by Lee Winter
An hour later she finally got through to the accounting officer.
Five minutes later Lauren’s mind was reeling.
“Well?” Ayers asked impatiently.
“Ughh he’s still a little tightly wound about the media,” Lauren reported and dropped the phone to the coffee table between them. “He had a few choice things to say about me calling him at work. And, well, at all.
“The bottom line is he says, while Nigel Masters is an anti-social jerk, he’s apparently got an excellent eye for numbers, details, and finding mistakes everyone else misses. He also says you’d be certifiable to pay the kid to consult on anything. He can barely string two words together.”
“So a young employee with a sharp eye for finding hidden things is getting $5000 every two months.” Ayers’s eyes glinted. “Well, well.”
“So it’s shut-the-hell-up-about-what-you-just-found money?” Lauren suggested.
“Most likely. Is that all Barry said? You look a little…” she waved her hand, “distracted.”
Lauren exhaled. “Yeah. Uh, well I read out the number to him. You know, the one belonging to the company paying the men in the red files. I asked him if he recognized it.”
“So I heard. Did he know it?”
“Oh yeah. He sure did. He said, ‘Why the hell are you reading out SmartPay’s account numbers to me?’”
Ayers froze. “SmartPay?”
Lauren nodded grimly. “You think SmartPay could be bribing its way to success?”
Ayers inhaled sharply. “They’re on the verge of going national. Then they want to go global and run everyone’s payroll. Not to mention their expansion in the banking side.”
“Yep.” Lauren nodded, eyes wide. “And if they’re dirty, then this is huge.”
“We really need to find Jonathan Sands,” Ayers said, flicking out her hand. “As in right now. Pass me the white box. We have to figure out the postcards.”
* * *
“Gah,” Lauren said and stretched. “This is maddening. Everything on the cards is so random. Peanut butter, chicken breasts, spinach salads, nougat? And what old guy buys chicken breasts and spinach salad anyway?”
“One who wishes to live to be an even older man?” Ayers suggested dryly, not looking up from studying some cards fanned out in front of her.
“I’ve tried anagrams, but if you scramble up the letters, all you get is even more scrambled letters,” Lauren continued. “I’ve tried looking at every second, third and fourth word. All I get is a list of bitching and whining.
“So—new working theory. What if Gray is just some grumpy old bastard who thinks his son should know his life’s expensive? These scribblings might only be proof of a cranky, unhinged mind!”
“Then why would Sands keep the postcards?” Ayers asked reasonably, glancing up. “No. I don’t buy it. Keep looking.”
“Well even if we find the father, it doesn’t mean we’ll find the son.” Lauren rubbed her eyes. “Why are we even assuming that?”
“This is our only fresh lead,” Ayers reminded her. “And I’m assuming nothing. Even so, it’s not such a huge leap that a father might know where his son’s favorite hiding place is.”
“If he’s hiding,” Lauren grumbled. “Not floating around in a lake somewhere proving that asshole Rankin right. Wouldn’t be the first whistle-blower who met a suspicious and sticky end.”
“To think people call me pessimistic,” Ayers said. “You’ve skipped that phase and jumped straight to depressingly macabre.”
Lauren yawned instead of answering. The past three hours were catching up with her. They’d worked through a platter of finger foods that Ayers had whipped up which substituted as dinner. And they were making good headway on a second bottle from her exceptional wine cellar—a 2001 Beringer Private Reserve cabernet. Lauren had secretly Googled it. Hundred bucks a pop.
“Call it a hunch,” Ayers added, stretching. “Families tend to know where the bodies are buried. And, before you go there, that is just a metaphor.”
“Okay. But these numbers are making my head hurt,” Lauren grouched. “Half of them aren’t even legit. I mean fifty-five dollars for a six-pack of beer? In what universe?”
Ayers stiffened. “Where did he write that?”
Lauren passed over the offending postcard.
“The prices are wrong,” Ayers repeated.
“I just said that.”
“If the prices are wrong, then they’re the code, not the words. We’ve been trying to decode the wrong thing.”
Lauren felt excitement streak through her, and she grabbed more of the cards and began to discount any words, homing in on the numbers.
“It’s a pattern,” she said after a few minutes. “Every single one has a similar series of numbers. Check if yours are the same. Two digits. Then two more, then a run of either three or four digits. The second paragraph is always two or three more numbers, then two, and another set of either three or four.”
Ayers flicked through the bunch she was holding. “Yes,” she confirmed. “And I just noticed the word closest to the numbers always have irregularly capped letters. The N is capped on nougat and the W on water. But didn’t Della say the whole family is a bunch of grammar nazis? It should be lowercase.”
Lauren stared. “Yeah, she did say that.” She scrabbled through some more. “Notice it’s only the same four letters that are ever capped? N, E, W, and S.”
“News?” Ayers frowned.
“Nope, try compass points. N as in north? E as in east and so on?”
“GPS co-ordinates,” Ayers hissed. “That’s what the numbers mean.” She sat up, eyes blazing with excitement.
“Yep.” Lauren grinned at her. “I take it back. Gray’s not a whiner; he’s one clever old coot.”
“Can we find the most recent postcard?” Ayers asked, sorting through her set. “Latest I have is last January.”
Lauren studied the postmarks on hers. Finally she said, “I have it. April 19th.”
She turned over the card and held up the winner.
“California.” Ayers breathed. “Let’s be grateful he’s not in Alaska.”
Lauren flipped the card back over and jotted down the numbers, turning them into strings. 38.65507°N -119.52213°E.
She reached for her phone and called up a GPS co-ordinates page. “So, let’s see where the old boy lives this month.”
They watched, heads bent over the phone, as the mapping app homed in on California then shifted, higher and higher.
Finally it zoomed in.
“Oh,” Lauren said. “Ohhh.”
The satellite photo was focused on a small thicket of trees, four miles southeast of a large water body.
A very familiar body of water.
Topaz Lake.
* * *
The third bottle of wine to celebrate figuring out where Gray was camped out could have been considered a mistake, Lauren mused as her fogged brain analyzed her current situation. But her happily buzzed body definitely did not see it that way.
Somehow Ayers had ended up on her side of the sofa.
Somehow Lauren had found her head almost resting on her shoulder.
Somehow Ayers hadn’t complained.
The music was beautiful. Some tragic French torch singer Lauren had never heard of. It sure beat classical.
“For a woman famous for being prickly, you sure are soft,” Lauren announced blearily.
At the stunned silence from her couchmate, Lauren lolled her head over and looked up at her. “Hey it’s after eleven. Censor-button-off rules apply.”
“Is that so?” came an amused reply. “More wine?”
“I probably shouldn’t, especially if we’re driving back to Topaz tomorrow,” Lauren said, but she held out her glass anyway. Ayers smirked and poured in a little more.
“Well since I’m driving, you can afford to let loose a little,” she said.
“Don’t you ever let loose?” Lauren asked, attempting to straighten up. “
Ever let your guard down?”
“Once or twice,” Ayers said and sipped her wine. “It didn’t end well.”
“Ah,” Lauren said. “Your big story. Tell me what happened?”
Ayers exhaled. “Not this again. You know I have been asked hundreds of times, and no one knows the truth.”
“Except you.”
“Not even me.”
Lauren blinked. “I don’t understand.”
“That’s okay, neither do I.”
“Catherine? Tell me what happened,” Lauren asked again. “Please?”
“Lauren.” The word was whispered, half plea, half scold.
“You trusted me with your secret. Trust me with this.”
Ayers’s index finger stroked the stem of her glass. “I’m not sure why I told you that.”
“Technically speaking you showed not told,” Lauren said impishly. “And I’m kinda hoping it’s because you like me?”
“Hmm,” Ayers said, but her eyes seemed brighter. Lauren wasn’t sure if it was too much wine or something else.
Ayers slowly placed her glass on the coffee table.
“It began with Stephanie,” she said softly. “My confidential informant. The one who brought me documents proving the scandal involving three judges and four congressmen and many others. The documents were shocking. How high the corruption went, how many kickbacks had been taken, how many people had to have known, the depths of the cover-ups. It was horrendous.”
Lauren held her breath, too scared to move in case Ayers stopped speaking.
“Of course, the journalist in me should have been highly suspicious. It was a treasure trove. A perfect story just falling in my lap. All the research done. All the proof right in front of me. I called a few names on the lists, some of the lower-down people who were peripherally involved and after a little arm twisting they confirmed it. All of it. But, still, it seemed too easy.
“And then there was Stephanie. She worked in one of the senator’s offices that had been rife with rumors of corruption for many years. She was so compelling, explaining how she sneaked the secret files out of her boss’s desk. She was so sure. So ready to get the ‘corrupt bastards’. She was what sold me on the story.” Her voice caught.
“You cared about her?” Lauren guessed.
There was a long pause. “Very much.” Ayers fiddled with a ring on her right hand. “Too much. I trusted her with my life. And my career as it turned out. I assumed she would never hurt me. So I ran with the story.”
Ayers closed her eyes painfully. “It was all a lie. The folder was entirely a fabrication. I found out that the lower-ranked people I’d contacted had been paid off to agree to anything I put to them. I never found out by whom, although I had my suspicions.”
“Didn’t Stephanie know who’d paid them?” Lauren asked.
Ayers reached for her glass with a shaky hand, took a long swallow, and returned it to the table. “The day the story ran, I went into work as usual and immediately the calls and abuse began to hit my desk. I realized I’d been played. I phoned her. No answer. I rushed to her place. All her things were gone. Stephanie was gone. I never saw her again. To this day, I don’t know if she knew all along that the information she gave me was false or whether she was just a pawn. The realist in me suspects the former.”
“Why did they do it?” Lauren asked gently, unsettled by Ayers’s stricken expression. “Why you?”
“Word on the street was I’d been too good at my job, and I was sniffing around something they didn’t want me to. Someone paid a large sum to ensure I was brought down. I’d say they got what they paid for—and more. And I learnt an important lesson that day.”
“Never to trust,” Lauren said slowly. “Never to assume.”
Ayers nodded. “It’s good advice.”
“Yet you’ve trusted me,” Lauren said. “Twice.”
“I’m really not sure why.” Ayers’s gaze settled on Lauren. “I knew you were trouble the moment I met you. The first day. I made your life hell so you’d leave and I wouldn’t have to even look at you.”
“Oh god, please tell me I don’t look like your ex?” Lauren stared at her, appalled.
Ayers gave her a small smile. “Not even close. But your brashness, your earnestness? She had that. It was in her eyes. She would look at me, and those eyes would promise me the world, and I’d believe anything.”
“It’s a scary thing,” Lauren suggested quietly, “to be so vulnerable to a simple look.”
“Yes,” Ayers said. “It truly is.”
“And you don’t do vulnerable. Or allow people in.”
“No,” she agreed. “Not anymore.”
“Well that’s good,” Lauren said, earning a startled look. “Because who wants to be exposed to life’s highs and lows, all that messy emotion, when you can just skate through, unfeeling and uninvolved, bitching at everyone? That’s much safer.”
“Are you judging me now?”
Lauren smiled to take the sting out. “Maybe a little. But no more than you judge yourself. It’s a devastating thing that happened to you. But I think you told me because you know I won’t pat your hand and say there, there. You want me to challenge you. Force you back out of your shell. And you trusted me because I’m the only person in your life who’ll make you.”
“You know nothing about me,” Ayers said faintly.
“So you keep saying. But I don’t see family or friends around you, telling you that life’s meant to be lived. That you’re too interesting and too smart to disappear into old regrets. That you have to get back in the game. I can’t picture Tad even standing up to you, let alone doing that.”
Ayers’s eyes were mere slits. “You can be very annoying. Maddening.”
“Yeah,” Lauren agreed. “So I’ve been told. Do you think that’s why you kissed me?”
“I suspect it was a case of momentarily taking leave of my senses.”
“Mm,” Lauren said, seeing a glint in the other woman’s eye. “I figured as much. So…want to take leave of them again?”
“We have a long drive tomorrow. And we can’t…”
Lauren gave her a smile, leaned forward, and kissed her soundly. Ayers made a startled noise and began to pull away. Lauren followed. She felt a whispered sigh, and then the soft lips began to respond.
Ayers’s hands slid up into Lauren’s hair, gently caressing, and her mouth dropped to near her ear. “What am I going to do with you? This can’t happen. You must know that.”
Lauren recaptured her lips, kissing the protests away.
“Lauren.” Ayers sighed and pulled away.
“Catherine, you like me this way. I challenge you, remember.”
“This is insane.”
“Yes.”
“We hate each other.”
“Really not feeling that right now,” Lauren said, nuzzling her jaw. “I think you’re so beautiful by the way. And that acerbic tongue of yours? I want to kiss the insults right off it.”
“That sounds like a large-scale project. And we can’t. Lauren, we can’t. I mean it when I say the story must come first.”
Lauren leaned back and took in Ayers’s stormy gaze. Her eyes were filled with desire but laced with sincerity.
She sighed. “Okay. But you know we won’t always have a story between us.”
Ayers regarded her for a moment, absently curling a stray strand of hair around Lauren’s ear. “I know.”
“And when that day comes, what then?” Lauren asked.
“When that day comes, you’re going to be famous. We both will be. Your family will probably throw you a parade.”
“And…”
“And you’ll have more job offers than you count.”
“And…”
“And Frank will finally give you the respect you deserve.”
Lauren sighed. “Stop it. You know what I’m asking you, don’t you?”
Ayers didn’t speak, just studied her with a scorching intensity.
“Catherine?”
“Lauren,” Ayers said quietly. “I don’t want to make promises I know I can’t keep. I’m sorry if that hurts, but it’s the truth. And, as I keep saying, I prefer the truth in all things. Now it’s getting late, and we have a big day tomorrow. We should turn in.”
She cast Lauren one last, lingering, smouldering look and then rose.
Lauren watched her ascend the stairs, disappointment filling her chest.
CHAPTER 12
Sleeping Dragons
“It’s a ditch,” Lauren said with disappointment, glancing from her smartphone’s GPS app back to the muddy channel stretching out in front of them. “We’ve driven for seven hours with hangovers for something called Wiley Ditch.”
“I don’t recall saying I had a hangover.” Ayers pushed her darker-than-normal sunglasses on more snugly.
She’d barely spoken for most of the drive, which suited Lauren fine given she’d woken up grumpy and miserable. The excess of wine was only partly to blame. She wondered if Ayers regretted letting down her guard the previous night. The thought made Lauren even more morose, but there was no polite way to raise that in conversation. Besides, her head throbbed too much to try now.
“Not a hangover then,” Lauren replied with forced cheer. “You prefer tired and emotional? Dawn damage? The mourning after? That one works with and without the U.”
Ayers sighed. “Can we focus on the business at hand? Your device seems limited,” she waved at Lauren’s cell. “My Saab’s GPS says our destination is actually at the end of this ditch.” She pointed to the distance.
Lauren looked up to see a small, dense copse of trees about a half-mile away. “Okay then.” Both women got out of the car. Lauren fumbled with the heavy door and it slammed loudly.
Ayers’s face morphed into a sour expression. “Must you?” she hissed as she gingerly closed her own door and locked up. She rubbed her temple.
“No hangover, huh?” Lauren smirked. Predictably, she was met with silence.
They set off. It was easy, flat terrain, pretty much all farmland beside the swampy, overgrown ditch, and before long they were almost at the trees.