“You are skilled at computer research?” the lamp base asked. I could hear the doubt and wondered if he had a camera in the ceiling.
“I have credentials from the Association of Virtual Assistants and references from numerous clients,” I agreed. “Have you need of a skilled assistant?”
Thunderous silence. I could almost hear lightning strike and clouds clash. I wanted to meet Mr. Graham. Any man who could create such evocative silences was my kind of person.
EG had gone wide-eyed. I could see her fighting hope, and my heart pinged. I would have this house and everything in it, now. For her. Although what she really needed was a father.
It must be hell to be a real mother.
“I need quiet in which to conduct my research,” he intoned ominously, although I thought I detected curiosity behind his Wizard of Oz act.
I tried to picture the mysterious Mr. Graham, but I could see only my grandfather’s face in here. I had no recollection of how my grandfather amassed his fortune, but I’d seen enough mansions and rich old men to picture his replacement. And judging by some of my clientele, if this old man needed a research assistant, he was probably a fusty antiquarian hunkered down in his rotting library, scribbling away with a quill pen at some obscure theory on the origin of Culicidae and their correlation with the plagues referred to in Exodus, Chapter Eight. Or if he’s into prophesy, maybe even Revelations. I was liking my creative image already.
Or he could be like my missing corporate client and want me to research textbook publishers and media conglomerates. Boring, but more lucrative than the professorial types.
“We are an extremely quiet family,” I responded. Not that I had a clue if Nick and EG had learned to stifle their dramatic tendencies. “I insist on order while I am working,” I added for good measure.
It wasn’t that I was adept at lying. It’s just that I’d changed my persona so often that almost everything was the truth, in the past or the future. I was sure we could be quiet and organized if we wished.
“Give me references,” he demanded.
That’s always a bit tricky since many of my clients preferred their privacy, and I knew them only by their e-mail addresses. But I had several who had agreed I could use their names. I gave them to the lamp base and held my breath.
I would have turned purple if I hadn’t let it out again. The lamp didn’t immediately respond. EG, Nick, and I stared at each other wordlessly in the subsequent silence.
“Your credentials are impeccable.” Returned to mechanical mode—even if it did sound a trifle grudging—the voice intruded on our tense thoughts some minutes later.
He had a computer—and wielded a communication network to rival mine. Interesting.
“I have several research tasks you might perform in return for the use of the first floor for the next week while you pursue estate matters,” he continued with a tone of snide arrogance that raised my hackles. “If you cannot accomplish them, you will have to leave.”
“And if I accomplish them, may we stay longer if it’s necessary?”
“That’s unlikely. Do not disturb me for any reason.”
I don’t think the speaker system actually clicked off, but it might as well have. The sound went dead, and I knew he wasn’t listening. Did he mean it was unlikely that I’d accomplish his tasks? Or that he’d let us stay? Or both? I didn’t see him as the nice old antiquarian anymore.
Nick grinned in relief. EG looked suspicious, but she looked suspicious on a good day. I swallowed my anxiety and assumed an attitude of assurance.
“We’ll need to send for our luggage,” I told them. “I’ll look for a place to set up my laptop until the Dell arrives. Nick, check out the bedrooms. Mallard, are there linens or do we need to provide them?”
I was more comfortable with crisp authority than sentimental claptrap. My brain had served me far better than my heart all these years. I refused to show relief. This was my house. I just had to prove it. Once I had Reginald Brashton nailed to a wall and the intruder in the attic on the run, I would have time to find out if Senator Tex had been messing around with his aides.
Researching the good senator’s peccadilloes wasn’t just a cynical penchant of mine. He was, after all, still married to another woman when he and my mother created EG—which is why he never acknowledged her existence except with a monthly check from some company he owned.
Tex was a real rounder, and the aide he was suspected of murdering was female. Had he decided to cover up the hanky panky with homicide this time? ~
A week. A blooming week in which to locate a sneaky, conniving, larcenous lawyer with millions at his fingertips. This was Tuesday.
Nick retrieved our belongings from the bus station, and I had my laptop, but I was too overwhelmed to do more than stare at it as night settled in.
Had our host cared to inspect the rest of his newly acquired home, he might have noticed that the only bedroom on the first floor had been converted from a large front salon. It contained a towering carved headboard and ancient mattress our grandfather had apparently used after he lost the ability to climb the stairs. None of us was prepared to take the bed he might have died in.
There was a small suite off the basement kitchen that Mallard occupied. After EG commented on the lovely quaintness of his quarters, Mallard had been so kind as to inform us that the elusive Mr. Graham lived alone and never left the third floor. Not inhibited, we immediately hied ourselves to the second story family floor and spread out. It was only going to waste as it was.
EG latched onto a hexagonal room in the turret at the far end of the main corridor. Robin’s egg blue with fireplace, bookshelves, and twin beds, it might have been a cozy nest for a child at one time. If we regained ownership, I suspected the room would be painted black and decorated in early Gothic. If this house could really be ours, I would happily buy a stuffed bat to begin the transformation.
Nick moved into what had obviously been a lady’s suite with a graceful poster bed, gleaming Queen Anne highboy—the colonial hand-carved original and not a copy—and a lovely old Chinese silk carpet in rose and sage. Any antique dealer in his right mind would trade his entire stock for the contents of that room alone. Nicholas had exquisite taste.
I was of a more practical nature. I hunted down a room with updated wiring and a telephone. I could set up my main office in the library downstairs, where I wouldn’t disturb our landlord during the day, but I didn’t sleep much. I needed my laptop accessible at night.
I assumed the room I chose was once my grandfather’s office. It had a huge federal-style desk in front of a window overlooking the street, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves along one wall, and navy leather wing chairs in front of a fireplace framed in hand-painted Delft tile. And blessedly—it had an Aeron chair I could adjust to my size. I scavenged through the other rooms until I found a daybed that Nick and I could move. My suitcase and some empty oak file drawers would suffice as dresser. I didn’t want to usurp an entire suite in a house that wasn’t mine. Yet.
Cat hair littering an upholstered velveteen chair had me sneezing, so I had that hauled out. I hoped the cat had preceded my grandfather into death. I was allergic to the things.
Setting up my laptop on that wide old desk, looking out on the streetlight-lit night outside as my grandfather had no doubt done for decades, I settled in as if I had come home.
Since I’d never really known a home, I shook off the sentiment, flipped on my computer, and checked the telephone access. To my surprise and delight, my wireless icon lit up. Graham had installed a sophisticated system that recognized my computer’s network with ease. And he apparently meant for me to use it since it required no password. Technology is my friend. I immediately set up firewalls and passwords.
Next, I logged on and scanned the day’s news stories to be certain Senator Hammond hadn’t been arrested. Mindy Carstairs was the name of the murdered aide. From all reports, she was an upright citizen, a divorcee with a history major and wealthy par
ents who’d contributed to Tex’s campaign fund. Business as usual. Her body was found in a Dumpster near Tex’s office after her disappearance at the beginning of August. Rumors of Tex’s philandering ways were mentioned, but if moral turpitude could indict a U.S. Senator, Congress would be operating on half staff all the time. Hammond seemed safe enough for now.
I began my basic research into Brashton’s whereabouts—following the money. Swiss bank accounts were passé. The Swiss had been berated so ruthlessly for their stupidity in hiding Nazi funds that they’d tightened regulations. The same couldn’t be said of Third World countries like the islands scattered across the Caribbean. My bet was on the islands. Lawyers aren’t known for their originality. It took time to determine which islands allowed secret accounts.
By the time my eyelids grew heavy and I was prepared to try out the elegant silk daybed, I’d located Brashton’s social security number and accessed his curriculum vitae, not to mention his credit records. Brashton had left town owing the Earth and probably a few planets.
Our grandfather had apparently done business with the Brashton, Johnson, and Terwilliger firm since the beginning of time. My nemesis—young Reginald the Third—had only recently acquired access to the Maximillian account after a decade of working in his father’s office, and then only after Brashton Junior’s death. That fact spoke volumes to a cynical mind like mine. Grandfather had been isolated by the death of his trusted friend and his own illness, leaving him ripe for picking by avaricious scum. I should have been there for him.
Before I shut down, an instant message popped on my screen from one Oracle. “Do you find the system satisfactory for your needs? Graham.”
Oracle? I stared at Graham’s screen name in disbelief and a modicum of fright. I knew the word from Greek myth and comic books. It also happened to be the screen name of the client whose e-mail had started bouncing several months ago, after leaving me with that cryptic memo about poison and top hats.
I hate coincidences.
With a degree of trepidation, I hit the menu to find Oracle’s e-mail address. Screen names are simply the monikers that people assign themselves for use by their friends in instant messaging. They are easily duplicated. The country was rife with teenage boys calling themselves Sprmn and Spidey.
E-mail addresses are specific to the person, just like a snail mail address. Graham’s e-mail address belonged to one AG911 through the local telephone company network—a very basic, nonsuspicious address for a man named Amadeus Graham. It bore no resemblance to my former client’s address. Our landlord just had a comic book mentality, or given my assumption of his antiquated age, he may even have read Greek myth.
I saved his screen name and e-mail address and typed, “Adequate, thank you.”
The network was far more than adequate. Tonight I’d accessed mainframes that any normal DSL line would have crashed into. With a little work, I could usually wiggle into almost any computer, but he had direct access. I suspected a government satellite hook-up. Fascinating. And probably illegal.
No point in letting him know I knew that though. I liked to keep my talents to myself. Catching people off guard is an excellent form of self-defense. I had to wonder why he’d decided to let me research when he had such technology at his fingertips, but I wasn’t arguing with him.
I switched the computer off and completely disconnected it. I didn’t need my client files accessed by a computer spook.
I fell asleep that night and dreamed of burning stakes, villainous laughter, and an oracle who handed me a stone Palm Pilot through a thunder cloud.
I wished I knew what the message was on that stone screen, but hieroglyphics weren’t my specialty.
~
“School starts next week,” Nicholas commented from behind the folds of the morning newspaper.
Mallard had set the formal dining table with china made in Poland prior to World War I. I admired the hand-painted gilding on cobalt blue, and checked the maker’s mark on the bottom of my teacup before filling it with an exquisite keemun steaming in the Sevres teapot.
One of the benefits of living Magda’s charmed life was that we’re quite comfortable in palaces of splendor. One of the drawbacks was that we all had champagne tastes and beer pocketbooks.
“I don’t need school,” EG muttered through a mouthful of toast slathered with a private label gooseberry jam. Apparently believing that simple statement sufficient to end the subject, she didn’t emerge from behind the heavy leather-bound volume in which she’d buried her nose.
“You have to have a degree before anyone will hire you.” I corrected her assumption. “Even if Grandfather left us money and I locate it, it will be divided so many ways that you’ll still have to work for a living.”
Nicholas lifted a skeptical eyebrow but didn’t question aloud. Unlike EG, Nick knew the value of our surroundings. It gave one reason to question the source of our landlord’s wealth if he paid cash for all this, but that wasn’t a subject to be discussed while under his roof.
“I came here to help my father,” EG stated with surliness from behind her book.
“You won’t help him by being uneducated.” I had strong feelings on the subject, for good reason.
“How did your search go last night?” Nick inquired to divert us before war could break out. He’s the family peacemaker. “Found Brashton yet?”
“I only had time to lay the groundwork. I’ll begin the real digging today.”
“Not immediately, Miss Devlin,” intoned the silver candelabra in the center of the table.
Well, now I knew why we were eating in this echo chamber instead of the sunny little breakfast room.
“You have an assignment for me, Mr. Graham?” I could have ranted about invasion of privacy or any number of topics on the tip of my tongue, but I chose to start the day in civility.
“I’ve taken the liberty of installing a new system in the library,” the ornamental base intoned. “Yours will be inadequate to the task. You’ll find the particulars on the desk.”
Again, that silent click indicating the voice had switched off. I glared at the candelabra and debated remaining where I was and consuming the delicious breakfast Mallard had so thoughtfully provided, but curiosity is my besetting sin. He’d provided a computer system overnight? Did the good fairies live here? Or had we entered the Twilight Zone?
As if awaiting a signal from me, EG and Nick both stood up and followed me out. For all we knew, the Mysterious Graham could be running an international smuggling ring, and my assignment could be to locate the next ship carrying gold from Liberia.
I wasn’t entirely certain I’d turn it down if it meant leaving this house.
I sighed in awe at the monster dual screen LCD monitor set on the library table at a height ideal for my petite stature. The cost of one of those babies could pay the first semester of EG’s college education.
The monitor frame was a translucent cobalt and a thing of beauty. The ergonomic keyboard with glittering blue function keys, some of which even I couldn’t identify, was so perfectly matched to my hand span that I wanted to adopt it, give it a name, and a lap pillow.
Had I thought all this had been provided specially just to suit me, I would have kissed Amadeus Graham. But Magda is the one who falls for the shiny gew-gaw trick. Not me.
There were no paper files on the table. I clicked the keyboard and the system flickered to life in full Technicolor and Surround Sound.
A financial statement on a firm called Edu-Pub opened with the click of a wireless mouse. I frowned at the accounting babble, closed the document, and opened the next.
The picture of a slightly Oriental male frowned back at me. Thin dark hair, round face, round eyes instead of slanted, and a small goatee, he could have been anyone from a prince to a pauper.
Beneath the photo was the caption “Sak Thai Pao, employee, Edu-Pub.”
The instant message appearing in front of the photo read “Find him.”
Chapter Four
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Researching a thief and toying with a lawyer.
I didn’t much care if Pao was a terrorist or the next Messiah. I didn’t care if Graham wanted to laud or assassinate him. I simply needed to stay in this house until I located the thief who had stolen our inheritance. And I wanted to start immediately.
“What about my dad?” EG demanded. “How will you help him if you’re looking for this guy and the thief, too?”
“Tex has lawyers. He’s not in jail,” I answered without much enthusiasm. Tex had never been one of my favorite people. “I’ll see what I can find out from the police files. Right now, we need to think about getting you into school.” I hit Google and input Pao’s name.
Typing away at the keyboard, I didn’t look over my shoulder at the lack of a smart reply. I doubted that Magda had ever sent EG to a real school. The kid was probably terrified. “Nick, if we’re staying, can you handle enrolling EG?”
“Piece of cake,” he said with a verbal shrug, “after I catch up to her to wring the name of her last school out of her.”
I glanced up. EG had apparently disappeared at the first mention of school. I was amazed the curtains weren’t billowing from her rush to escape. “Threaten to keep her from books until she spills,” I suggested.
“I’m thinking she’ll be off to her father if we do,” he pointed out, logically enough.
“I’m thinking Tex has enough trouble, and he’ll bounce her out on her head if she tries.” Which was the reality of our vagabond life. We were intruders anywhere we went.
“Don’t go looking at me for the official father figure of the family,” Nick warned, “We’re mixed up enough as it is.”
“You’re telling me?” I asked in agreement, before calling up search engines. Nick was the closest thing to a best friend I’d ever had, but I’d forgotten his existence—and our family angst—by the time he stalked out.
Pao either had a lot of cousins or he was an extremely well known man. I found three thousand five hundred forty-eight references to the name on my favorite search engines—most of the references were in languages that didn’t use the English alphabet. After all the years of travel, I was a pretty good linguist with the spoken word, but I didn’t know the Arabic alphabet. I could read enough Indo-European languages to grasp whether most sites were relevant, but these were hieroglyphics to me. Now I knew what my dream was telling me.
Evil Genius Page 4