“Okay, but we’ve got to go!”
“Seriously, can I fire her now?” Brice said.
“No time for firing!” Scooping up Eggy, I moved to the door. “¡Vámonos!”
• • •
We met Nikki and Oscar (his presence was very interesting for two reasons—one, I hadn’t called him, and two, he was still wearing the clothes from the previous day . . . mmmhmmm) at the Roswells’ residence.
A patrol officer met us there, and much to my relief he said that there were no signs of forced entry past the lock APD had on the front gate. I’d been hopeful that would be the case, as I figured that Rachel wouldn’t have wanted to risk drawing any more suspicion to herself by trying to break and enter into her sister’s house when she simply needed to wait until the next morning when the key would be handed over to her. Especially if Zane Maldonado was working on her behalf to arrange it, which I had no doubt he was.
“Hi!” I said, greeting Oscar and Nikki.
“Morning, bright eyes,” Oscar said with a chuckle. “You feeling okay?”
“Definitely!” I said. “I feel ahhhhhmazing!”
“She’s had coffee,” Candice said.
“Did she flavor it with cocaine?” Nikki asked.
“Red Bull,” I told her.
“Ah. Tomato-tamahto,” she quipped.
“Oscar,” I said, turning my attention to him.
“Yes, Cooper?”
“Hold my dog.” Slipping Eggy into Oscar’s arms, I marched forward toward the house and waited impatiently for the APD officer to pull open the gate for us.
“You really ready to go back in here?” Candice asked, sliding up next to me.
“As ready as I can be,” I said, waiting to see if she understood.
“Ahhhh,” she said. “The coffee.”
“Yeppers.” Knowing I’d have to come back to this house, I’d prepared by loading up on the caffeine, which I was hoping would serve as a buffer to all that swirling energy. If my physical senses were too busy twitching from all the caffeine I’d pumped into myself, then I might be able to ignore all the other swirling messy energy radiating from that upstairs bedroom. “In any case, we won’t be here long,” I said, as much to shore up my courage as to let Candice know this was a get-in-get-out mission.
“What’re we looking for, again?” Brice called from behind me.
“Money, honey!” I said, wagging a finger over my shoulder. “And maybe something even more important. Something worth kidnapping Dave for.”
Candice eyed me curiously, but I didn’t explain. I’d never been more certain of a hunch in my life. It felt marvelous! Or maybe it was the coffee . . . hard to tell.
I didn’t pause to reflect on it in any case; I just made my way inside after Nikki got the front door open and then straight to the kitchen at the back of the house. There on the kitchen island was a MacBook, its lid closed and dusty with fingerprint powder. Next to it, as if casually tossed there, was an ivory Hermès leather bag. The chair at the counter in front of the computer was pushed back, as if hastily exited.
I looked from the chair to the back door, which was all of six to eight feet away. A large window dominated the door, allowing a spectacular view out to the garden.
“Yep,” I said to the scene. “Just like I thought.”
“What?” Dutch said over my shoulder.
Instead of answering him, I merely turned on my heel and snapped my fingers. “Everybody follow me!”
Heading through the crowd that’d lined up behind me, I gathered speed as I neared the stairs and trotted up them with purpose. I didn’t stop until I was moving through the doorway into the master suite, and even there I didn’t hesitate; I just braced for the impact and I stepped across the threshold, walking quickly all the way to the mirror inside the closet. Standing in front of it, I said, “We need to get this opened.”
Everyone coming in behind me stopped short, looking at the mirror, then back at me as if to say, “Um . . . say what, now?”
I felt around the trim of the full-length mirror and found the trigger. Clicking it, I pulled on the mirror’s frame and it opened to reveal a small inset with a hidden safe. The safe’s door was slightly ajar, and then I really knew why Dave was still alive.
Only he’d known about the secret panel and the safe that held Andy’s most precious material items. My radar buzzed and I glanced at the ground in front of me. My mind filled with the image of Andy, kneeling there as if he was putting something away. And as he was doing that, there’d been a loud pop from the backyard. Maybe he’d paused then to listen, trying to figure out what the noise was. Maybe he’d called to his wife too, because something might’ve caused Andy to be on guard.
And then he’d of course heard a commotion at the back door and his wife’s scream. Thinking of her, he hadn’t taken the time to close and lock the safe; he’d merely slammed the mirror door shut, and run to her aid.
I imagined he’d come into the hallway to see Hekekia and Gudziak shoot Rosa as they’d come up the stairs. Behind them, a familiar face, along with that of his wife as a hostage. I could then imagine Andy had stopped there, paralyzed by the sight of his wife held by that awful man Gudziak. Gudziak had then likely moved off with Robin, and it pained me deeply to think that Andy had been forced to listen to the sound of his wife being raped while he was pumped for information. He’d given the killer enough of what they’d wanted to satisfy any thoughts of an extensive search of the safe room, but he must’ve known that neither he nor Robin would survive the day.
That had to have been an awful moment for him. But he’d protected the contents of the safe, which had to have more importance than money. There was something tucked inside that was worth dying for.
Truthfully, I wasn’t completely certain how it had all actually gone down, even though my radar was pretty awesome at filling in the blanks, but I did know two things that were vital to this case: One, whatever super-important thing the killers had been after was still inside the safe at my feet, and two, Dave was still alive. I’d looked at his photo only minutes before arriving back at the Roswells’. Of course, that wasn’t enough to raise my hopes too high, because I also understood the noose was tightening, and the puppet master—the orchestrator of all of this—would make a hasty exit even without the thing in the safe and the additional money if things started to look like they were going south.
Speaking of money, when I pulled open the safe door, there was a whole lot of green exposed. Literally millions of dollars. “Whoa,” I heard a few of my companions say when I swung the door open.
But I’d known I’d find the bulk of Andy’s cash hidden there. What I still wasn’t sure of was what else I’d find. Getting down on my knees, I rooted around in the large safe, first pulling out a cell phone. An old iPhone 4 by the looks of it, with a solid pearl cover. I smirked when I saw it, because I knew exactly what was on it. Setting that aside, I continued to fish around and then I found the flash drive. Or what looked like a flash drive with some weird-looking gizmo attached to the tip. Maybe it was a fancy flash drive, but I held it up and offered it to Brice. “This is why Andy was killed,” I said.
“What is it?” he said.
“A key,” I said, my eyes finding Candice’s.
“To what?” she asked.
“To the back door,” I said, my voice cracking with excitement.
Brice took the flash drive and turned to his wife. “She makes less sense the more she talks.”
But Candice’s eyes were bright with understanding. “No. Freaking. Way!” she exclaimed.
“Way,” I told her. “Way, way.”
• • •
Several hours later, but still morning by the read of the clock, I stood, all smiles and excitement, in front of Brice while he fired me.
A glance at Candice revealed that she was taking her termi
nation with the same level of good humor. “Sign here, please,” Brice said to me.
I took the pen he offered and scribbled out my name on the dotted line with a flourish. Matt Hayes peered over my shoulder. “Good. Mrs. Harrison, if you would?”
Candice stepped forward to sign her resignation and Matt took up the papers to reread over the termination-of-services agreement one last time. He wanted to make absolutely certain we couldn’t act as agents of the FBI from that moment forward.
Everyone waited until he seemed satisfied, and then he handed the papers back to Brice. “Scan those and send them straight to D.C. Then call and make sure your wife’s and Ms. Cooper’s status is showing terminated on all HR databases.”
“Got it,” Brice said.
While Matt instructed Brice, I flashed a smile to my hubby, who was sitting moodily in a chair a few feet away. He looked ready to punch someone. “Will you please stop worrying?” I told him.
“No,” he replied. “I don’t like this, Edgar. And I especially don’t like that it was your idea.”
I rolled my eyes. “Protest noted. But it’s the only way, love.”
Dutch ground his teeth. “That’s where I think you’re wrong. It’s too dangerous. A thousand things could go wrong.”
“Or everything could go right,” Candice said simply.
Dutch offered her a look of exasperation. “And when has that ever happened where you two are concerned?”
“Plenty of times,” I said. And by plenty I meant at least once or twice . . . maybe.
Oscar walked to us, his phone in his hand. “Tech at HQ says that flash drive you found, Cooper, is blowing their minds.”
“In what way?” Candice asked.
Oscar pointed to me. “Cooper was right to call it a key. It’s some sort of encryption lockpick. You stick that thing into any system, open or closed, and it’ll create a back door for anyone who knows about it to just walk through. No need to get past firewalls or encryption codes. It’ll create a door just like that.”
“How’d we figure out what it does?” Candice asked. “Doesn’t the key need a password or something to work?”
Oscar shook his head. “Nope. It’s plug and play. You plug it in and you’re in. The only catch is that you have to be physically present to gain access to the system. It’s not hacking remotely—it’s hacking up close and personal.”
“I’m still not following how that would be worth killing someone for,” Candice said. “Any top-level government facility or valued commercial target would have all kinds of security to watch out for suspicious characters attempting to plug in a flash drive.”
“That’s true,” Oscar said. “But it would take very little effort to send in a mole as a low-level job applicant and, after he or she was hired, to instruct them to plug the key into the system for thirty seconds, which is how long it would take to create a back door. It wouldn’t matter if the mole had a low-level security clearance, like the receptionist or data entry person; it would only matter that the mole got the key into one of the system’s computers. From there the entire system could be hacked.”
Intrigued, I said, “If it’s plug and play, then how specifically does it work?”
Oscar reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a flash drive. He stood up, walked over to Candice, and plugged it into the hard drive on the desk next to her. “If that were the key, I’d be in,” he said. “From the moment I plug it in, it begins to run and piggyback off the entire network’s IP, always looking for a higher link up the food chain. After it reaches the very top, which would take about ten seconds, it’ll start downloading any information marked important or classified. Then it’ll quickly backtrack through the same links down the network’s chain before finally shutting the door behind itself but leaving two extra zeros in the code to mark its place. The whole process would take no longer than two to three minutes. Tops.
“After downloading all the information it can grab, the flash drive ejects itself to let the mole know that he’s free to walk out the door and hand the drive to an operative, who could then freely access the cyber back door from a laptop across town or across the world any time he or she wants. The geek I spoke to says he’s never seen anything like it.”
“Wow,” Candice said. “That would be worth killing for.”
“Yep,” Oscar agreed.
“We’re using a dummy drive today, though, right?” Candice asked. I could understand her nervousness. That thing had already cost several people their lives.
“We are,” Oscar said, reaching into his pocket to pull out a very good replica of the little gizmo I’d taken out of Andy Roswell’s safe.
Nikki walked into the bureau offices then and came right over to us, holding out two thin manila packages. “Here,” she said. We took the packages and then she offered us a folder. “The agreements are inside. Just sign and we’ll be good to go.”
Candice and I took the packages and the paperwork over to a nearby desk, each of us signing on the dotted line and handing the paperwork back to Nikki, who, having witnessed both, pocketed them back into the folder. “Welcome to the team, APD informants.”
I grinned. “We’ll change and be right back,” I said.
Candice and I headed off to the ladies’ room and shrugged out of our tops and bras. “Wow,” I said, pulling out the contents of my package. “They’ve done an awesome job of hiding the cameras.”
“Look close at the top button,” Candice replied from the next stall.
I did and only then did I spot the slightly grayer hue to the middle of the button stitched there. And then I also realized that I had the camera pointed at my bare chest. I didn’t know if the camera was currently being monitored, but I probably made some APD tech’s day with an up-close shot of “the ladies.”
After quickly flipping the top around toward the wall, I hung it on the hook while I wriggled into the bra. There was a microphone hidden in the underwire, but I had to admit that it felt no different from any other time I’d worn it.
Candice and I emerged from our respective stalls at the same time. “Ready?” she asked.
“Freddy,” I replied. I was as ready as I could be.
Before we exited, however, she reached into her purse and said, “Hey, I want you to wear this.”
“Oooooh,” I said, looking at the oval onyx and diamond pendant she was offering me. “That’s nice. But why am I wearing it?”
She smiled slyly. “Think of it as a distraction, or even a decoy.”
When we walked back into the offices, we found Dutch arguing with Brice. And Matt. And anybody else that would listen. Of course, he’d been arguing about our plan since I’d first mentioned it, but that’s a little par for the course with my husband. He’s a bit overprotective. And, okay, so maaaaaaaaybe I don’t have the best track record, but that’s beside the point. This was the only way we’d be able to draw out a confession and nab ourselves the mastermind in all this.
It was also the only way we could save Dave.
“I’m telling you, Matt, if we dispatch a team to that house, we’ll find you a reason to get inside and conduct a search!” Dutch was saying. (Or yelling. It was probably a yell to everyone’s ears but Dutch’s.)
Matt looked at my husband calmly and said, “If you drum up an excuse to break into that house, Rivers, then I guarantee you, our whole case goes up in smoke, along with the APD’s. Anything you find in there will get kicked out and the fact that you’re even suggesting this course of action is enough to get you fired.”
“Then let me have a crack at the interrogation!” Dutch said/ yelled next.
“You’ll be talking to a wall and you know it,” Brice countered. “Maldonado will shut his client down in two seconds.”
“Then let me go have a chat with the other—”
“You can’t,” Matt said. “You’ll have to id
entify yourself as FBI, and the second you do, she’ll call her attorney. If you force her to talk without her attorney present, not a thing she says will be allowed in court. And after she calls Maldonado, he’ll make another call and then it’s game over. We have enough to form a suspicion of conspiracy, but that’s it. Nothing that’ll sway a judge or hold up in court to get us into that house, Rivers, and if we’re going to find Mr. McKenzie and his wife—alive—then any move you make will greatly reduce those odds.”
Now you know why Candice and I had been terminated by the FBI. We couldn’t act as their agents or consultants in any respect because we’d have to confess to our suspect that we were acting in that capacity, and as acting consultants with the FBI, we’d probably have to inform our suspect about pesky things like Miranda rights. At least, that’s what Matt suspected Maldonado would argue when his central client was brought to trial. The second we acted on behalf of the FBI in any capacity, our suspect would know that we’d figured out the motive, and Dave’s life, already hanging by a thread, might well be over before we could do a thing about it.
No, if we were going to save Dave, the only thing we could do was draw out enough of a confession to invoke probable cause. We had the bait; we just needed to place it ever so carefully so the trap would spring.
“Honey,” I said, laying a hand on Dutch’s arm when he continued to protest. “This is the only way.”
He turned to me, that vein in his temple throbbing, and grabbed me in his arms. “I don’t like it,” he whispered into my ear.
“I know,” I said. “But it’s a good plan, and it’ll get us to Dave and Gwen. You’ve got to trust me.”
“You’re not the one I don’t trust.”
The door to the offices opened and an APD detective wearing a blue jacket poked his head in. “We ready?”
Nikki looked to me and Candice. “Ladies?”
“Freddy?” I said, with a grin to my partner.
“Freddy,” she said, and held out her fist for a bump.
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