Brooks-Lotello Collection

by Ronald S. Barak

  BROOKS FELT A TUG on his elbow. “What?”

  “Over there in the corner,” Lotello glanced at Lonergan’s two compatriots.

  “Yes. Petra Pappas and Allison Rutledge, if memory serves,” Brooks responded. “If my concern for Ms. Lonergan’s safety was unwarranted, I rather would have expected Ms. Lonergan to be with the two of them. Follow me.” Brooks knew that Lotello would not actually require any prompting, but no reason to leave anything to chance.

  “Good evening, ladies,” Brooks said. “I’m—”

  “Yes, Judge Brooks, I know,” Pappas said, steeling a quick look at his name tag. “Allison and I know Detective Lotello, too, the one who eavesdropped on our conversation the other day.”

  Lotello acknowledged Pappas’s dig with a silent “guilty as charged” smile.

  “How are you both this fine evening?” Brooks inquired. “And where, pray tell, is your companion, the lovely Ms. Lonergan, tonight?”

  “Haven’t seen her so far tonight,” Pappas answered.

  Rutledge, apparently not given to subtleties, said “I haven’t seen Jonathan Connor tonight either. You do the math. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Indeed.” Brooks was at a loss as to what more to say. Unusual for me, I daresay. “Well, enjoy the festivities, ladies. Whenever you come across Ms. Lonergan, whether or not in the company of the venerable Mr. Connor, please let her know the detective and I would like a word.”

  CONNOR MISSED THE COCKTAIL party. Damn, even I can’t be in two places at once.

  As much as he needed to be at the cocktail party, the threat to his plans was of far greater importance. He “volunteered” to come to her room so they could talk things through and be sure she was making the decision that was truly in “her” best interests. And that’s where the two of them now were, in Grey’s room.

  “Wynonna, I thought we’d been all through this. The timing of launching your website is critically important. You want to make the greatest buzz possible when your novel is going to be released, not now. It’s not ready yet. You know that. We have more work we have to do first.”

  “You’ve said all this to me before, Jonathan,” Grey interrupted him. “I’m trying to explain that I’m having misgivings about not launching my new website right now, in time to get in on some last minute momentum and buzz at TJ. I’ve decided I’m going to ask Eileen to proceed with launch immediately. I just felt I owed it to you to let you know first.”

  “If you put the website on the internet now, you’ll let the air out of the balloon prematurely,” Connor said. “The website without a book available will prove hollow. Then, when the book is released, it will prove flat without the opportunity of a simultaneously launched website to go with it.” I can’t let her put a website out now, or ever. She and Lonergan will destroy everything I’ve been working for. It’s my book that is going to be released, not hers.

  “I’m sorry, Jonathan. I went over all of this with Eileen this afternoon. I want the website launched now, as a teaser for the book I will soon be releasing. Eileen agrees. I appreciate all of the help you’ve been to me, but it’s my book, my decision to make, and I’ve made it. I’m telling you what I’ve now decided strictly as a matter of respect and courtesy, not to debate it any further. My decision is final.”

  All my efforts up in smoke. All I’ve done for her and this is how she pays me back. Just like all the others. “That’s just not going to happen. Sorry, Wynonna, I’m afraid you leave me no choice.”

  LONERGAN CAME TO. HER head was throbbing. So was her shoulder. I just laid down on my bed to rest my eyes for a few seconds. But I’m not on my bed. I’m sitting up. In some kind of a chair. And something’s covering my eyes and my mouth. It was pitch black. She tried to shout. She couldn’t. She could hardly breathe. What’s going on? Where am I? Wait a minute! There was a knock at the door. I was sleepy. Let my guard down. Opened the door. Stupid. Door was shoved in my face. That creep jabbed my shoulder with something sharp, hot. Nothing else. Until now.

  IN A MATTER OF seconds, Connor’s options flashed through his mind. He could kill Grey right now. Dispose of the body so it would never be found. No website, no conflict. She’d just be one more TJ outsider casualty, one more lack of transparency problem for TITO, on top of each of the others who’ve disappeared this week. The manuscript would be his and his alone. Too risky, damn it. Lonergan will point the finger at me. So will Brooks and Lotello. Not as clean, but I have to protect the manuscript. My manuscript.

  “What are you talking about, calling the book your book?” Connor said to Grey. “Your manuscript would be nothing without me. Without my work on it. Nothing. Nothing,” he hollered at her. “Out of the goodness of my heart, I was going to put your name on the novel, beneath mine. But no longer, you ingrate.”

  “What are you talking about?” Grey responded. “This is my novel. I wrote it, not you. All you did was edit it. Add a little spit and polish here and there. My computer files couldn’t be clearer. You improved it, for sure, as all editors do. They edit. But the book is mine. Strictly mine. It’s not going to show your name and mine. It’s going to show my name, as the sole author. You’ll get the customary inside acknowledgment and thanks at the back of the book. That’s it.”

  “Is that so?” Connor replied. His voice had calmed down. Somewhat. But not the crazed look in his eyes. “Before you go making any rash assertions that you are the author of this book, I suggest you take a good hard look at that computer of yours. Go ahead. Don’t take my word for it. Do it! Right now.” Connor sneered as he watched the shadow of doubt creep across Grey’s face.

  Grey spun her wheelchair about and moved to the laptop sitting on her desk. She powered it up and opened her documents folder. Nothing. Her manuscript files were gone. She opened her email server. Nothing. All of her emails with Connor, maintained in a folder labeled “Connor,” were missing as well. “You won’t get away with this, Jonathan. I have all of my files and our emails backed up in my cloud account.”

  “Think so? Check it out.”

  Grey logged into her cloud account. She couldn’t believe her eyes. What she was looking at. Or, more precisely, what she was not looking at. Not one sign of her manuscript or any of the email exchanges between her and Connor.

  “Who’s going to take your word over mine, Wynonna?” I suggest you come to your senses, cut your losses. You can always write more novels. Take me on and I’ll demolish you. You’ll be a pariah in the industry. No one will ever read anything you write after I’ve finished with you.”

  Grey yelled at Connor to get out of her room. Her head dropped to her chest in defeat. Tears spilled onto her laptop.

  Connor smiled at her smugly, turned, and left her room.

  BROOKS AND LOTELLO HUNG around the cocktail reception until the crowd began to thin. Neither Lonergan nor Connor made an appearance, not together, not separately. Nor, curiously, did they see Wynonna Grey.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  Day Four, 9:45 p.m.

  BROOKS WAS BECOMING MORE and more anxious. “Let’s give the bar a shot.” He stopped dead in his tracks. “That was not meant to be funny.”

  “That’s okay, I didn’t think it was,” Lotello responded.

  They didn’t see any sign of Lonergan, but Lotello did spot Connor. Brooks watched Lotello bob and weave through the crowd and make his way over to Connor. He subtly clasped the back of his neck in a vice-like grip and squeezed. He had Connor’s attention.

  “Wha—”

  “Where is she?” Lotello whispered into Connor’s ear. He twisted Connor around so that their faces were only inches apart.

  “Lotello. Where is who? Who in the hell are you talking about?” Connor demanded.

  “Lonergan,” the detective said.

  “Lonergan? How the fuck would I know?! One way or another, your ass is mine, Lotello. You have my word.” Connor mouthed back.

  “I just love it when you talk dirty to me, Connor. Last chance. Sure you have
no idea where Lonergan is?”

  “None. Haven’t seen her since before I had the pleasure of your company this afternoon. Not!”

  “Haven’t spoken to her?” Lotello asked. Again.

  “No. Read my lips, Lotello. That was no. N. O.”

  LONERGAN TRIED TO TAKE stock. Eyes covered. Can’t see anything. Can’t hear anything. Doesn’t seem to be anyone here but can’t be sure. Something stuffed in my mouth. Can’t speak. Arms tied. Can’t move them. Can’t move me. Oh my God! She told herself not to freak out. She thought everything was closing in on her. Don’t think that way. It’ll only make things worse.

  Her natural instinct was to breathe through her mouth, but she couldn’t. She realized her nose was clear. Okay, I just need to breathe through my nose. She worked on that. It was okay. She could get air in and out her nose. She tried her arms again. They were strapped to her chair. She pulled harder. The chair seemed to move. Not a chair. A wheelchair! Wynonna?

  She tried to move the chair. It was locked. And her legs were strapped in place, as were her arms. She rocked her body back and forth. Nothing. She rocked from side to side. No movement at all … until the chair tipped over. Suddenly, she was on her side. But still pinned in place.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Day Four, 10:30 p.m.

  LOTELLO EYED BROOKS, WHO looked like he really needed a break, a chance to get off his feet. But he knew Brooks wouldn’t admit it. “Why don’t you let me follow up with hotel security to see if there’s anything they can do. I’ll meet you back in the room and let you know what they have to say.”

  “Good idea,” Brooks acknowledged. “That doesn’t take the two of us. While you’re doing that, I’ll make sure all is well with the ladies. Probably also makes sense for me to stretch out my back a little.”

  SITTING IN RAMIREZ’S OFFICE, Lotello explained that Lonergan was missing.

  “Amigo mio, I’m not sure what we can do,” Ramirez said. “But we will try, of course. Por supuesto. I will pull all of my staff together and we will go room to room and see what we can see, but it will take hours to do this thoroughly, especially at this time of night. How do you say it, we are looking for a needle in a haystack. No?”

  LONERGAN HADN’T THOUGHT MATTERS could become any worse than they already were. She was wrong. Matters had become worse. When the wheelchair subsequently fell over, she banged her head against the floor. Hard. And something hard was pressing awkwardly into her body.

  But then she sensed it. At first, just ever so slightly. Her left arm. It had been tightly bound when the wheelchair was upright. Now the binding was not quite as tight. She could move her arm. Only a little. It’s a start! She began twisting her left hand. Around and around. The binding. It’s stretching! Ten minutes later, her wrist was pulsating. She could feel dampness. Must be bleeding. But her left arm was free!

  She removed the tape from her eyes. Then her mouth. She pulled out a washcloth from inside her mouth. She confirmed that she was bound to a wheelchair. Wynonna’s? She was about to scream, but stopped herself. Who might hear? And come? A friend? Or …? She didn’t finish the thought.

  She went back to work. She freed her left leg easily enough and then her right arm and her right leg. She stretched her body, moved about the room. Aside from the standard hotel toiletries, there were no personal effects in the room and no clothing. She did spot her computer bag sitting on the floor nearby the overturned wheelchair. Odd. Whoever grabbed me must have brought my computer bag along too.

  Nothing told her whose room she was in or where the room might be. It was just some kind of an unattractive, interior room. Quite small. Only one window that looked out on a tiny alleyway. All she could see outside were some large machinery and power lines. She couldn’t tell where she was. She saw a room phone on a small desk. She ran to it and lifted the receiver. No dial tone. The phone was dead.

  She was in a space that really amounted to nothing more than an oversized storage closet turned into a small hotel room for someone who wanted to stay at the famous Hotel Marisol but couldn’t afford anything nicer. Why am I thinking about something like that at a time like this? Focus, for God’s sake! Concentrate on what matters, what I need to do to get out of here. She ventured to the front door but couldn’t open it. Someone must have reverse engineered it to require a key. A key? Did I finally catch a break? No, I couldn’t possibly do that, could I?

  LOTELLO RETURNED TO THE seventh floor suite where Brooks, Eloise, and Leah stared at him with anticipation as soon as he walked in. He filled them in on the meeting he had just concluded with Ramirez. “There’s nothing we can do until we hear from Diego. It could take hours. We might as well try to get some sleep.”

  They all reluctantly agreed and retired to their respective interior rooms.

  LONERGAN HAD FOUND HER meeting with Brooks and Lotello unsettling. It wasn’t so much that she had learned anything she didn’t already know. Well, at least suspect. It was more that these two professionals believed what she had tried to dismiss as nothing more than a product of her imagination. Given her current predicament, she was now even more frightened than they had made her. She hadn’t wanted to admit her fears to them. But there was no denying them now. At least not to herself.

  Her mind drifted back to her lone Israeli website client, Jedi Security International, a tenant in her hometown office building, and the now fortuitous meeting they’d had the week before she left for Thriller Jubilee.

  James Bond’s “Q” had nothing on Jedi’s scientists. One of their recent developments, which they had likened to a jack-of-all-trades digital Swiss Army knife, was an all-purpose security microchip about the size of a SIM card loaded into a smartphone or the GPS chip embedded in a household pet to trace its whereabouts if it wandered off and became lost.

  Jedi engineers explained to her that their chip was to be subcutaneously embedded in the forearm of its beneficiary. Once the modest incision healed, in a matter of days, the chip was ready to be used by its benefactor. Press on the embedded device, and it opened a holographic smartphone computer desktop screen and virtual keyboard on the user’s forearm that could operate any number of smartphone apps, including inbound and outbound text messages, clock functions, flashlight capabilities that could blindside an opponent or provide light where none otherwise existed, and security lock and other signal jamming features.

  Jedi marketing executives asked Lonergan if they could install their chip in her forearm so she could demonstrate it to potential high network authors at Thriller Jubilee, but she had declined. It wasn’t that she was all that squeamish, but installing some kind of computer technology inside her body was not something that appealed to her no matter how “techie” and curious she was. She had agreed to take a chip with her to Thriller Jubilee and show and describe its capabilities to potential users if the occasion arose. Too bad I didn’t let them install it after all! One or more of those apps might really have come in handy under these circumstances. Never know. Wonder if I could somehow install that chip right here, and right now, by myself. Can I … cut it? Literally. She might have laughed, but it wasn’t funny. Not at all.

  She assumed—hoped—that Jedi’s chip remained in one of the small inside compartments of her laptop bag where she had packed it before leaving for TJ. She opened her bag and unzipped the inner compartment where she remembered packing it. Her heart was pounding. She held her breath and looked inside.

  BY THE TIME CONNOR made his entrance, the crowd at the bar was already three and four deep and fully engaged. He knew how to quickly make himself the center of attention. “Next round’s on me!” he hollered.

  “Three cheers for Jonathan,” someone rejoined.

  “Attaboy, Jonathan,” another added.

  “Someone must have received some good news. What are we celebrating, “Jonathan?” asked another.

  “YES!” LONERGAN SHOUTED, BUT only to herself. There it was, sitting inertly in its clear, sealed packaging. She broke the seal. The J
edi chip looked just fine.

  She unzipped one of the other inside compartments, the one where she carried a mini-first aid kit. She opened the kit and removed a fresh razor blade, a box of stick matches, a small tube of anti-bacterial cream, and a roll of gauze tape. Interesting how relative fear can be. No way I was up for Jedi medical staff inserting the chip in me when I didn’t perceive a personal need for it. And now look how I am about to do it to myself! Like that guy caught in the bear trap out in the wilderness who was able to cut his arm off to free himself and save his life.

  She removed one of the matches and struck it on the side of the box. It broke in half. But didn’t light. Oh, for Christ’s sake, Eileen. Calm down. She took out a third match and struck it once more. Nothing. Well, not that calm, girl. The third time worked like a charm. She held the blade in the flame until it burned halfway down to her fingertips.

  She thought about how to make the incision. I can do this. Take a few deep breaths, hold the last one in, and close my eyes. Put the now darkened but still warm, and hopefully sanitized, blade in place on the edge of my forearm. And just do it—quickly. Like the Nike commercials. From start to finish. It’ll be over before I even know it. Barely an inch long. Before I can even feel it.

  She snapped her fingers for reassurance. By the time I feel it, it’ll already be done. Except for then still having to glide the chip into place. But by then, there’ll be no turning back. It didn’t look so bad in the Jedi video demonstration. Of course, looking and feeling are two different things. But no choice. And glide definitely sounds a lot better than push. She shuddered. Again, she thought about what the human mind can do when sufficient reason exists to do it.

  And then it was over. She had made the incision, squeezed some anti-bacterial cream into the wound, inserted the chip into the exposed cavity in her forearm, and wrapped it in place with the gauze tape. Her arm was on fire, but the chip seemed in place. She pressed on the chip to engage it.