Brooks-Lotello Collection

by Ronald S. Barak

  Please, dear God, let it work.

  Nothing.

  She thought the problem was that it moved around when she tapped on it. Probably needs time I don’t have for it to knit firmly into place and not wiggle around when I press down on it. She grimaced, inhaled, and gently coaxed the microchip out of the miniature wound in her flesh. She reapplied the gauze bandage to stop the slight bleeding that had started when she removed the chip. This time when she placed the chip in the palm of her hand and pressed down on it, it worked fine.

  Minutes later, using the lock-jamming app on the chip, she neutralized her assailant’s engineering of the door and was free of her prison. Outside the room, she cautiously looked around but didn’t see anyone. Thank God!

  She knew exactly what she had to do next. At least she thought she did.

  WHAT ARE WE CELEBRATING, Jonathan repeated to himself. Oh, how he wanted to tell them. All in good time. “Sorry, mum’s the word, at least for now,” he said. “All in good time.” Connor raised his chin and tossed back the first of several drinks as he scanned the crowd.

  LONERGAN COULDN’T GET THE wheelchair off her mind. Was it Wynonna’s? It looked the same as her’s. Was she okay? She rushed to Grey’s room. She hesitated, but then knocked on the door.

  No answer.

  “Wynonna? It’s me, Eileen. Are you there? Are you okay?”

  Silence. Then finally: “It’s no use. Go away. Please.”

  “Wynonna, what’s the matter? I’m not going anywhere until you open up. Please, let me in.”

  After what seemed like forever, the door opened. Sitting there in her wheelchair. Her face ashen. “Wynonna, what is it? Tell me. Let me help.”

  “It’s too late,” Grey said. “You can’t help me. No one can help me.”

  “Just tell me what it is,” Lonergan persisted. “It can’t be that bad. We’ll figure it out. Together.”

  Slowly, Grey told Lonergan about Connor’s visit. “My manuscript. He’s stolen it. It’s gone from my computer. Completely deleted. He claims it’s his, not mine. It’s over. Years of work. Gone. What am I going to do?”

  “Are you sure? Don’t you have your files backed up on the cloud?”

  “I do. Or I did. They’re gone from there too. Connor had my cloud password. That’s where he used to provide me with suggested edits. He’s going to publish the novel under his name. No one else besides Connor has ever seen my manuscript. Who’s going to take my word over his?”

  “For starters, I do,” Lonergan said. “And I’m sure plenty of others will too. If he plans to publish it, then that means he has copies of it. We can fight him, prove that you are the author.”

  “You really think so?” Grey asked.

  “I do. Better still, I think I know just how to pull it off.”

  HOW THE HELL DID she get loose? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. And I damn well don’t plan to be the one who’s shamed. Watch out, Lonergan. What Elton John said: “Bitch, bitch, the bitch is back.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  Day Five, 6:00 a.m.

  LONERGAN WASN’T ABOUT TO let either her laptop or Grey out of her sights. Lonergan pushed Grey in her wheelchair. Grey clutched Lonergan’s laptop against her body. They dropped the laptop off at Lonergan’s hotel room. Under her mattress. Not great. But it’ll work for the time being. If no one’s looking for it.

  Lonergan tried Brooks’s cell phone first. Then Lotello’s. They both rolled over to voicemail. Lotello had said if she could not reach him, call the front desk and ask for Diego Ramirez and say it’s urgent. He had explained that Ramirez was the head of hotel security and would be able to find him. She called the front desk and explained that she was trying to reach Lotello and was told to call the front desk and ask for Ramirez. “Please tell him it’s urgent.”

  “This is Diego Ramirez. Who is this, please?”

  “My name is Eileen Lonergan. I’m—”

  “Yes. I know who you are Ms. Lonergan. Where are you?”

  Lonergan said she was calling from Grey’s hotel room. She said the room number.

  “Are you okay?” Ramirez asked.

  “Yes. I’m fine.” Lonergan answered.

  “And Ms. Grey?”

  “She’s fine too.”

  “Stay where you are. I will come to you. Immediately. Do not open the door for anyone but me. I will put my ID up to the peephole and then I will remove it and hold up one finger to my lips. Do you understand?”

  Lonergan said she did and repeated Ramirez’s instructions. Ramirez said he would be there in two minutes and hung up.

  LOTELLO’S ALIAS SMARTPHONE RANG. The caller ID box said “Diego Ramirez.” He answered on the first ring as he moved into the common area living room of the suite and closed the bedroom door behind Leah, not that he figured she’d still be sleeping. Brooks was already there at his side. In his skivvies. Under different circumstances, Lotello might have burst out laughing. At least Lotello was in sweat bottoms and a T-shirt. “Diego?” Lotello said. “Talk to me.”

  “I have Ms. Lonergan and Ms. Grey. They’re both okay.” He started to say more.

  Lotello cut him off. “Please, Diego, just bring them both to our suite. We’ll talk here.”

  “Right away.”

  BROOKS ONLY WANTED TO know what Ramirez had said about Lonergan and Grey. They were supposedly en route to their secured suite, but he had completely lost track of the fact that he was still standing around in his underwear.

  “Judge,” Lotello said, “I think you might want to change into something a little more appropriate.”

  “Huh?” Brooks responded. He rolled his eyes. “Uh, right, of course.” He sheepishly withdrew to his room, returning moments later in one of his favorite sweatsuits.

  By then, Eloise and Leah had also joined their husbands in the living room. Before he could resume his questioning of Lotello, there was a knock on the door. When Ramirez escorted Lonergan and Grey into the suite, Brooks immediately switched his focus from Lotello to the two women and assured himself that they appeared okay, at least physically.

  At his request, Lonergan recounted her experience at the hands of her unknown assailant. Although Grey had already heard what Lonergan had been through, she still had difficulty holding her emotions in check.

  “How is your shoulder?” Brooks asked after Lonergan finished her recap.

  “It’s fine,” she answered. “Kind of like after I had my last flu shot. Just a little sore.”

  “And your forearm?” Brooks inquired, continuing to take inventory.

  “Throbbing a bit. Actually, a lot. But I’m sure it’ll be okay. The wound is superficial, and I’ve flooded it with a topical antibiotic.”

  Brooks looked at Eloise, silently asking her if she could be of help. Ramirez must have read his mind. He said, “I just texted the infirmary to send up a doctor with the necessary items to clean and dress the wound.”

  “Thank you,” Lonergan said to Ramirez.

  Satisfied that the medical urgencies were provided for, or soon would be, Brooks directed his attention to how Lonergan had managed to escape from the room where she had been held captive. Listening to Lonergan describe the Jedi microchip and what it could do, he just shook his head. “I can’t imagine how you would have been brave enough, Ms. Lonergan, to cut open your arm like that and then insert the chip into the resulting cavity. I get lightheaded when they draw blood from me during my annual physical.”

  “It wasn’t so much a matter of being brave,” Lonergan said, “as it was being worried about who was out there and possibly after me. And how soon they might return. I wanted to get away or at least to have an edge, hopefully unnoticed, if they returned while I was still trapped in the room.”

  “A sharp edge at that,” Brooks said. “I get it. You wanted to be armed, one might say. In spite of his attempt at levity, he shivered once again and then said to Lonergan for at least the third time: “And you’re sure you have no idea who abduc
ted you?”

  “None,” was all Lonergan answered, also for the third time.

  Brooks then asked Grey to walk them through her exchange with Connor. He concentrated on her description of Connor’s demeanor even more than his actions. Connor wasn’t just a narcissist, he was an outright sociopath. The timing seemed right in place. Connor could have taken Lonergan just before his episode with Grey. For the time being, I think it best to keep this to myself. Ms. Lonergan says she has no idea who attacked her. We have no proof—yet—that Connor was her abductor. For the moment, I don’t want to make any accusations I can’t back up.

  “I do have another question for you, Ms. Lonergan,” Brooks said. “When you escaped from the room where you were held, did you happen to notice the room number?”

  “I did,” Lonergan answered. “Better still, I remember a lawyer friend of mine telling me once about the importance of making what he referred to as contemporaneous records of potential evidence. I quickly used the Jedi chip to take a picture of the room number.” She removed the chip from her pocket, set it on the table, and activated it. On the holographic computer that instantly appeared on the table adjacent to the chip, she tapped on the virtual pictures app, which opened up right there on the table. Everyone looked at the picture of the door with the number 375.

  “Tell me, please, Ms. Lonergan,” Lotello asked, “is that picture going to last or will it fade away into the woodwork, so to speak?”

  “It’s not going to fade away,” Lonergan assured all those present.

  “So you can save it as long as you want?” Brooks asked, as if asking the question a second time would make the answer more reliable.

  “Yes,” Lonergan repeated.

  “And you can print it onto a piece of paper from a ‘printer’?” Brooks wasn’t letting go.

  “Yes.”

  “And you could email it to me as well?” Brooks continued his third degree.

  “Yes. It’s just like any other picture you might take with your cell phone.”

  Once again, Brooks just shook his head. “Amazing. I must confess, however, that I prefer seeing that picture on the table rather than on your arm. Mr. Ramirez, would you please be kind enough to call your front desk and see who is registered in room 375?”

  “Well I can, but it will not do us any good, I’m afraid,” Ramirez said.

  “Why in the world not?” Brooks asked.

  “Because we don’t have a room 375.”

  “And how do you know that?” Brooks continued to probe, as only he could. “Do you have all of the hundreds of room numbers in the hotel committed to memory? And are you saying that Ms. Lonergan’s virtual camera malfunctioned?”

  “I’m not questioning Ms. Lonergan’s camera, unusual as it is,” Ramirez clarified. “I’m sure the room door says 375. However, I know there is no room 375. The first digit, 3, which I’m sure is accurate, identifies the series of our hotel rooms, in this case, series 3. However, the rooms in series 3, and in other similar series, run only from 01 to 60. So, room 375 does not exist.”

  Brooks knew what Ramirez meant was not that the room did not exist, because clearly it did. What Ramirez undoubtedly meant to say was that the room number affixed to the door of the room had been manipulated, forged one might say. Brooks thought about that for a moment. He nodded ever so slightly to himself. All that would have been required is a simple screwdriver. “Okay, then, Mr. Ramirez, at the risk of overlooking the remote possibility that the carpenter who installed the room number on the door in question was dyslexic and inadvertently transposed two of the numbers on the door, will you please instead inquire for us who is registered in room 357?”

  Ramirez called the front desk and asked. He repeated aloud the answer he was given: “Room 357 is registered to Mr. Jonathan Connor.”

  PART FOUR

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Day Five, 7:50 a.m.

  BROOKS WAS NOT AT all surprised to hear that room 357 was registered to Connor. His mind kept churning. “Mr. Ramirez, on further reflection, it occurs to me that—”

  “Cyrus, don’t you think that’s about enough for the time being?” Eloise gently interrupted her husband. He knew her question was rhetorical, that she wasn’t about to give Brooks an opportunity to express a dissenting view. “These young ladies have each had quite a night,” she continued. “Why don’t we let them have a little quiet time to themselves?” Again, he observed, Eloise was not asking for her husband to agree.

  “Excellent idea, dear,” Brooks said. He took Eloise’s hint, albeit somewhat reluctantly. I don’t need to be slapped on the side of my head twice. “Ladies, Thriller Jubilee ends with the awards banquet this evening. Do you both have flights home tomorrow, as do we?”

  Lonergan and Grey each answered in the affirmative.

  “Thanks to the generosity of the hotel, we are ensconced here in a lavish four-bedroom, four-bath suite, with beautiful private patios and ocean views and a cadre of security assigned to guard these generous quarters, and concierge butler service to cater to our every whim. In my opinion, I think it advisable that the two of you immediately take up residence in the two unused rooms in the suite until we all return stateside tomorrow.” Like Eloise, Brooks was not entertaining any opposition, polite or otherwise. As all present could see, Judge Brooks had ruled.

  But he was not quite finished. “Mr. Ramirez, would you please arrange, post haste, for the two ladies’s wardrobes and personal effects to be collected and brought up here from their rooms? They can decide which bedroom they each wish to occupy in our opulent quarters. Oh, and Ms. Lonergan tells me she has an extra laptop device lodged under the mattress in her room. Please be sure to include that in what you gather up and deliver here.”

  He didn’t pause for Ramirez to answer. “In the meanwhile, Ms. Lonergan and Ms. Grey can each shower and enjoy a nice nap. Whenever you are feeling hungry, our butler will organize whatever room service you wish. I’m afraid you will each have to forego today’s seminar presentations, but we can look forward to sharing a table together at tonight’s awards dinner. I have it on good authority that the evening will be full of surprises.”

  No one said a word. There really was nothing more to say. As usual, Brooks had it all worked out. Almost.

  “Wynonna, dear, do you require any assistance?” Eloise thoughtfully asked.

  “Thank you for asking, Mrs. Brooks. I’m fine. My condition does weaken my legs, but my wheelchair is strictly prophylactic to preserve my strength and facilitate my mobility. I’m quite fine, honestly, but thank you again for asking.”

  “Good, then, we’re agreed,” Brooks said, mad at himself for not being as delicate as Eloise was. “Detective Lotello and I have some matters to address. Because I observe that it’s past the breakfast hour, and all this thinking and talking has, I’m sure, made each of us quite hungry, he and I will take our leave and convene downstairs in Café Ibiza. Our butler will see to the culinary tastes of the rest of you.” I trust Eloise noticed that I’m not always that insensitive.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Day Five, 8:30 a.m.

  WHILE THEY WAITED FOR their food to arrive, Brooks had an important thought he wanted to share with Lotello. “It occurs to me that I failed to ask Ramirez one additional question.”

  “And that would be?” Lotello asked.

  “I’m curious to know when Mr. Connor booked room 357, aka room 375, before or after he arrived at Punta Maya.”

  Lotello nodded. He might have overlooked the significance of the point, but Brooks knew he was a quick study and no doubt now got it.

  Once their orders arrived, they kept to their own thoughts and ate in silence.

  When they finished, Lotello said he would stop by Ramirez’s office and find out when Connor had booked room 357.

  “Thanks,” Brooks said. “I have a couple of things to sort through. I’ll be back in our suite when you have Ramirez’s answer. Oh, and one more thing. If—”

  “And what, p
ray tell, would that be?” Lotello adopted Brooks’s speaking affectation.

  If Brooks had noticed Lotello’s barb, he wasn’t letting on. Without skipping a beat, he finished his request. “If Connor didn’t book the room until after he arrived here at Punta Maya, please inquire as to the name of the immediate occupant of room 357 prior to Mr. Connor and when that reservation was made.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  Day Five, 10:00 a.m.

  LOTELLO RETURNED TO THEIR suite and found Brooks sitting in the living room with his feet up on the coffee table, a pad and pen balanced precariously on his raised knees. His eyes were closed. He couldn’t tell whether Brooks was thinking or sleeping.

  “Judge?” he said softly.

  “All ears. What did you learn from our colleague, Mr. Ramirez?”

  “Connor only booked room 357 two days ago,” Lotello responded.

  “Interesting. I’m not surprised. Did you happen to ask whether he booked the room in person or merely did so online? My speculation is that he did so online.”

  “I did ask, and you’re right,” Lotello answered. “He booked it online. How did you know?”

  “Just a lucky guess. Perhaps. After all, I did have a one-in-two chance.”

  “Were you able to find out who had the room before Connor?”

  Lotello nodded. “I was. It was a person by the name of Terrence Hawke. He booked it months ago. He originally booked it through tomorrow, but checked out, again online, coincidentally only minutes before Connor booked the room.”

  “Indubitably. How very fortunate for our Mr. Connor that he was able to find a room when the hotel is, as we know from Mr. Ramirez, overbooked. Being a regular here every year, perhaps Mr. Connor qualifies as one of those ‘celebrities’ for which there is always a room available.” Brooks resumed doodling on his notepad.