Four Thrillers by Lisa Unger

by Lisa Unger

  “So what’s up?” she said after the niceties had been exchanged. “You have an idea for me?”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “I’m wondering what you know about Myra Lyall. I had some calls from her a few weeks ago. I suppose something to do with Project Rescue. I was thinking about returning her call but I wanted to see if you knew her first.”

  She was quiet for a minute. “You didn’t hear?”

  “What?” I said with concern and interest, playing dumb.

  “God,” she said with a sigh. “She and her husband disappeared a couple of weeks ago. Apparently someone accessed our servers—which, by the way, is supposed to be next to impossible—and wiped her hard drive and all her e-mail communications. People here are pretty spooked. It’s just terrible, Ridley.”

  “Wow,” I said, trying to sound suitably shocked. “That’s awful. What are the police saying? Does anyone have any idea what happened?”

  “There are all kinds of theories floating around,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “One has to do with her landlord. She and her husband were at war with him. They lived in this rent-controlled apartment they’d been in since the seventies. The new owner had recently bought the building and wanted them out so that he could get the market rate for the apartment. Suddenly they had terrible mice and roach problems, the heat never worked. Apparently, they’d decided to put their rent in escrow until he fixed things; that sent him over the edge. Word is he has ties to the Albanian mob.”

  “But that doesn’t explain how the Times server got wiped clean …or why.”

  “No. It doesn’t,” she said softly.

  “So …what else are people saying? I mean, what was she working on at the time?”

  I thought Jenna might clam up. I could hear her breathing. She was a pretty woman with small, serious features and bright green eyes, peaches-and-cream skin. It had been a while since I’d had any face time with her, but I could imagine her frowning, tapping her pen on the desk.

  “A lot of people around here think she stumbled onto something. It’s just a rumor.”

  “Something to do with Project Rescue?”

  “I don’t think so. She put that story to bed over a month ago. And that was more of a human-interest piece than her usual investigative work. She kind of got pushed into it by this new editor—you know, put-some-faces-on-the-crime kind of a thing. Besides, as far as news stories go, there wasn’t any new ground to cover.”

  “So …what, then?”

  “I dated one of the IT guys for a while ages ago. Grant Webster. He’s kind of ‘into’ his job—a little bit too into it, if you ask me. That’s one of the major reasons we broke up. On top of his job, he has this whole website devoted to the history of hacking, all this conspiracy-theory tech stuff. Anyway, he said it wasn’t the usual kind of hacking. It’s one thing to get in and read e-mail, or to try to steal subscriber credit-card info, or to take over the site for a while. It’s quite another to hack in to the level necessary to erase data from a server. He thinks it might have been someone in-house, someone who was paid to do it …” She let the sentence trail off.

  “Or?” I said.

  “Or it was one of the federal agencies.”

  I let the information sink in. “Like the CIA or the FBI?”

  “Right.”

  “So the rumor is, she stumbled onto something she wasn’t supposed to know about, possibly involving one of the federal agencies, so someone made her disappear and erased all her e-mail correspondence?”

  She didn’t pick up the skepticism in my voice.

  “And her hard drive, containing anything she might have been working on now plus everything she’d ever worked on in the past, though of course most of that has been published. And her voice mail,” added Jenna. “Which, according to Grant, is a lot easier than erasing e-mail.”

  “That’s quite a theory,” I said.

  “It’s just, you know, get a bunch of reporters and IT people together over a few beers and you can’t believe the stuff we come up with,” she said with a little laugh. “Those IT guys are all conspiracy theorists at heart.”

  She went on a bit about Grant and how she suspected he’d been writing code in his head while they were making love, how his idea of a good time was a box of Twinkies and a nineteen-inch flat-screen monitor. She mentioned his website again and I jotted it down: www.isanyonepayingattention.com. I let her go on, giggled with her where appropriate, made the expected affirming noises, not wanting to seem overeager for more information on Myra Lyall.

  I segued back to that topic awkwardly, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Any other wild theories about Myra?”

  “Hmm …I guess the only other thing I heard was that she got some kind of anonymous tip that she followed up on a few days before she disappeared.”

  “What kind of a tip?”

  “I don’t know. According to her assistant, she got some e-mail—or was it a phone call?—that sent her skating from the office. That’s as much as anyone knows, I think. All her e-mail, even her notebooks—”

  “Are gone,” I finished for her.

  We were both quiet for a second and I could hear her other line ringing in the background, the staccato of her fingers on a keyboard.

  “Hey, you want me to keep you posted?” she said. “If I hear anything else?”

  “That would be great, Jenna. Also, can I have Grant’s contact info? I’m doing an article on computer crimes. I’d love to ask him a few questions.”

  She hesitated a second. “Sure,” she said. “That doesn’t sound like your usual beat.”

  “I’m branching out these days. Trying to broaden the scope of my writing, you know?”

  She gave me his information. Before she hung up, she said, “Hey, don’t tell him any of the things I said about him, okay?”

  “Never,” I assured her.

  We hung up and I thought about our conversation as I poured myself another cup of coffee and walked over to my window. Then I returned to my computer and visited Grant’s website. A flash intro read bold white on a black screen: Is anyone paying attention? Another screen followed: The federal government is fucking with us. A third screen: And we sit around watching Survivor, eating pizza, just letting it all happen? Wake up! The screen started flashing. It’s time for a revolution. The flash intro ended and the home page opened. It was heavy on the blacks and reds, laid out to look like a newspaper page. The center headline read: WHERE IS MYRA LYALL???

  The article recounted the known details of Myra and Allen Lyall’s disappearance, things I had already been told and had read in the articles in Jake’s file. It went on:

  The NYPD and the news media would like you to believe that the Lyalls’ Albanian landlord is responsible for their disappearance, that the Albanian mob executed them for their “grandfathered” rent-controlled apartment. Isn’t that just like America? Shove all our problems off on the third world? But the reality is: very few people have the resources and the technology required to hack into the New York Times servers and wipe data. Her voicemail? Okay, amateur-time. Just a log-in and a password and you’re golden. But to access her e-mail and her database, not just on her box but the backups on the servers? Nearly impossible. Unless you’re the CIA or the FBI, or some other nefarious government agency.

  Some of us think Myra stumbled onto something she wasn’t supposed to know. We know for sure that the last piece she published was about Project Rescue (talk about the ultimate government cover-up; did anyone ever get prosecuted for that? Hundreds, maybe thousands of underprivileged kids abducted from their homes and SOLD to wealthy families. And no one’s even in prison??? Doesn’t anyone think that’s fucked up?)

  I had to cringe here, wondering if he’d mention my father or Max, but he didn’t. It was weird to hear someone talk about Project Rescue like that. I’d never really thought of it as a conspiracy and a cover-up, but I guess I could see his point.

  We know for sure that Myra received a phone call befo
re she left on the Friday prior to her disappearance, that she left the office in a rush. Her assistant described her as “excited and a little nervous.” And that’s the last time anyone at the Times saw her.

  If Myra had backed up her notes on a disk and hidden it somewhere (like I’m ALWAYS advising to do, people, when you’re working on something sensitive), we might have more to go on. Anyone with more information on Myra or with insights and theories, get in touch with me. I want to help. But for crying out loud, be careful who you talk to, what you say, and how you say it. For secure communication, call me at the following number and we’ll arrange a meeting.

  I scanned through the rest of his pages. There were articles about the flu shot, Gulf War syndrome and depleted uranium, the dangers of website cookies, SARS, reality television, and a hackers hall of fame (using screen names only, of course). According to Grant, pretty much everything that is remotely disturbing about the world can be traced back to the “evil empire,” the United States federal government. He had an infectious writing style, and by the time I’d finished scanning the site, I was starting to agree with him.

  I got up from my computer and walked over to the window to think. Something was bothering me. I know: Take your pick, right? I headed back into my office and sifted through some papers on my desk until I found a small pink notebook where I log in telephone messages. I flipped through the pages and found where I’d written down Myra Lyall’s name, number, date, and time of her calls. Jenna told me that Myra had put her article to bed over a month ago. The last call was just over two and a half weeks ago, a couple of days before she and her husband disappeared, according to Dylan Grace. If she hadn’t called me about the article she was writing on Project Rescue victims, then what?

  EVEN THOUGH MAX had been dead for years, his apartment still sat untouched as he’d left it. My father refused to sell it, though the monthly maintenance was ridiculous. After Max’s death we both used to visit it like some people visit a grave, to remember, to feel close.

  I used to go to Max’s place after he died to smell his clothes. I’d stand in his closet. It was a giant affair, bigger than my bedroom at home. With beautiful wood cabinets and a granite-topped island containing drawers for socks, underwear, and jewelry, it looked more like the designer men’s department at Barneys than anyone’s closet. I’d walk among the long rows of silk and wool gabardine, touch my fingers to the fabric, and breathe in the scent of those suits. I could smell him there—not just the trace remains of his cologne still clinging to the suit jackets, but something else. Something uniquely Max. It hurt me and comforted me simultaneously, the rainbow of silk ties, the neatly arranged boxes of shoes, the orderly parade of shirts in muted colors—white, gray, blue—one hundred percent cotton only, no starch. Anything else irritated the skin on his neck.

  “It’s just stuff,” Zack, my ex-boyfriend and would-be murderer, used to say when I’d go up there. “It has no meaning now that he’s gone.” He couldn’t understand why I’d fall asleep on the couch among the million pictures of our family, feel safe and connected to a happier past when everyone was together.

  Of course, that was before, when the loss of him was a hollow through the middle of me that I thought would never fill again. That was before I knew he was my father.

  As I walked through the doors that midmorning, after my conversation with Jenna, it wasn’t to comfort myself with memory. There was no comfort to be had there any longer. My sadness for Max had waxed and gone cold. Now in my heart there was only anger and so many unanswered questions. Sadness was a place I couldn’t afford; it buckled the knees and weakened resolve. And I had a sense that I’d been a puddle of myself for too long. It was making me soft.

  I suspected anything that might have offered some clue as to who Max had been—who he’d really been—was long gone. I’d discovered over a year ago that the lawyers had taken all his files and date books (which he kept like journals), and his computer. Valuables like watches and jewelry, and all other personal effects, had gone to my father and mother. So I didn’t know what I was looking for exactly. I just started opening drawers and cupboards, sifting through old books, looking behind photographs.

  But the drawers and file cabinets were empty. There were no secret safes in the floor or behind pictures. Everything was just as it had been when he was alive, in perfect order …except that it was all dead. Void of the energy of a life being lived, of vital paperwork and important files. Gone.

  Something I’d always noticed about Max while he was alive was his fastidiousness. His sock drawer, with each pair precisely folded in careful rows, organized by color, made me think about how he was always straightening—the pictures on the wall, the silverware on the table, the arrangements of objects on his desk or dresser. It used to drive my mother crazy, probably because she was equally particular. She seemed to think it was some kind of competition when he came to the house and rearranged the table she had set, fussing with the centerpiece or aligning the silverware even more precisely.

  Of course, Max always had a staff of people following him around, cleaning up after him, but he held those people to such exacting standards that turnover was always high. Personal assistants, maids, cooks, came and went, a parade of polite and distant strangers, always nervous around Max, always replaced in a matter of weeks or months. Only Clara, who acted as maid and part-time cook and sometimes babysitter for me and Ace, stayed through the years, never seemed rattled by Max or his demands. What did this say about Max? I didn’t know. It was just something that came to mind as I sifted through the apartment. Maybe it didn’t mean anything. Maybe nothing did.

  After a while, frustrated and unsatisfied, I sat on Max’s bed, a gigantic king swathed in 1,000-count Egyptian cotton sheets and a rich chocolate-brown raw silk comforter, piled high with coordinating shams and throw pillows. I leaned back against the plush surface and tried to think about what I was doing there, what I was looking for, and what I intended to do once I found it.

  After a minute, I got up again and walked over to the recessed shelving in the opposite wall that held a large flat-screen television, another legion of photographs (mainly of me), objects he’d collected in his travels around the world—a jade elephant, a large Buddha, some tall giraffes carved delicately in a deep black wood. My eyes fell on a familiar object, a hideous pottery ashtray formed by a child’s fingers—a pinch pot, I think we called them in kindergarten. It was painted in a medley of colors—purple, hot pink, evergreen, orange. In the center, I had painted, I LOVE MY UNCEL MAX, and my name was carved on the underside. I didn’t remember making it but I did remember it always being on Max’s desk in his study. I wondered how it had wound up in here. I lifted the piece of pottery and held it in my hand, felt a wave of intense sadness. As I was about to put it back down, I saw that it had sat on top of a small keyhole. I quickly searched the shelving for a drawer or some clue as to what might open if a key was inserted, but it seemed to be a keyhole to nothing. I resisted the urge to hurl the little piece of pottery against the wall.

  I walked back over to the bed and flopped myself down on it.

  That’s when I smelled it. The lightest scent of male cologne. Not a sense memory of Max but an actual scent in the air, or possibly in the sheets. It made my heart thump. I got up quickly from the bed, my eyes scanning the room for something out of place. The small clock beside the bed suddenly seemed very loud, the street noise a distant thrum.

  A haunting is a subtle thing. It’s not flying dishes and bleeding walls. It’s not a mournful moaning down a dark, stone hallway. It’s odors and shades of light, a nebulously familiar form in a photograph, the glimpse of a face in a crowd. These nuances, these moments are no less horrifying. They strike the same blow to the solar plexus, trace the same cold finger down your spine.

  As I stood there, my nose to the air, my limbs frozen, I took in the scent of him. Max. Whatever the alchemy of his skin and his cologne, it could be no one else. Like my father, rainwater and Ol
d Spice, or my mother, Nivea cream and something like vinegar …unmistakable, unforgettable. I listened hard to the silence. A sound, soft and rhythmic, called me from where I stood. I walked over the carpet and into the master bath. Another huge space, embarrassingly opulent with granite floors and walls, brushed chrome fixtures, a Jacuzzi tub and steam-room shower. I paused in the doorway and noticed that the shower door and the mirrors were lightly misted. I walked over and opened the glass door to the shower. The giant waterfall showerhead that hung centered from the ceiling held tiny beads of water in each pore, coalescing in the center and forming one enormous tear that dripped into the drain below. My mind flipped through a catalog of reasons why this shower might have been recently used. This was a secure, doorman-guarded building. My parents, the only other people with access, were both away. I reached in and closed the tap; the dripping ceased.

  My breathing was deep and there was a slight shake to my hands from adrenaline. Once a month, I knew, a service came in to clean. But I was sure they’d already been here this month, and I’d never known them to leave a faucet to run or surfaces wet.

  I went to the cordless phone by Max’s bed to dial the doorman.

  “Yes, Ms. Jones,” said Dutch, the eternal doorman, whom I’d passed on my way in.

  “Has someone been in this apartment today?”

  “Not on my watch. I’ve been here since five A.M.,” he said. I heard him flipping through pages. “No visitors last night or all day yesterday. Not in the log.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Something wrong?”