by Jay McLean
I glanced over my shoulder to see who she was talking about. Among the new party was a tall, classy-looking man with sandy blond hair. I recognized him, too. There weren't too many residents of Cranton who wouldn't know him on sight. "That's Alec Cranmore. He's the CEO of Cranmore International, which has its headquarters here."
"And he eats in the local steakhouse?"
"Sometimes. I've even seen him drinking in the local bars. He's a friendly guy. I think he likes to maintain good community relations."
She studied Cranmore with considerable interest. "I figured he'd be older. And not so smoking hot."
I rolled my eyes. "I think he's engaged."
"That doesn't make him any less hot."
I jerked a couple of fingers toward my own eyes. "Keep that eager gaze of yours right here, babe. Or you'll be in heaps of trouble when we get home."
She grinned and obeyed. "I'm going to remind you of that threat later."
I was liking the way she was responding to me. Liking it very much.
Over our steaks she returned to the subject, asking me to tell her more about Alec Cranmore. She'd been checking him out whenever she thought I wasn't looking. "Hadley knew him, didn't she?"
"Not well. She did some volunteer work for one of his charitable foundations. But yeah, as I'm sure you know, he's one of the local elite. His ancestors founded the town of Cranton and Cranmore Crossing, which used to be a separate town. That's along the river, where the railroad tracks are. There used to be mills in Cranmore Crossing, owned and run by the Cranmore family. That was back in the 19th century, early 20th."
She nodded. "But today's Cranmore is some kind of software baron. Those old mill buildings got refurbished and turned into corporate headquarters for his global technology company, right?"
"Right. That was a surprise, because Cranmore's father was a flake—he used the family riches to amuse himself. When Alec was young, the old man got himself killed climbing Mt. Everest. He wasn't a true mountaineer, but I guess he thought he could buy his way to the summit. Instead he ran out of oxygen and froze to death. There's a book about it—the jerk got two other people killed when they tried to rescue him.
"But this Cranmore, Alec that is, worked to turn things around. He gets a certain respect in town for rebuilding the family fortunes with technical innovation and creativity. Plus, he's one of the area's largest employers."
"You're saying nice things, but your tone is kinda nasty."
I shrugged. Everybody liked Alec Cranmore. For some inexplicable reason, I didn't. Hadley used to say I was just jealous.
"You know, there's something weird about this area," she went on. "I mean, Cranton and Rolling Meadows are both small towns. I know there are the two colleges and all that, but there are also several unusually big businesses hereabouts. Besides this billionaire guy, Cranmore, there's the Swan family. Elizabeth and her daddy Randolph. "
She was right. The Swan Corporation was huge.
"That's just in Cranton. Cross the town line to Rolling Meadows and you've got another rich-kid college and another software tycoon, that social media platform guy."
"Adrian Locke?"
"Yeah, him. That's three billionaires in a four-mile radius."
"I'm not sure they're all billionaires," I objected.
"Okay, multi-millionaires, whatever. It's like a mini Silicon Valley around here."
"So? We're not far from Boston. People go to hotshot schools like Harvard and start computer companies. Not everybody leaves for Silicon Valley."
"And Hadley knew these people, right?"
I shrugged. "She came from a wealthy New York family. I'm not sure how well she knew the rich folks around here, but she'd probably met them. She was outgoing and social. Cranmore and Swan do a lot of charitable stuff. Foundations. Human rights work. Hadley admired what they were accomplishing. I think she was hoping she might get a job with one of them."
"What about Locke?"
"She didn't mention him as often. Why? Are you thinking that one of these dudes had something to do with her disappearance?"
"I don't know. But she vanished so smoothly that you have to wonder if there was money behind it. Big money."
"Let's not forget the random, traveling serial killer."
She dropped the Hadley questions then, and we chatted about other stuff. I'm not even sure what, except that the conversation flowed, and I felt easy and comfortable with her. By the time we'd filled our bellies, we were both horny again, and things had started getting hot and heavy by the time the check finally arrived. We had no sooner lurched, locked in a passionate embrace, through the door at my place before clothes were flying everywhere.
Rory didn't do any more murder investigating that night.
Chapter Ten
The next morning, Sunday, Rory was up ahead of me again. I think she rises with the sun, no matter how late she goes to sleep. I was waking up around 10 am when I heard her mutter something from the living room. It sounded like, "Uh oh."
I didn't like the sound of that. Now what? I was sure she'd tell me when she got around to it, and tell me at length.
Sure enough, a few minutes later she entered the bedroom with a mug of coffee in either hand. I was lying on the floor doing some sit-ups. Passing one mug to me, she said, "Bad news. I think the feds are here."
Mumbling a few fucks, I got up, jerked on pants and an old sweatshirt and went to look out the front window. Dark colored sedan in the driveway, empty. One dude at the door. I couldn't see him, though. No peephole. The other must be circling round the house. Cops always came in pairs. "Where's the other one?"
"I just saw one. He looks shaggy for a cop. Longish hair, scruffy beard."
"I thought you said you weren't doing anything illegal on my computer."
"Well," she shrugged. "Not very illegal. No malicious shit. I didn't, like, take Bank of America's website offline or anything."
The rapping came again, accompanied by a voice this time: "Open up, O'Malley."
"Not without a search warrant."
"I'm not a cop."
"Who are you then?" I called through the door.
"I knew your brother Sean."
"I've heard that one before," I was beginning to get angry. "Must be a reporter," I told Rory. "Assholes."
"I don't think so," She sounded apprehensive, which worried me. "He sent me a stop code."
"What's a stop code?"
"It's like, nyah nyah, we caught you snooping, asshole. It's often followed by visits like this one. They usually send it from right outside so you can't run."
That must have been what the "uh oh" had signified. "So you're not as good as you thought you were." Why was I surprised?
"I am that good. It's just—" she paused as if this were hard to admit "—he must be better." As she spoke, she was tucking her laptop back in her backpack. She then pushed the backpack under the sofa where it couldn't be seen. It didn't look like much of a hiding place to me, but I made no comment.
"O'Malley," the guy said in a cold, hard voice, "It's Connor Finlay. I knew Sean and I also know a few things about you. No way you could have hacked into my databases yourself."
Fuck. Connor Finlay had served in Afghanistan around the same time as my brother. He'd made it home, but not without scars. Nobody came back from that hell with no scars.
He was older than me, and I didn't know him well, but I knew he was some kind of computer freak. He wasn't a cop, but he had a brother who was. Brandon Finlay, Connor's older brother, was one of Cranton's finest. Brandon was one of the few members of the local force who had treated me decently when I'd been under investigation. I'd heard rumors that Connor and Bran didn't get along too well, but I didn't know the details. Connor was a much shadier guy than his true blue bro.
"You've got a hacker in there. I want to meet him, so open up."
"Are you some kind of fed, Finlay?" I called through the door.
"I'm a hacker, dude. Fuck the feds."
"Le
t him in," Rory said. "I wanna meet this guy."
I opened the door. If the two hacksters wanted to geek out together, have at it, dudes.
Finlay was a big guy. A bit taller than me. Probably more lean body tissue, given that I'd been slacking off hitting the gym. He had that narrow eyed I'm-bad thing that I've always associated with SEALS and Rangers and such. I wasn't sure which he had been, but Sean had told me Finlay was some kind of Special Forces guy. Women found him attractive, especially if they were into the dangerous type.
Rory stood staring at him with her arms folded across her skinny chest. Didn't look as if she found him attractive.
"Where is he?" Finlay had that type of arrogant commanding voice I'd heard from former military types. Sean could be that kind of asshole when he tried, but Sean had usually been too nice to pull that shit.
Rory stepped forward. Finlay looked right past her, staring at the closed door to my bedroom as if his X-ray vision could melt it. Rory glanced from him to the door and back. Then, grinning, she walked over and threw the door open, revealing the empty room beyond.
"I'm not a 'him.' Newsflash: chicks can hack, too."
He turned his cold stare on her. She didn't look like much, I admit. But she'd grown on me. I noticed for the first time that she was wearing clothes I hadn't seen before. Maybe she'd even combed her hair. How much stuff did she have in that mysterious backpack of hers? A week's worth? It's not like there was a mall within walking distance.
"Who the fuck are you?" Finlay asked.
"I don't have to answer your questions."
"You admitting you broke in?" he countered.
"Hell no."
"I've got you cold."
"No way. The only machine in the place is whistle-clean." She gestured to the table where my computer stood. "Check for yourself."
He laughed. It was not a nice laugh. "I'm not here to threaten you with 20 years in federal prison, little girl. I need you to replicate how you did it. Nothing's ever impregnable, but I was confident we were close."
Her turn to laugh. She batted her eyelashes at him and did a dead-on Scarlett O'Hara accent: "Ah'm sure Ah've no idea what you're going on about."
Finlay moved fast to plant himself right up in her face. I moved almost as fast to get between them, but there was no room for that. We shouldered up against each other with Rory, half a head shorter than us both, jammed up against the wall.
She snorted. "Hey guys, one at a time. I don't do threesomes."
Finlay backed off about an inch, saying to me, "Please don't tell me you're fucking this schoolgirl."
"I'm in college," said Rory.
Finlay filled his fist with her hair and dragged her over to the nearest wooden chair where he slammed her down.
"Hey!" we both said together. I was about to attack him, surprised by my own rush of protectiveness. Jeez, it really was a weakness of mine. Why did I always get so protective of the women in my life?
Wait. Since when did Rory count as one of the women in my life?
"Don't, Griff," she warned, reading my body language. "Let's see what Tough Guy here has to say."
"If you're really the hacker," Tough Guy said, "You're good." He waited a moment before adding, "But not good enough."
She bristled, but she didn't argue. "Obviously. You're here, aren't you?"
From one hacker to another, I guess that counted as respect.
"Who are you working for?" he asked her.
"No one."
Finlay swooped over her like a velociraptor about to take a bite. "I want an answer, bitch."
Jeez. There were rumors that Finlay had been some sort of terrorist interrogator during his military days. I had no idea if they were true—there were always a lot of silly rumors going around—but he looked and sounded scary enough. Rory didn't seem impressed, though. She stared up at him with guileless eyes and said nothing.
Finlay gave her head a sharp twist, using the grip he still had on her hair. "Let's not force Griff here to bury yet another body in his woods, okay? Talk."
"That's enough, Finlay." I could feel my blood roaring in my ears. "Let her go or the next body will be yours."
He released her hair and slanted me a look. "I figured as much. You are fucking her."
"So, wait, clear this up for me, okay?" Rory said, looking curiously between us. "I don't get tortured if he's fucking me? Is that some kind of macho male code?"
If it was a macho male code to ignore her and stare coldly at each other, we did it. "She's a friend," I said. "She's trying to prove I didn't kill Hadley. She's not working for anyone."
"Sounds like she's working for you." He managed to make this sound nasty.
"Not for pay," I snapped. "She's a college kid on spring break."
Finlay actually laughed when he heard that. "You have got to be kidding me. She looks like jail bait."
"I'm almost twenty," she sniffed. "I'm a senior. I don't work for anybody. Why? Were you thinking of offering me a job?"
"What's your name, little girl?"
She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. In silence.
He pulled out a cell phone and snapped her picture. She threw her palm up in front of her face. "Not quick enough," he gloated. She looked upset, surprisingly so. Horrified, even. She snatched at his phone, but he held it over his head.
"Fuck you! Delete that right now."
Instead he thumbed some keys. "Sorry, but it's on the server now, babe. You're being checked out even as we speak."
Rory was clearly not at all pleased about this. But she quickly adopted a "who the fuck cares" pose. "You'd better have great facial recog software because I don't leave my picture scattered around on the web."
"I specialize in facial recognition software."
"Yeah? Then why don't you use it to find Hadley?"
"Hadley's dead."
"Maybe so. Or maybe she's still alive." The stare she was giving him was almost as hard as the one he was giving her. "If your resources are as good as you say they are, and if you have the right contacts, you should be able to tap into the NSA's mountain of stolen information and find out if there are any surveillance photos of Hadley anywhere in the fucking world over the past 12 months. Airports, train stations, major cargo shipping ports. That's something I can't do. But I'll bet you can."
"The girl's fucking nuts," Connor Finlay said to me.
"Wouldn't the feds have already tried that?" I asked.
"It would be resource-heavy," he answered, and Rory nodded in agreement.
There was a short silence while we all considered this. Then Rory gave Finlay one of her dazzling smiles and said, "So who do you work for? The Reef Hill Consortium?"
Finlay backhanded her across the face. She yelped. I saw red and jumped him from behind. Next thing I know we were both on the floor. Every fucking thing my brother ever taught me roared in me, and the fight was pretty even until Former Special Forces Guy managed some sort of twist-slam that put me under him with one arm so fucking numb I couldn't move it. Then Rory jumped on us both.
"Stop it! Are you both insane? Stop it right now!"
To my surprise, he did. Finlay let me up. He was rubbing his shoulder where I'd initially rammed him. Rory was rubbing the red side of her face and I was trying to get my right arm to work again. The numbness was slowly replaced by tingling.
Finlay bounced to his feet like a dancer. Fuck him, he was in better shape than me. I needed to get back into the gym. Rory was stroking my face, which apparently got smashed, although I didn't even feel it. "Are you okay?" she asked. "Don't you know he just hit me to see what you'd do?"
Finlay grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. He handed her a water bottle that had been sitting on the coffee table, twisting off the cap as he did so. She eyed him warily, but took a swallow, then handed the bottle to me. I pushed it away.
"That's not the only reason I hit you," Finlay said. "You don't blurt out those words. Not if you expect to keep breathing."
I was trying to convince my wired body that there was something more substantial to discuss here than who had just hit whom. "What the fuck is the Reef Hill Consortium?"
"Something you're not supposed to have heard of. Either of you. If your girlfriend here hadn't been sticking her digital fingers into dirty holes where they never should go, you wouldn't know that term. Now that you do, you're fucked unless you can learn to keep your mouths shut."
"It's a stupid name," said Rory. "I mean, seriously. Who calls themselves the Reef Hill Consortium?" As she spoke the words aloud, though, she looked thoughtful. She was good at pattern recognition, she'd told me, and it seems she was rearranging the letters in her head. "Fuck. Are you kidding me? Hellfire? Couldn't they come up with a more original name?"
I had no clue what she was talking about. From the way Finlay's blue eyes went even colder, I figured he did.
Rory looked at me. "Do you know what the Hellfire Club was?"
"You mean the kink club in New York City?"
"It goes back a lot farther than that," Rory said. "Eighteenth century England rich guys' Black Mass and sex club. It's been inspiring the whips-and-chains crowd for centuries."
"Fais ce que tu voudras," Finlay said quietly. "Do what thou wilt."
I gave him a look. "French, Finlay? You shittin' me, dude?"
"Reef Hill is an anagram for hellfire," Rory said ignoring the testosterone raging around her. "As for the word consortium, well I guess that's just a kind of twisted joke."
"You two are in deep merde," Finlay drawled.
Chapter Eleven
"I need to talk to you alone," Finlay said to me.
"He doesn't have any secrets from me," Rory said.
Given how long she'd spent with my computer, that was probably true.
"Rory, go outside and investigate his car or something."
Connor Finlay actually looked alarmed for a moment there.
"This guy knew my brother. He and I have stuff to discuss."
I'd never mentioned Sean to Rory, but I had no doubt she knew about his death. She knew everything else, and there were plenty of pictures of my brother on my computer. She gave me a long look, then nodded. Scowling at Finlay, she put on her jacket and boots and left by the front door.