My first pass through Day 1 of the session-attendance list, and I found Nicole in five of the six sessions. She’d made it to all but the last one. I moved on to Day 2, moving quicker this time now that I was more familiar with the format. She was there for the first five sessions but again missed the last one. I flipped the page and did the same exercise with Day 3. I saw the same result.
Was that strange, or was it just me thinking it was strange? Maybe she’d had enough of the marketing pitches and had skipped the last sessions to get to Happy Hour, or whatever social event that had been planned. Nicole wasn’t bashful in her enjoyment of a Happy Hour atmosphere—gabbing it up with people she knew and people she’d just met. If all this crazy, unworldly shit hadn’t taken place, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But it had, and I thought more than twice about it now.
“Need another beer?” A waitress cleaned up my table, never bothering to look me in the eye. That worked for me, at least on this trip.
“I’m good. Thanks.”
She put down the bill. “Pay when you’re ready,” she said, walking off.
Love that New York hospitality.
A man in a dark suit walked into the place. He had a square jaw and short hair matted to his skull. Stopping for a moment, he eyed me until I looked off. My waitress ushered him to a table on the far wall just in front of a flat-screen TV that was showing a New York Knicks game. He looked at the menu, shifted his eyes up to the game—the Knicks were getting drummed by the Warriors—then he peered over at me. For whatever reason, my eyes went to his shoes; they were some type of rubber athletic shoe, black.
He had this aura about him that made me think FBI agent, or at least one straight out of central casting.
I sat up straight, like a steel rod had been inserted just next to my spinal column. Realizing this was a completely unnatural pose, I went for a more relaxed look instead, allowing my body to slouch a bit. I drank from my water glass, lowered my head, and tried to study the list without looking at the man. The place wasn’t even half full, so why was he staring at me?
The names on the list were like leaves on a tree. I couldn’t distinguish one from the next. This guy, whether he meant to or not, had gotten to me. And because of what—looking at me?
I’d known a couple of FBI agents, Nick Radowski and Alex Troutt, and neither looked like this bozo.
My mind wandered back to the days when Alex, Nick, and their Boston-based team had helped me locate Mackenzie, who’d been kidnapped. If it hadn’t been for Alex, I’d have no Mackenzie in my life. I probably would have died during the rescue attempt as well. I owed Alex big time. Her name had popped into my mind a few times since I’d left Austin. But this time was different from the last. I was a fugitive now, while a few months ago, I was only a very desperate man trying to solve this bizarre set of riddles to find my daughter. Without Brook Pressler on the inside of the APD to potentially help me out right now—or at least get her hands on the incriminating email—I was a blind man searching through an infinite maze. Alex and I had quickly developed this odd kindred spirit during our time together, but as close as I felt to her, I couldn’t bring myself to ask for her assistance, which would basically be asking her to break the law. Just by talking to me, she’d be compromising her position in the agency.
I felt miserably alone in this process. How I wished Alex were right next to me, right now. She had a mind that never stopped. Even if she didn’t have the FBI resources at her fingertips, that woman had a single-minded determination that I’d never seen. To a degree, I was in awe of her.
I lowered the lists and stole a glance at the man. He was drinking a beer, watching the basketball game. That was a good sign. Do FBI agents drink alcohol while tailing a suspect? Then again, if he really knew who I was, why wouldn’t he have already arrested me?
My thought process lowered my level of suspicion, and I refocused my thoughts on the two packets. I picked up the smaller one and decided to start at the top of the list and see if I recognized any names. I ran my finger all the way down the first column, but stopped three down on the second column. Elsa Brady. Didn’t she work with Nicole? Yeah, Nicole had shared plenty of Elsa Brady stories, and none were positive. I recalled one instance when Nicole had just gotten home from work, her face lined with stress. About Elsa, she’d said, “That bitch would stick a knife in the back of the Pope if it meant she could make herself look good at someone else’s expense.” Apparently, at least in Nicole’s eyes, Elsa had taken backstabbing to its highest level.
Wait. Didn’t Nicole say that Elsa had been fired? I checked for the company name associated with Elsa—ClickTech. She was at a new company. The address on the sheet showed New Haven, Connecticut. I searched my memory bank. I was almost certain that Nicole was ecstatic when Elsa had left Genbio, saying that the manager at Genbio had finally seen the light, thanks to information provided by Nicole, maybe others, but definitely Nicole. Details about Elsa’s lies and financial losses at the company’s expense.
Elsa, by default, had just moved to suspect number one. Of course, killing Nicole and setting me up seemed to be an extreme response to being fired. But demented people do demented things. Just look at all the crazy mass shootings across the country. What was the justification there? It didn’t matter, because no one could justify killing twenty, thirty, forty people….or just one, for that matter.
After glancing at the mock-FBI agent—he was obviously a Knicks fan by the frustration he was showing every time the Warriors drained another three-pointer—I looked aimlessly into the back kitchen of the restaurant. I wasn’t exactly sure how to get to New Haven. I just knew it was northeast of New York City. I bit the inside of my cheek, knowing if I started doing searches on my phone, I’d be leaving a digital trail.
But what if Elsa was actually behind all of this? Was she even at her home, which I assumed was somewhere near New Haven?
I needed access to a computer that couldn’t be traced back to me.
Joshua. I almost snapped my fingers. Yes. He would be my conduit to the digital world, at least for a few minutes, I was certain.
I started to lift from my chair, but I didn’t make it all the way. I was staring at the original list of attendees. Had I merely been lucky by the fact that Elsa’s last name was Brady? Just coincidence? I couldn’t go there. My law-school professors had drilled into me that a coincidence would be impossible to defend in a court of law.
I slipped back into my chair, started just under Elsa’s name, and began to run through the list of names. I’d finish off this list, not worry about the data-mapping exercise from the session-attendance list, and then run back to the Grand Hyatt while Joshua would still quickly recall the magnitude of this investigation—at least the version I’d given him.
Burress was the last of the B names. I zipped through the Cs, the Ds, and then…
Shut the front door! I moved my finger up the sheet and blinked at the name on the list. My pulse thumped the side of my neck. Durant. Mitch Durant. I knew a Mitch Durant. Nicole did too. From our days at Cal-Berkeley. Mitch and Cassie Durant had met at school, just like me and Nicole, and had gotten married shortly thereafter. Mitch and Cassie were friends of ours, and I felt pretty sure they were on our Christmas card list.
Last I heard, Mitch was working for some big company…on the East Coast, maybe. My eyes shifted to the right. Company name: MD Consulting. Mitch Durant. Could he be running his own marketing consulting firm? Address: Bristol, Connecticut.
Connecticut, just like Elsa. Not sure why I went there, because the connection between Mitch and Elsa was zilch…well, other than that they both knew Nicole.
A jolt zapped the base of my skull. If I separated my personal emotions, including my past friendships, from this whole thing, what would I be thinking?
I’d be drooling over the fact that I’d just found two data points that intersected not just with Nicole but with me as well. I’m sure Elsa had seen pictures of me and probably heard Nicole
speaking of me. Was there some envy involved? And how would Mitch fit into this little plot I’d created out of some names on a piece of paper?
One step at a time. Mock-FBI man pounded the table in response to a Knick turnover as I snatched up the lists and walked out of Angelino’s.
14
I stood in the threshold of Joshua’s office and watched him talk to himself as he multitasked like a seasoned millennial. He hovered lower toward the desk as his intensity grew; he looked like an anteater seeking out food.
I knocked on the door. He jumped.
“Jesus H. Christ!” he snapped. “Do you always make a habit of sneaking up on people in your profession, Mr. Lee?”
I opened my palms to the ceiling and smiled.
“Well, aren’t you just so damn funny.” He huffed out a breath, folded his hands across his desk. “You’re back rather soon. How may I help you?”
“I need to run some diagnostics over your network.”
His mouth opened, but his eyes looked to the corner. “Diag…what?”
“Well, for starters, I’ve found three out of the four women who’ve accused our, uh… ‘Daniel,’”—yes, I did the air quotes—“of the felonies we discussed.”
His head quaked. “This is all so distasteful. No offense, but I’d hoped I would never see your face again.”
“We want this to go away as much as you. But we have to get the facts first, and then we can nail Daniel and save these women from this horrible embarrassment.”
He cleared his throat and pointed at the packets in my hand. “You said three out of the four women are on that list. Are you going to tell me who they are?”
I tilted my head. “Joshua, you know I can’t do that.”
He lifted one side of his top lip. “So, what do you need to run your…whatever you called it?”
“Network diagnostics. We have evidence that shows the emails were sent to the ladies from this location.”
He pointed his finger at his desk as his jaw dropped.
“Not your office, but somewhere in this hotel.”
“Wait, why didn’t you see the fourth woman on the list?”
“I can’t get anything by you, can I, Joshua? You’ve very inquisitive. You sure you don’t have a law background or something?”
He smiled as though I’d given him ten stickers for being a good citizen.
I added, “So, this fourth woman…I’m not sure why she wasn’t on the list.”
He smacked his desk and then brought his hand to his mouth. “Do you think she could be in on this too? Maybe working in cahoots with this Daniel person?”
“It’s possible. Maybe she did it all herself.”
He gasped.
Damn, this is like telling a ghost story to a six-year-old.
My eyes dropped to his computer.
“Oh, you want to use my computer?”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“But shouldn’t I call Tony, and then you can work with him and our security people. I think we have some type of IT person, but I don’t know his name.”
“That’s the last thing we want to do.”
“Why is that?”
“What if Daniel or this woman made a deal with Tony or this IT person? They could send me down a rabbit hole, and I might never get to the truth.”
He gasped again. “A conspiracy…at this hotel?”
“It happens, Joshua. I can’t take that risk. And I don’t have time to waste.”
He jumped up, moved out of the way, and patted the back of the chair. “Sit. Do your job, Mr. Lee. I’ll be right here to support you.”
I walked around the desk, wondering how I was going to pull this off with Joshua staring over my shoulder. I’d think of something—one problem at a time.
He asked, “So, do you have some type of CD or something to load into the laptop?”
“Actually, I’ll just pull up the command prompt and connect through your network back to the home office and begin running a series of commands, using PowerShell.”
“Power what?”
I pulled that one out of an online ad I’d seen to get an IT certification of some kind. I almost pumped my fist in the air; instead, I scratched my head.
“It’s all very technical. But the result of this data could prove to be quite useful.”
I popped my knuckles and brought up the command prompt—that much I knew. After that, I started typing in gibberish and hitting enter. After a minute, he started getting antsy and reached for his cell phone on the desk.
“Ugh, I just can’t believe the incompetence of some people,” he said, walking to the door. He paused and looked back at me. I kept my head down and banged away on the keyboard like I was a seasoned hacker. “I need to run off and fix a few things. Will you be okay in here by yourself?” he asked.
I looked intently at the screen. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did you say something?”
“Nothing. I’ll be back shortly.”
He left the room. I went straight to a browser, pulled up a map application, and inserted the address that was next to Elsa’s name. A red arrow popped up in New Haven next to the name of her company, ClickTech. Just as I’d expected. I did a quick search for Elsa Brady living in New Haven. One result. I clicked on it. Her home was three miles away from ClickTech. I pulled up the directions on how to get from New York City to her home and printed them off. As the printer did its thing, I put in Mitch’s address and then clicked so I could see the street view. The house was made of blue siding and red brick—a large home on a large lot. Not your typical Texas postage-stamp lot. I printed out those directions, cleared my browsing history, and closed the browser.
Which one to visit first? Maybe I’d have time to think about it overnight. I was hoping I could convince Joshua to comp me a room at the hotel, all in the interest of discretion and efficiency, of course. I waited ten minutes for Joshua to return, but he didn’t. I grabbed all my hard copies and walked back into the lobby. It was almost eight o’clock at night and, to coin an appropriate phrase, it looked like Grand Central Station. So many people.
I swiveled my sights right and left. At the far end of the lobby, at the top of a wide staircase near the opening to some type of ballroom, stood Joshua. He was talking to a guy built like a Lego—lots of hard edges. He had “Security” written all over him. Had to be Tony. Joshua pointed in my direction, and the big guy stared at me as though I’d just robbed a bank.
I had this friend on the swim team in high school. Actually, she was a diver. We talked about the feeling of being in the spotlight and how there was no way to avoid at least a little bit of anxiety when all eyes were on you at the swim meets, or even if it just felt like it. She said when she first started diving, the pressure of so many things weighed her down—being a teenage girl and knowing that guys of all ages were probably ogling her in her bathing suit and how that made her feel self-conscious about her body; knowing that the coach was counting on her to execute a flawless dive; and how her churning teenage emotions and hormones just added to the toxic mental mixture, which zapped her confidence. She couldn’t perform even the most basic dives. I, on the other hand, had it easy comparatively. Yes, I had to wear a skimpy “banana hammock,” but I was on the starting blocks with six other swimmers. And once the bell sounded and I plunged into the water and started my stroke, I had very little conscious thought about those outside the pool. My friend eventually turned the corner, but she had to go to therapy to mentally find her zone that erased the self-doubt. And it worked. She went on to win the state diving championship and set a state record in the process.
Right now, I felt like my diver friend, pre-therapy. I turned away, walked over to the café, and looked through their display of ground coffees. Over the next few seconds, I tried to think through what I’d seen with a rational mindset. Joshua had believed my story and was eager to help clear the name of the hotel before anything became public. He understood my need to not divulge the name of my client. He’d e
ven given me access to his computer and left me alone in his office. That showed trust.
But I didn’t know Tony. Had Joshua been fooling me all along? Not likely. My best guess was that he’d accidentally run into Tony and couldn’t help a bit of gossip. The question was: how much had he shared with Tony? Had Tony started quizzing him, poking holes in my story?
Then I recalled telling Joshua that we couldn’t let Tony into the loop because he might be connected to a larger conspiracy.
I picked up one of the bags of coffee grounds and casually glanced toward the ballroom.
They were walking in my direction. Tony’s face looked like he’d just eaten a bowlful of jalapenos.
Not a good sign.
I didn’t stare at the men for long. I whistled quietly to myself—Mr. Nonchalance—as I spun around and faced another display, this one full of “Big Apple” coffee mugs. I couldn’t be sure they’d figured out that David Lee and his story was complete fiction. It was possible they hadn’t gotten that far yet. Tony might only be at the stage of suspicion and simply wanted to question me further.
Questions that I would, undoubtedly, have a difficult time answering. I could foresee the Q&A test. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be a pass-fail test. If I didn’t ace it, he’d probably want to verify things, like my client’s name, my PI credentials showing I was licensed in the state of New York, and, of course, that the David Lee sitting before him matched the bullshit story I was spewing.
I was, in essence, standing on the end of the diving board, my legs wobbly.
Sweat bubbled at my hairline. I wiped my forearm across my forehead and stole another glance.
Tony pointed a finger in my direction. I looked behind me—there was no one there.
I started to coolly walk past the reservation desk while looking at my wrist, hopefully giving off the vibe that I had someplace else to be. I made it twenty feet and shifted my eyes for a brief second. Tony had a cell phone to his ear.
Crap.
The speed of my walk picked up.
ON The Run (An Ozzie Novak Thriller, Book 6) (Redemption Thriller Series 18) Page 7