car and jerked it into drive. She raised her hand to wave goodbye to Mitchell. She saw the driver glance into the rearview mirror and size her up: Was she a fare who wanted to chitchat?

  To forestall any small talk, she leaned back against the cracked vinyl headrest and shut her eyes. After a moment, the rhythmic motion of stopping and starting and the overheated interior of the car began to lull her into sleep.

  She struggled not to doze and considered Mitchell’s parting words. She had to try to help Joe and Mrs. Chang, even if meant the end of her brief prosecutorial career. But how? Her plan was still coming together but even once it gelled, she knew it would have a gaping hole: how to find them.

  She needed to think. If she were at home, she’d clear her head by hiking up the trail to Alexander’s Steeple, where she could lean against a two-hundred-year-old oak tree and do her thinking with a sweeping view of the valley below.

  She opened her eyes and cleared her throat.

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  “It’s Reggie.”

  “Change of plans, Reggie. I need you to drop me off at the entrance to Meridian Hill Park.”

  His eyes met hers in the mirror and flashed concern.

  “You mean Malcolm X?”

  “Um, the one between Fifteenth and Sixteenth. There’s a drum circle there on Sundays?” She could have sworn it was called Meridian Hill.

  He nodded. “That’s the one. White folks call it Meridian Hill. But it’ll always be Malcolm X to me.”

  “Uh, okay.”

  “Sister Angela proposed renaming it, oh, way back in the sixties. Didn’t happen.” He raised a hand and gestured toward the Black Panther fist sticker on his passenger side visor.

  “You knew them? Malcolm X and Angela Davis?” She was momentarily distracted from her problems by the thought that she was being driven through DC by a piece of living history.

  He grinned. “I did. That was a long, long time ago—a lifetime ago.” The smile faded. “And I don’t think that this is the best time to visit the park. It’s late. And cold. Anybody you run into out there’s gonna be looking for drugs—or worse.”

  “I’ll be fine. I just need to clear my head.”

  “You aren’t out looking to score, are you, girlie? Because I’m not getting in the middle of that.”

  “No. I don’t use drugs. I just need a quiet place.”

  He squinted at her in the rearview mirror.

  “I’m a country girl,” she explained.

  The city’s rhythms and noise, its closeness and grime, had taken some getting used to, but she wasn’t afraid of its residents. When she was just tiny, maybe four, her grandfather had taught her that no matter what environment she found herself in, she should respect the inhabitants, but not fear them. He’d pointed out a hive, buzzing with hardworking honeybees and said, “They won’t hurt you, Little One, as long as you don’t provoke them. To understand the bees, you must be the bee. To understand the bear, be the bear. But never fear another living creature.”

  He may have intended his counsel to be limited to wild animals, but she’d clung to it long after his death and had applied it each time she’d been thrust into a new environment: moving away from the Nation to live among white people, leaving the familiarity of the Higginses’ home to go first to college and then to law school, and now here, in this strange, busy city that was home to the country’s power brokers. She studied the people around her constantly, almost subconsciously. So far, it seemed to be working.

  “Just the same,” the cabbie interrupted her memory, “I’ll wait while you do your thinking. Don’t worry, I won’t run the meter.”

  She didn’t have the energy to argue with a geriatric Black Panther so she simply said, “That’s very kind of you.”

  Then she leaned back and let her eyelids flip closed again for the rest of the short ride.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Joe couldn’t sleep. He shifted on the hard floor and peered up at the window. In the distance he could make out a slice of the moon, three-quarters full and bright in the cold, clear night sky.

  S
omewhere out there, under that same moon, Aroostine had received the video by now.

  Will she catch my message?

  He traced a finger along a groove in the worn, scratched floorboards. He had been as subtle as he could so that the man wouldn’t notice and had ad-libbed the line about Mrs. Chang mainly to distract the man from his movements. But had he been too discreet? Would Aroostine notice what he’d done?

  He forced down the tide of icy panic that threatened to grip him. He’d tried. There was nothing more he could do.

  As he turned onto his stomach, he consoled himself with one good thought. He knew Aroostine wouldn’t turn against him simply because of the divorce papers, despite what he’d suggested to the man. She wouldn’t let even justifiable anger or hurt stand in the way of helping him. It wasn’t her way.

  He remembered their first fight, during sophomore year of college. The details had faded with time but he remembered the accusations and anger that had flown around her tiny apartment, both of them inexperienced at working through relationship stuff. He’d stormed out.

  After he’d had a chance to cool down, he’d shown up at her door with gas station roses and a greeting card, well trained by his high school girlfriends. She’d shaken her head in wonder and laughed, tossing aside the already wilted hothouse flowers. She led him outside to the rickety deck tacked on to the back of the apartment she was renting.

  “You don’t need to bring me cut flowers,” she’d said, throwing her arms wide to encompass the starry sky. “There’s a world full of flowers, trees, and stars.”

  “I just wanted to apologize,” he’d explained, feeling faintly embarrassed and uncertain. Her equanimity had thrown him off balance.

  “Then apologize, Joe. All I want is the truth that’s inside you, not Hallmark’s truth. Show me your truth.”

  He smiled at the memory, at the way he’d gathered her up in his arms. She’d wrapped her arms around his neck, and he’d carried her inside to show her the passion he felt in leisurely detail.

  That was a long time ago. A small voice prickled in his head, dragging him out of his blissful past and back to his miserable present.