Flashbyte (Byte Series - Ellie Conway Book 4)

by Cat Connor

  We headed off, the road familiar. Lulled by this, the past sprang to life all around me.

  The drive was quiet with only two other vehicles on the road, and I knew both the drivers. We waved as we passed each other.

  I finished the last mouthful of coffee just before O’Hare’s driveway. The gates were shut.

  So I drove past a few hundred yards and then doubled back, checking there were no cars parked anywhere nearby. It was too far from town for anyone to be out here on foot. Horse was an option but I didn’t see any horses tied on the roadside.

  I pulled up the driveway, wound down my window, and pressed a button on the gate intercom.

  A male voice answered, “Yes.”

  “Agent Conway to see Sean O’Hare.”

  “Buzzing you in, Agent.”

  There were perimeter cameras. The gate opened inward and I inched the car forward. Once clear the gates began to shut. I waited, watching in the rearview mirror.

  Just in case someone tried to slip in behind me.

  I continued down the long tree-lined driveway. To my right I glimpsed a horse and foal in a field. On the left, open pasture lead to thick woods. The driveway swept past stables then forked. An impressive house loomed on the left as the driveway continued on to the right.

  I glimpsed another large house some distance away and through trees. I chose the closest house. I parked by a four-car garage and walked back to the house. Another camera caught my eye. It tracked my movements.

  I knocked on the back door. I certainly wasn’t going to use the front door of the house. ‘Stately’ best described it. I was more hired help; I chose the door that seemed more appropriate.

  A tall dark-haired man, with steel-gray eyes, opened the door. Sean.

  I showed him my badge and announced myself.

  “Come on in, Ellie. It’s good to see you again.”

  He extended his hand. We shook.

  I wondered if he did remember me, or if he was just being polite.

  “Cait ... Sorry. Director O’Hare mentioned a guest and a possible missing person.”

  Sean laughed. “Call her Cait … much nicer than what I call her. And that is the situation.”

  We stood in a spacious farmhouse-style kitchen. Dominating the room was a large pine dining table with ten chairs spaced around it. A set of french doors opened off the far end of the room. Another door, this time solid, opened off the right-hand side, next to what appeared to be a walk-in pantry.

  Sean opened the doors and invited me into the living room. It was hard not to smile. I was in Cait O’Hare’s living room. Most people didn’t get past her outer office. I felt special.

  I could see a computer screen and the view from about six security cameras on it.

  I turned to Sean. “What is it you need from me?”

  “I have a missing guest and she needs finding.”

  “Have local and state police been—”

  “That can’t happen.”

  “Can’t?”

  “Won’t,” he said. “I need your help in locating her.”

  “Okay.” Weird. But okay. “Her?”

  “Our guest.”

  I watched his eyes as he thought.

  “Is?” I asked. “I need to know who I’m looking for and the sooner we get on with the search the better.”

  “Michaela Kennedy.”

  “The author?”

  He nodded.

  A New York Times bestselling author was missing. How embarrassing. Guess if something blows up we’ll know she’s close. I slipped into work mode.

  “For how long?”

  “Three hours at the most.”

  “Where was she last seen?”

  “Going upstairs to bed last night.”

  “Any chance she could be missing longer than three hours?”

  Sean shook his head. “No. The house is alarmed and the grounds monitored by heat-tracking security cameras.”

  “And?”

  “I set the system last night, to record from eleven p.m. to seven-thirty a.m.”

  “There was no warning alarm? The cameras recorded without a hitch, and the guest is gone?”

  “Yes.”

  I ran through a list of customary and obvious questions, getting the answers I expected. Except for the last one: she was missing and without her cell phone. Who leaves their cell behind these days? I mean, really? Unless of course coverage was shit, which was a possibility.

  It was shaping up to be quite a mystery. That made two mysteries in quiet little Mauryville within twenty-four hours. Unbelievably strange.

  “Can I see her room, please?”

  “Sure.”

  Sean motioned for me to follow him. We entered a wide hallway and proceeded to the end. A staircase led to the upstairs bedrooms.

  I talked to Sean as I looked around the room, accidentally kicking something on the floor near the bed. Kneeling down, I lifted the valance and spotted a book quite a way under Ms. Kennedy’s bed. I stretched my arm out and hooked it closer with a finger. Once I had it in the light I could tell it was a leather-bound journal.

  I opened to the first page and realized it was for notes, not a personal diary. It must have fallen from the nightstand, prior to connecting with my booted foot.

  “Was Ms. Kennedy working on a new book?”

  “I expect so,” Sean said.

  I flipped through the journal, scanning pages looking for a hint as to her movements. Or maybe something that indicated she knew about the bombs? In the middle of the book I came across two names. Robert and Leticia Saville.

  “Did you hear about the stranger in town yesterday?”

  He shook his head.

  “Something I should know?”

  “Could be. A man named Robert Saville parked in front of the book store for five hours.”

  “Must really like books.”

  “Never got out of his car.”

  He looked over at me, curiosity brimming. I ignored the look and asked, “Your guest writes fiction, yes? Must really like books.”

  “Touché.”

  “Looks like she was doing some research into the Leticia Saville kidnapping, back in nineteen ninety-one.” I paused to gauge his reaction.

  If smoke could’ve poured from his ears ...

  “I take it Leticia is related to Robert Saville?” He exhibited great control as he spoke. “And this Robert Saville was in Mauryville yesterday?”

  “Yes to both questions.”

  This was not good.

  “Did the FBI investigate the kidnapping?” Sean asked.

  “More than likely; it was sixteen years ago in Richmond; wouldn’t be hard to check. It’ll be on the computer system.”

  He pulled his cell phone from his pocket. I carried on. The journal didn’t have much by way of current information, just some questions regarding the case. It seemed Michaela found the father’s subsequent disappearance peculiar. She also queried where the mother was and why she wasn’t a prominent figure in the media during the event. I heard Sean talking.

  “Cait, do you remember the Saville kidnapping back in ...?” He looked at me.

  “Nineteen ninety-one,” I replied as I turned a page.

  “Nineteen ninety-one,” he repeated into the phone.

  Several pages later I found a list of questions and I interrupted Sean. “She was going to interview him.”

  He nodded and hung up.

  “Cait was part of the team that worked that case; it was early in her career. She never spoke of it to Michaela.”

  “No recent questions then?”

  “No.”

  “Did Cait say who she thought was responsible for the missing kid?”

  “She remembers the father was the main suspect, but they never had a strong enough case to arrest him.”

  I sat on the edge of the bed and thought aloud with the help of my notebook, “Saville arrives in town and parks outside Holly’s store for five hours. Holly feels insecure. Local police
all busy. She calls me. I discover his car was seen in the vicinity of an indecent assault. There was a report of a handgun in the vehicle. He’s a person of interest. Holly was his missing daughter’s best friend. State police arrive to back me up. They find the alleged stolen gun and take over questioning Robert Saville. The next day Michaela Kennedy goes missing.” I picked up her notebook and turned to the page after the questions. I read the page then handed the book to Sean. “I think she met him somewhere this morning.”

  There was a date, today’s date, and it was circled.

  Sean didn’t look surprised. He might not have been, but I was.

  Saville could have picked her up early this morning out on the road. Michaela would have known when the alarm and cameras were off.

  “Still want me here?” Instead of a missing person there was an author meeting someone to conduct an interview. It was looking like I could get on home and organize my books.

  “Why did she leave her notebook here? Wouldn’t she need the questions? Seems like she went to a lot of trouble thinking them through,” Sean replied. “Why leave her phone?”

  “Good question. Maybe she has another notebook that she takes to interviews. Something more like a stenographers note pad, or I dunno, just not that one.”

  He nodded turning the leather-bound journal over in his hands. “That would make sense, this looks like it’s special and she wouldn’t risk losing it.”

  I pointed to the inscription inside the front over. It was from Cait for a birthday.

  “She will probably come back under her own steam once she has finished her interview,” I offered with a confidence I didn’t feel. “She could’ve forgotten her phone.”

  Sean smiled. “Good try. Let’s go.” He stood by the open bedroom door. “We need to find her.”

  Noises from around me demolished my past. This was my life now, a collection of fleeting scenes and disjointed feelings. I needed concrete. I needed memories. I needed to remember what makes me me. I needed to get back to the memory, to find what it was that was so important.

  “Ellie!”

  I jumped. My eyes focused on a man in front of me. Sean O’Hare.

  “Sorry. I startled you?”

  Before replying my eyes shifted left then right. I was standing on the back porch of a house that felt moderately familiar. I flicked my eyes up to find Sean’s steel-gray eyes looking down at me. “Ellie, I didn’t expect to see you out here.”

  “Didn’t expect to see you, either.” He was in the memory that enveloped everything. But I last saw him in New Zealand; he and his wife had moved to Christchurch. “Vacation?”

  “Yes,” he said smiling. “And you?”

  “Lost.”

  His eyes clouded, puzzled. He looked beyond me.

  “Kurt, Lee, just like old times,” Sean said, confusion evident in his voice. “Come on in.”

  He ushered us through the door and into the warm and light kitchen I remembered. Sean pointed to the pine table and chairs in the middle of the room. “Have a seat.”

  Lee sat next to me. Kurt at the end. Sean opposite me.

  “Physically lost?” Sean asked.

  “No,” I said. “I know where I am.” That much I was sure of. “I’ve misplaced some memories.”

  Imagine if we could just plug in a flash drive and replace the missing files. Imagine if inside our heads there was a little pop-up reminder to back up the day’s events. How does a person back up their memories? Write it down like in Fifty First Dates? Maybe I should get a notebook and document everything. I don’t want to be that woman. I want a USB port in my brain so I can plug in a flash drive and retrieve memories in an instant.

  “Misplaced?”

  I looked at Kurt for help and he took over. “Ellie has lost some memory. I believe it will return. I think what we’re seeing, and what she’s experiencing, is stress-related amnesia. She’s forgotten those emotionally closest to her. Those she feels compelled to protect.”

  It sounded so simple, ridiculous even, when Doc said it.

  Sean nodded.

  “There was an episode in the hospital. Ellie was admitted for a severe migraine and fell prey to a killer. We lost her for a few minutes. So far, the effect of both the migraine and the incident leading to her momentary death is a little more missing memory.”

  Sean looked back at me. “How did you end up here?”

  “I wanted to go home. It triggered a series of memories, Robert Saville and his missing daughter, and Michaela.”

  “That was not a good time for any of us,” Sean said.

  “Any chance one of you will fill us in?” Lee said.

  Sean smiled. “Cait and I have a younger sister, Michaela Kennedy. For security reasons the relationship between ourselves and Michaela has never been publicized.”

  Lee and Kurt looked at each other.

  “Michaela Kennedy the thriller author?” Kurt asked.

  Sean nodded.

  Kurt appeared thoughtful. Lee’s face showed he knew what was significant about Michaela Kennedy and Mauryville.

  “She was abducted from here?” Lee said.

  Sean and I both nodded.

  I heard Sean talking, telling them about the case, but I couldn’t stay focused to hear what he said.

  When his voice stopped I asked Lee what I’d missed.

  “Sean is filling us in on the Saville connection,” Lee said. “How you doing?”

  “Hanging in there. Watching it all happen again. Except it’s like it’s happening for the first time.”

  A sense of desperation fell over me. What if I was insane? My worst fears realized. I could be my mother.

  “I don’t get how this will bring back my life, but I can’t stop it happening.”

  “Chicky, would it help if you told us exactly what you saw?”

  “It would help if I could take you with me.”

  Sean was leaning back in his chair.

  “I think I’m supposed to find Leticia Saville. Help me, Sean.” They were my words but they were foreign. I was the person who didn’t ask for help. My words hung like neon signs hung from the kitchen roof and swayed from side to side.

  “Leticia Saville? The missing child?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really? After all this time?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know this?”

  “Everything that happened when Saville turned up in Mauryville is happening again. I can see it unfolding all around me. I’m slipping in and out of the past. Just moments ago I was in Michaela’s bedroom, upstairs here, with you. Reading her journal.” I paused and imagined them conspiring to have me tossed in the nearest psych unit forever. “We didn’t follow it far enough. Leticia is close. I know it.”

  “We weren’t looking for Leticia. We were looking for Mikki. Can you skip forward?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve tried that. It needs to be linear.”

  The past surrounded me with its familiar smells and sounds. There was something comforting about knowing how it all unfolded.

  Sean handed me the journal and pointed to something. A chemical formula. It was fascinating because I recognized it. She had written the molecular formula for cyclonite, better known as RDX, in her notebook. Nothing else, just the formula scrawled across the middle of a page, two blank pages after the questions for Saville. We really did need to find her.

  “You know the media is talking about the bombs and saying they’re linked to Kennedy’s appearances?” I gave him back the book.

  “Yes. She has nothing to do with the bombings.” He was adamant. “Nothing.”

  “What was the explosive used, do you know?”

  He shook his head.

  I knew. There was a discussion about the explosive while I was in the Richmond field office yesterday morning.

  “C4.”

  “Which is RDX, mixed with a plasticizer, plastic binder and a marker,” Sean said.

  “Why would Kennedy have the chemical formula for t
he main ingredient of C4 in her notebook?”

  “Research?”

  He had me there. Could well be research. She was a thriller writer. Yet it seemed strange to me, not that it was written in her notebook but how it was written, like it meant something, but she didn’t know yet what it meant. Maybe it was an idea she’d had.

  I walked down the stairs ahead of Sean. My mind was running scenarios so fast I couldn’t keep up.

  At the bottom of the stairs, I pulled out my phone. I called my Supervisory Special Agent and walked into Cait’s kitchen to talk to him in private.

  “Caine, can you look up Robert Saville in the system and tell me if he resides in Richmond and his line of work?”

  I read his DOB from my notebook.

  He didn’t question why I wanted to know and within six seconds had an answer for me. He did reside in Richmond, also owned residential properties in six other cities in Virginia.

  His employment record was interesting. His last known job was sixteen years before, as an electrician.

  “Do any of those cities correspond to recent bombings?” I couldn’t very well ask if Michaela Kennedy had visited recently, we don’t have that kind of information in our system.

  Big brother is good, but not that good.

  Five cities including Richmond met the criteria. That left two cities. I couldn’t decide if the coincidence was growing or there was something more to it. I needed to know if Kennedy visited all the cities and what the connection between her and Saville was. Really was. Not the supposed interview it appeared on the surface.

  I thanked Caine and snapped my phone shut. Sean was standing behind me, I could hear him breathing. I turned and smiled. Not wanting to discuss my phone call I launched into a tirade of questions, “Where do you want to start? Have you searched the grounds?” They seemed extensive and he was alone, so perhaps he’d been waiting for me, although I doubted he was the sit and wait type. “And the woods? What about the other house I saw when I arrived?”

  I slipped my phone into my pocket and wondered how much he’d heard. I didn’t want it in my hand drawing his questions back to me.