“But you did it for Cecil.”
Nikolas nodded. “True, but that was one little traffic camera that nobody cares about. This is a courthouse, more complicated.”
“So you’re not going to do it?”
Nikolas laughed. “No, I do it for you, Mr. Glass. Just might take a little time. Give me time.”
“Like a week?”
Nikolas shrugged. “Don’t really know. Some, I get quick. Others, more difficult.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
The next few days passed without incident. Maybe it was the novelty, but every morning Sammy got up, got dressed, and headed off to school without complaint. By the end of the week, a pattern had already developed. It felt like she had been going to Clement City her whole life. Sammy seemed more at ease and more confident.
Then, on Friday evening before dinner, the phone rang. This time, however, Sammy wasn’t in trouble.
It was a girl from school. I handed Sammy the phone, and they talked for a few minutes. Then Sammy said into the receiver, “I’ll check and call you back.”
They were assigned to be partners for a history project, and the girl wanted to know whether Sammy was willing to come to her house to work on it and then go to a movie on Saturday.
It was the first time that Sammy had been invited to a playdate in years, although I didn’t say it was a playdate out loud. I knew that I’d be scolded for using such a babyish term, and that Sammy would give me the heavy eye roll.
I normally found the teasing to be quite enjoyable, but not this time. I didn’t want to do anything or say anything that was going to ruin it.
“I’ll make sure we get you over there.” I played it straight. “You can call her back and get the address after dinner.”
“Will do.” Sammy smiled. Her personality was lit up, and it was quite possible that she might float away.
“You ready to go?” I asked.
“I am,” she said, and then we walked over to the main house for dinner.
The weekend went by in a blink and the next thing I knew, I was in my office on Monday morning prioritizing phone messages and gaming out the week. Emma updated me on new hearings that had been scheduled, and then it was almost time to go.
Although the arraignment calendar wouldn’t start until ten o’clock at the earliest, I wanted to stop into the Northside Roastery before heading downtown.
Nikolas and I needed to talk.
I grabbed my battered briefcase, hustled out the door, and walked down to the coffee shop. Hermes came out from the back. I ordered a dark roast and then asked whether I could go back and see his brother.
Hermes shrugged as he put the money I paid in the drawer. “Human interaction might be good for him.”
“Supposedly it’s good for everybody.” I picked the cup of coffee off the counter, thanked Hermes, and walked around the counter to the backroom.
Nikolas was sitting in front of his three screens. A cold, half-eaten box of Chinese food was on one side. Three bottles of Mountain Dew were on the other.
I knocked on the door frame. “Got a minute?”
“A minute or two.” Nikolas fired off another barrage on the keyboard and turned around. “What’s happening, my friend?”
“Nothing much,” I said. “Just wondering how you’re doing.”
Nikolas nodded. “An update on the security camera project?”
“That’d be nice.”
“Short answer is that it’s tough job.” Nikolas considered his words. “Like I thought, it’s not on the same system as the traffic cameras. Those are city cameras, and the system protection is weak. These cameras are state court system, separate from the city and more sophisticated. More protections because court data is more sensitive than cars driving down the road or your friend getting drunk in a park.”
“Hey now,” I said. “Cecil wasn’t drunk.”
“Well,” said Nikolas. “He wasn’t drinking in a park. May have been drunk.”
I conceded this, and we moved on.
Nikolas explained, “The state court system, they’re used to being attacked by hackers from China and people who do it for fun.”
“But you can get in?”
“Maybe,” he said, “but it’ll take a long time to figure out a path.”
“Are we talking weeks?”
“Months,” said Nikolas. “If at all.”
“I don’t have months.”
“You can go to your cop friend, see if he do it.”
After Judge Bryce’s warning about Schmitty, I wasn’t sure I wanted to play on that team. “Are you sure there isn’t a quicker way?” I asked. “I don’t know what, something more direct?”
Nikolas sat for a moment, thinking. Then he turned away from me and located a half-empty Mountain Dew bottle. He unscrewed the cap, took a drink, and set it back on his workstation. “I got an idea,” he said. “But it’s risky.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
The plan we devised in the half hour before I was due in court was destined for failure. In hindsight, it’s quite clear. One should never commit a major felony or violate multiple federal laws in haste. Variables should be limited. Opportunities for discovery and identification should be minimal, if not nonexistent. And, with things going pretty well professionally and personally, I was just plain pushing my luck.
Getting the lunch appointment with Judge Bryce was a fluke. It should’ve been another sign that this was too easy and that I needed to stop and think. Judges are notoriously busy with meetings and court during the day, but when I’d called, he’d told me that he was available. My guess was that Bryce had rearranged his schedule to meet with me. I thought that the judge was merely anxious to hear the latest gossip about Jimmy Poles.
I arrived at the Juvenile Justice Center a little after noon. The overweight security guard that had almost confiscated my phone and placed me under arrest was working the metal detector. As I placed my briefcase onto the conveyer belt for the X-ray machine and passed through the metal detector without a beep, he gave me the skunk eye and didn’t say a word.
I retrieved my briefcase, walked down the corridor to the elevators, and rode up to Judge Bryce’s floor. His law clerk ushered me back to his chambers, and then I sat down across from him. We made small talk about the weather and where we should go to eat.
“There’s a little Indian place about a block from here through campus.” Judge Bryce considered his own recommendation. “Not a bad buffet, the price is right, and it’s quick.”
“Sounds good.” I nodded and then stood.
The cell phone was in my hand. The text had already been typed. I just needed to press “Send” when the time was right.
As I walked out the door, Judge Bryce grabbed his coat and followed behind. He said a few words to his law clerk, and then we walked into the hallway.
We got about halfway, and then I turned to Judge Bryce. I’ve never claimed to be a good actor, and my guess is that this is where the plan started to fall apart.
“Oh,” I said. “I forgot my briefcase in your chambers.”
Judge Bryce shrugged and kept walking. “You can come back up here when we’re done.”
“No.” I turned. “I better get it.” I started back, not wanting to give Judge Bryce an opportunity to argue. “Afternoon appointments.” I took another few steps, and then I looked down at my cell phone.
The text message to Nikolas was one word: Ready.
I pressed “Send” as I walked past Judge Bryce’s law clerk, then entered the judge’s chambers without pausing. I went past the chairs, past my briefcase, and around to the other side of the Judge Bryce’s desk.
His computer had gone to sleep. I pressed a key on the keyboard, and the screen came back to life. Then I clicked on the icon for Microsoft Outlook.
As the program opened, there was a gigantic rock in my throat.
My hand shaking, I moved the cursor and scrolled up to the most recent e-mails. It was there, waiting for me. I ope
ned the e-mail that Nikolas had sent to the judge. The message appeared to have been sent from the judicial district’s IT department. There was a link, and above the link, the words:
YOUR PASSWORD WILL EXPIRE IN TWO DAYS.
PLEASE RESET YOUR PASSWORD.
Neither Nikolas nor I knew how savvy Judge Bryce was with computers. Nikolas figured that we should set it up like a typical phishing scheme. If I had the opportunity to click the link, then he’d be able to install the malware onto Judge Bryce’s computer. If not, we hoped Judge Bryce would read the message and do it himself.
I clicked the link, and the screen flashed. Nikolas was in. Then I deleted the e-mail message, took a deep breath, and stepped back from the computer.
I checked my watch. Less than a minute had passed. And then I looked up.
Judge Bryce was standing in the doorway, looking at me, puzzled.
I glanced at the computer and then back at the judge. I forced a smile. “Better get some food. I’m hungry.”
“Don’t you want your briefcase?” Judge Bryce looked down at the floor by the chair that I had been sitting in. The briefcase was still there. “Or was that not what you were really looking for?” Judge Bryce took a few steps farther into his chambers and closed the door.
“Sorry.” I slowly walked out from behind Judge Bryce’s desk. “Must be going blind or something.” I reached down and picked my briefcase up off the floor. “It was there the whole time.” I nodded. “Ready to go?”
Judge Bryce held out his hand. “No.” He shook his head. “I’m not ready to go.” He stared at me. His eyes cold. “I think you need to explain why you snuck back into my office and were doing something with my computer.”
I held out my hands. “I don’t know.” My mind was blank. I couldn’t think of any plausible explanation.
Judge Bryce didn’t flinch. His demeanor remained stiff. “I think you do know, and I think you better start talking to me.”
I swallowed, unsure of exactly how much trouble I was in. “I can’t really . . . I think maybe I should just go. Have lunch another time.”
I started toward the door, but Judge Bryce didn’t move. He knew that I wasn’t going to push him aside. “You’re not leaving here until you tell me what you’re doing.”
I looked at him. We stared at each other in silence, and then I bowed. “Fine.” I took a few steps back, gathering my words. “I think you may have been right about Schmitty,” I said. “He’s stalling on the investigation. They all are. We’ve only talked and met once over the past few weeks. He’s not returning my calls again, so I thought I’d try and get it myself.”
Judge Bryce’s eyes narrowed. “Get what?”
“The security videos,” I said. “We know the date and approximate time that the Turner boy disappeared. So I want to see the security footage of who took the probation vans that night.”
Judge Bryce studied me, and then he looked over at his computer. “You think I have the security videos on my computer?” His voice dripped with skepticism and disappointment.
I shook my head. “No, but the videos are stored in the judicial district’s system. It’s pretty well protected, I’m told. But if we get past the first security gate, it’s easier.”
“We?”
“A friend,” I said.
“Does your friend have a name?”
“Of course.”
“And?”
I hesitated. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I think it matters.”
“Just a guy at a coffee shop near me. He sent you an e-mail. I just needed to click the link, and he’d be able to get inside, break through a few more firewalls, and find out if there’s video of who’s been taking these kids.”
“A guy at a coffee shop.” Judge Bryce shook his head and took a step toward me. “And you didn’t trust the police to do this?”
I shook my head, thinking of Schmitty. “Not really.”
“And nobody else knows you did this?”
“No.”
Judge Bryce didn’t respond. He stood in silence, thinking about my response. I could see him silently processing everything that I had revealed, working it through. Eventually he stopped staring at me and looked down at the ground.
The silence seemed like an eternity.
Then Judge Bryce took a deep breath, put his hands on his hips, and looked up at me. He had a huge smile on his face. “Well that was a ballsy plan, Glass.” Judge Bryce started to laugh. “Incredibly stupid, too.” He walked over to me, still smiling, and put his hand on my shoulder.
“You should’ve just asked me to do it.” He patted me on the back. “I can’t wait to nail the asshole who’s responsible for all this shit.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
The cell phone’s ringtone distantly rattled some part of my brain, but the vibration on my nightstand really did it. A mini-jackhammer pounding on the wood top.
I reached for the phone. “Hello?”
It was Nikolas.
I rubbed my eyes. “Can this wait, man?” I was trying to figure out whether this was a dream. “Connect in the morning or something?”
Nikolas told me I had to come down to the shop.
“Seriously?” I tried to sit up, but my body refused to follow any commands.
“Just come down to the shop,” Nikolas said. “Need you to come down to the shop, right now.”
“Why?” I asked, but Nikolas had already hung up.
I turned on a light, looked at the clock—3:19 a.m.—and considered calling Nikolas back to tell him I wasn’t coming. It would have been the right decision, but as I sat there and actually processed what was going on, I started to get excited. Maybe he’d actually found something.
I left a note for Sammy, just in case she got up in the middle of the night and wondered where I was.
In the dead of night with no traffic, it took me about ten minutes to get to the office.
The street was dark. No lights were on, except at the Northside Roastery. I pulled around back and parked behind the coffee shop.
I was now wide awake, positive that I was about to watch a video of Jimmy Poles driving out of the Juvenile Justice Center’s parking lot on the night that Isaac’s brother went missing. Maybe, if I was lucky, there’d be some video picked up by a random camera near where the kidnapping actually occurred. It was a long shot, but it was possible. Cameras were everywhere.
I got out of my car and went to the back door. I knocked once. Nobody came. I knocked again, louder this time, and waited. “Nikolas, it’s me.” I tried the door, and it was unlocked.
Opening it a little wider, I took a step inside. “Hey, Nik, it’s Justin.” I peeked around the door. There was a light shining from the room where Nikolas worked.
Everything else was dark.
I took one step farther inside. Then an odd feeling rushed through me. Something wasn’t right. As I took a step back, I heard a click; then I felt a sting as two small fishhooks attached to my chest. Fifty thousand volts of electricity pulsed through my body and pushed me hard to the floor as I blacked out.
When I woke up, my mind was in a fog. Each breath took effort. My fingertips felt numb. I wasn’t sure where I was or how long I had been unconscious, but I knew the hard tile floor wasn’t my bed. I wasn’t at home.
There was talking. An angry voice barked orders. It was a familiar voice, but I couldn’t place it. I was too confused.
Lifting my head, I finally opened my eyes.
We were in the back office at the coffee shop. Recent events started to come back to me, and I realized that I was in trouble.
Nikolas was in his chair in front of his three computer monitors. Standing over Nikolas was a man. It wasn’t a local thug. It wasn’t Jimmy Poles. It wasn’t Sergeant Schmidt.
My mind was scattered and it was difficult to put the pieces together. I rubbed my face and tried to prop myself up.
He must have seen me out of the corner of his eye, noticing the movement.
Judge Bryce turned and smiled, pointing his gun at my head. “Nice of you to join us.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Judge Bryce wasn’t happy with how long it was taking. He became agitated whenever Nikolas scrolled through pages and pages of code. Judge Bryce thought Nikolas was stalling, which maybe he was. Nobody knew for sure.
“Judge,” I said, “what are you doing? Why?”
He looked back at me, annoyed, and then returned his attention to Nikolas without responding.
I figured he was going to kill me no matter what, so I didn’t have much to lose by being annoying. Even though my body ached, I pushed myself farther upright and tried again to engage. “You’re being stupid, Judge. Think this through.”
Judge Bryce looked back at me, pointing the gun. “Shut up.” I thought I saw a flicker of doubt in his eyes. There was nervousness.
“Schmitty already knows,” I lied. “I thought about your warning. I also thought about your enthusiasm for my investigation today. It didn’t feel right.”
“Don’t believe you.” Judge Bryce turned back to Nikolas. “I’ve been watching you for a long time. Even knew about him”—he nodded down toward Nikolas—“figured he’d be the one that was getting the stuff on Poles.”
“I’m telling you that Schmitty knows about you,” I lied again. “In addition to those videos, there’s other stuff out there connecting you to these murders. The cops are building the case, getting the warrants.”
Judge Bryce scoffed at me, arrogant. “You’re bluffing.”
I tried to think of something that would make him stop. We needed to buy some time. “Schmitty gave me all those files,” I said. “Your name is in every single one of them.”
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