Blood Strangers: Behind Closed Doors: Family Secrets

by Hinze, Vicki

  At the kitchen bar with her sandwich and a bottle of flavored water, she began reading, and she read all of every letter. Before she knew it, she was done with them and with her sandwich. She learned nothing new except that her Aunt Janelle had suddenly stopped writing the year before Gabby graduated from high school.

  After years of futile effort, she had finally given up. Gabby’s vision blurred. She’d not given up easily, and there was a phone number. She had prayed that one day he or Gabby would use it. “If I’d known, I would have,” Gabby whispered into the silent house.

  It occurred to her she still could. She reached into her pocket for her phone and dialed the number.

  Disconnected.

  She tried searching, but there was no new listing. Her aunt had either moved or disconnected her landline. Either way, she wasn’t where she had been. But if anyone could find her, Shadow Watcher could. Gabby texted him. “That offer of help still open?”

  “You bet.”

  “I found some letters from an aunt I met once many years ago. She wanted to see me, but my father refused. I tried calling the number for her, but it’s been disconnected. Would you see if you can find her? Her name is Janelle Reinhardt,” she texted, then added the last known address. “I guess she never married, or she kept her name.”

  “On it,“ he said. “Be in touch.”

  “Packing. I’ll message you when I get home tonight, if that’s okay?”

  “Anytime.”

  “Thanks, SW.”

  “Course, GK.”

  He’d find her. If Janelle could be found, Shadow Watcher would find her.

  Her heart much lighter, Gabby taped a few boxes and headed back upstairs. The long hallway and its linen closet were all that was left to do upstairs. “Progress.”

  She emptied the closet in record time, then walked through each room to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. When leaving her father’s room and making a left into the hallway, she bumped her shoulder on a painting. The walls. She’d totally forgotten to empty the hallway walls.

  When she lifted the third painting off its hanger, a panel in the wall slid open.

  Surprised, Gabby lowered the painting to the floor, propped it against the wall, then looked inside the panel opening. A narrow frame between a couple two by fours made a shallow box. Inside it, on the raw wood, lay three thumb drives. Gabby’s heart raced. This is what the killers had been looking for; these drives. Innately sure of it, she scooped them up and was halfway down the stairs before she recalled the killer had stolen her father’s computer.

  Grabbing her handbag, she headed to the office supply store, bought a dozen thumb drives and had four copies of each drive found duplicated. Not wanting to leave the store seemingly empty-handed—you never knew who was watching—she picked up a couple spare rolls of tape and a roll of bubble wrap, which she needed to protect the paintings before boxing them.

  Back at her father’s, Gabby brought down the new laptop. As she suspected, he’d never used it. That struck her as odd, but worse, as unlikely for a man who would lose everything unless she put her neck on the line to help him. Maybe the killer hadn’t missed seeing it. Maybe the killer had chosen not to steal it. Maybe the killer had left it, hoping she would use it and he’d see what she saw.

  Lacking the equipment to ensure that wouldn’t happen, she closed the laptop untouched, and returned to her apartment, where she tested a copy of the thumb drives.

  Clean.

  She opened the first one. Financial records. Spreadsheets with dates, names, and vast sums of money changing hands in all kinds of coded transactions. George Medros’s transactions.

  The other two thumb drives held the same kind of information and belonged to the same man. Gabby’s heart thundered against her ribs. It didn’t take a forensic accountant to see that Medros was violating at least a half dozen federal laws.

  And her father not only knew it, he participated in it.

  Why had he done this? Why?

  One thing was clear. Medros or his henchmen would be back. With this kind of information out in the wild, they had to come back—and to keep coming back until they found the data.

  And that explained why the FBI was involved in the murders. They wanted the data before Medros got it.

  What was Gabby going to do to protect herself? She had to call Bain. If she didn’t, she would be as legally vulnerable as her father. But if she did call him, and he went after Medros, the man would know Bain had gotten the data from her. Either way, odds were good she’d end up dead. Unless . . .

  An idea struck her. She grabbed Bain’s card, the three original drives and backup copies of each one, stuffed them all into her purse, and then left the apartment to return to her father’s.

  Using his house phone in the kitchen, she called the FBI agent’s number.

  He answered sounding irritated. “Bain.”

  “Agent Bain, this is Gabby Blake,” she said, hoping she wasn’t making the biggest, most deadly mistake of her life.

  “Yes, Miss Blake?”

  “I’m at my father’s, emptying the house.” She grabbed a fresh bottle of water from the fridge. “You asked me to call you if I found anything of interest.”

  “I did.” He sounded engaged now.

  “I found something of interest.” She felt like a fool repeating herself, but if Medros or his people were watching her, she wanted to control what she let them see or hear. How they could not be watching her, she couldn’t imagine. Not with all this detailed information about Medros’s business loose.

  “What did you find?”

  “Well, I’m not sure exactly. Maybe something. Maybe nothing. Three thumb drives. I have no idea what’s on them. The computer, you’ll recall, was stolen.”

  “I’ll be right over,” Bain said. “Give me twenty minutes.”

  “That will be fine.” She hung up the house phone. Her hands were shaking.

  What had her father dragged her into? Why had he dragged her into anything at all?

  Chapter Seven

  Tuesday, December 8, 3:30 p.m.

  When the doorbell rang, Gabby looked through the peephole and saw a man she didn’t recognize. He wasn’t Bain. That much she knew for sure. This man was huge, older than Bain and in his fifties, she’d guess, bald with dark eyebrows and a salt-and-peppered mustache and beard, trimmed short and neat. His eyes were the coldest brown she’d ever seen in her life. And rather than the FBI suit and sunglasses Bain favored, this man wore a black shirt and a lumpy black jacket. Cold and wet, it clung to his chest. He was hiding something that printed in the fabric—a weapon.

  Her heart slammed against her ribs and an instinctive warning sounded in her mind to not open the door. Her second thought was if she didn’t open it, he’d shoot his way in. Suck it up and stuff it down. An idea struck her and took root. She plastered a smile on her face and opened the door. “Agent Bain?”

  The stranger nodded. “His partner, Miss Blake.” He looked oddly familiar, though she couldn’t say why. Had she seen him before? If so, she didn’t recall it. And why was he looking at her as if she’d risen from the grave?

  She stepped back and let him in, praying she was doing the right thing. “It’s good to finally meet you.”

  He seemed to relax and shielded his expression. “I apologize, Miss Blake, but I’ve been called with an emergency. Can I get the drives from you?”

  “Of course.” She retrieved them, covertly snapped a few photos of him, and then walked back to him and passed the drives over. “Like I told you on the phone, they might be something or nothing.”

  “You really didn’t look to see what was on them?”

  Gabby lifted her arms. “No way to look. The robbers took my father’s computer,” she said, amazed at the steadiness of her own voice. “To be honest, I wouldn’t have looked anyway.”

  The skin between his brows puckered into two long creases. “Why not?”

  “Apparently my father encrypted all his files.
Even the household ones. His lawyer told me that opening them improperly will corrupt the data and it is imperative that a professional run them through special programs. That’s the only way to be certain not to destroy them.” She hiked a shoulder. “I have computer expertise, but I don’t have those kinds of programs.”

  The man frowned. “That’s a lot of trouble to protect a light bill.”

  She smiled. “It is. But you know how old-school people are. Set in their ways.”

  “I apologize for having to leave so quickly,” he said. “I’m afraid there isn’t any new information to report, and I really do have an emergency. They’re waiting for me.”

  He didn’t want to run into Agent Bain on his way out and be exposed as his fake partner. “No problem,” she assured him, walking toward the front door. “I hope I haven’t wasted your time, calling you over here about this. It could be nothing more than household items.”

  “Better safe than sorry.” He stepped outside. “Thank you, Miss Blake.” He turned back toward her. “Oh, one question.”

  “Sure.” She wanted to shut the door and lock it but didn’t dare to move.

  “Was Rogan Gregos a client of your father’s, or did he ever mention him?”

  “I told you, I know nothing of my father’s business.”

  “It could have been a personal relationship, from his childhood or something.”

  Rogan. It was an unusual name. Where had she heard it before? The answer danced just beyond the edge of her memory. “I’m embarrassed to say this, but the truth is my father didn’t talk to me about anything. His childhood is as much a mystery to me as his business.” She held the man’s gaze, let him see the truth in her eyes. “Why do you ask?”

  “An informant mentioned him once. Totally unrelated case.” He turned away. “Thanks again for your call.”

  “You’re welcome, Agent . . .” She waited, but he still didn’t supply a name. Instead he rushed off the porch and down to his vehicle.

  Gabby stood in the doorway until he stepped off the porch. Rogan Gregos. Who was he? And how did he connect to her father?

  Having no answers, she put that aside to look into later, closed the door and locked it, then watched through the peephole until the man got into his SUV and pulled away. Her stomach in knots, she dropped to the floor, leaned back against the door and breathed deeply until she stopped seeing spots. He could have shot her. Might would have shot her if he’d thought for a second she knew he wasn’t Bain’s partner or if he hadn’t believed that she hadn’t seen the data.

  She swept her hair back from her face with a trembling hand. She’d survived that round. Okay. Okay. Now what did she do about Bain?

  * * *

  4:00 p.m.

  The house phone had been tapped. Nothing else made sense. Even if Medros’s henchman had been watching the house, the guy wouldn’t have known to ask for the thumb drives or the need for speed in getting them and getting away before Bain arrived. The only way he could know that information was if he’d overheard both sides of the phone call from her to Bain.

  Agent Bain arrived and, after they’d exchanged pleasantries and he’d informed her he had no new information on her father’s case, he asked for the drives.

  Gabby gave them to him. But instinct warned her to keep information about Medros’s man’s visit to herself, so she heeded the warning. The information belonged to Medros, after all, so it wasn’t as if he didn’t have the right to it.

  “Have you looked at these?” Agent Bain asked.

  Gabby could give him the same spiel she’d given Medros’s man, but she didn’t. Lying to the FBI was a lot different than deceiving a Medros thug, so she evaded, sidestepping. “They stole the computer, remember?”

  “I do.” He frowned. “So how do you know what’s on them is of interest?”

  “I don’t, which is why I said maybe they’re of interest. Or maybe they’re not,” she reminded him. “I have no means here to safely look at the drives.”

  A little confused, he cocked his head. “What made you think they might be of interest?”

  She hiked an eyebrow. “Well, why else would my father hide them in a wall?”

  “Fair point.” His frown eased and he went on. “I understand you’re an IT guru over at Handel.”

  “I work there in IT, yes.”

  “If my people need help deciphering the data, will you help them?”

  Testing the waters to see if she’d be cooperative. There was little the FBI couldn’t handle and even less that would require her help. “If I can, of course,” she said. “But don’t expect much. I know nothing about my father’s work which means if I saw it, I wouldn’t know what I was looking at.”

  “Understood.” Bain rubbed at a graying temple, appearing more relaxed than he had been when he’d arrived. “We’re hoping these drives contain information that will help us finally nail Medros.”

  Silence seemed wisest, not knowing if the phone or the house was bugged. So, she smiled and nodded.

  Shortly thereafter, Agent Bain departed with a copy of the original thumb drives, no doubt eager to see for himself what was on them.

  As soon as he looked, he would realize he had hit the Medros motherlode and be in a great mood. She almost envied him that. Almost. Because then he too would be a target.

  She returned to her packing and second-guessed the wisdom of what she had done the rest of the afternoon. No matter what alternative she tried in her mind, she ended up vulnerable or dead.

  By dark, nothing on that front had changed. Weary, she forced herself to keep working, eager to have this chore behind her and to drive away from this house for the last time. For the next few hours, she continued to spin scenarios, and finally concluded she’d done the best she could do to distance herself and convince both men she had no idea what she had given them. Nothing else afforded her more protection, and most alternate options offered her a lot less.

  This was one time when ignorance was bliss.

  Whether or not it was enough bliss to keep her alive remained to be seen.

  Her phone rang. Recognizing Handel’s ringtone, she answered, “Gabby Blake.”

  “Blake, it’s Fitch. I hate to bother you, but I need help.”

  “With what?”

  “We’ve had a security breach.”

  Handel didn’t do security breaches. It stopped other businesses from having them. “I’ll be right there.”

  Minutes later at the office, Gabby sat at her desk and began running diagnostics to assess the problem. Theirs was a complicated system and it took a good stretch of time, especially with Fitch standing over her shoulder, but finally she had her answers. “Handel hasn’t been breached. I have,” she told Fitch, then looked back at him. “Have you logged in on my computer?”

  “No.” He didn’t meet her eyes. “Well, yeah, I did. I needed to run a backup and I didn’t want to tie up my machine.”

  Gabby glared at him. “How did you get my password?”

  His face red, he frowned at her. “You know how.”

  He’d hacked her. She let him see her fury. “Fitch, give me one reason I should not report you and recommend Peter Handel fire you right now.”

  Fear flashed through his eyes, settled on his face. “Blake. Gabby, don’t. Please.” He lifted a hand. “You don’t understand. I had no choice.”

  “What do you mean?” She challenged him. “Of course, you had a choice.”

  Fear flooded his face. “This goon gave me until nightfall to check out your computer and prove you hadn’t uploaded anything from a thumb drive. He stood right here while I checked.”

  Medros’s thug had dared to come here? She described the potential goon, Bain’s fake partner and had-to-be Medros’s man. “Bald, beard, fifties, black coat and shirt?” She didn’t mention the weapon he carried.

  Fitch’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, that’s him.” Fitch frowned and dropped his voice. “He had a gun on me, Gabby. I had to do it.”

  She d
idn’t doubt Fitch was telling the truth. He was far too scared to lie. “Did the goon give you his name?”

  “No, but the identification he used to get in the building was for Rogan Gregos.”

  Surprise streaked up Gabby’s spine. The same name he had asked her about at her father’s house. “I don’t know anyone with that name,” she said, putting it out there. “What did you tell him?”

  “The truth,” Fitch said. “That you haven’t been in the office since your dad died and there had been no remote access to your computer. It’s not allowed. Corporate policy. And even if you tried, you’d be blocked by security protocols. Handel himself can’t get around them.”

  That was why he’d taken the risk to come here. He had no other options. “Did he say why he wanted to know this information?”

  “No.”

  A muscle twitched near his mouth. The one that said he wasn’t being forthright. “Don’t lie to me, Fitch.”

  “I swear. That’s all of it. I looked at your computer and told him you hadn’t accessed anything or uploaded anything. He took a photo of the screen with his phone, warned I’d better not be lying to him or he’d be back, and then he left.”

  That held the ring of truth. But there was something more. She felt it down to the marrow of her bones. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Fitch swallowed hard. “He said if I told anyone what he wanted in here he’d kill me.” Fitch blinked hard. “He knew where my family lives, Blake. Where my kids go to school. He even knew I pick up my mom from chemo and that’s why I’m late getting to work.”

  That surprised Gabby. She hadn’t known that was the reason Fitch ran late. Guilt for her irritation with him about it set in. “I’m sorry about your mom.” Why didn’t Bain’s fake partner who obviously worked for Medros just kill Fitch? She glanced up, saw the camera. He couldn’t kill everyone in the building, and if he did, he still couldn’t eliminate the video footage, which was stored on-site and in a remote location.