by S J Grey
“There is an option,” said Jonathan. “You talk to her again and tell her you’ve had a change of heart. You’ll get your contacts involved, but you need to know more details. You need the name of the boyfriend. The date it happened would be better, but his name would be a start.”
Talking to that poisonous bitch again was high on Caleb’s list of things he wanted to avoid, but Jonathan made sense. “If I do, I need to be wearing a wire and have a camera on me. I don’t want to give her any opportunity to stitch me up later.”
“By the way,” said Nat, “the courier is proving a challenge. He kept his face averted from every visible camera in the building, and then had his bike helmet on until he got outside. Last seen disappearing toward Midland Park. I’m searching all available CCTV, but there’s not much to go on.”
“Damn.” Jonathan sounded as frustrated as Caleb felt. “Keep at it.”
“If I was trying to avoid being seen as a biker, I’d ditch the bike gear and blend into the crowd,” said Devin. “We’re looking for a guy dressed as a courier.”
“Good thinking,” said Caleb. “He can get rid of the jacket and helmet, but his trousers and boots will be harder to change in a hurry. Check the feeds again but focus on his lower half.”
“Nice one,” said Nat. “I’ll do that.”
“Devin, do you have a contact number for Nicole?” asked Caleb. “If not, check her website.”
Devin grinned and handed over a sticky note. “Already got it.”
Caleb took the note and went into his office, Jonathan at his side. “Let’s see how keen she is to talk to me.”
Chapter Nine
Caleb set up the audio recorder on his phone and dialled Nicole’s number.
“Hi. This is Nicole.” Her voice was bright and confident.
“This is Caleb Rush. I think we should talk. Is now a good time?”
There was a harsh intake of breath. “Going to insult me some more?”
Caleb made himself sound humble. “I’ve thought about what you said. I might be able to help you.”
“Good. I hoped you’d come around to my way of thinking.”
“So how should we do this? Do we meet somewhere, and you give me the information I need?”
“I really don’t have time for that. My business is haemorrhaging clients. What do you want to know?”
This was too easy. Suspicion prickled down his spine. “Your boyfriend set you up, right?”
“Correct.”
“And you want me to make him pay? Are you talking about a temporary thing, or do you want him to be permanently shut up?”
It sounded like the script from a bad gangster movie. Was she buying this?
“I want him to be wiped off the face of the earth.”
Apparently, she was.
“What about the other guy in the video? Do you know who that was?”
She made a clicking noise with her tongue. “Of course I don’t. You need to get Freddie to tell you, and make him go away as well.”
“Freddie?”
“My boyfriend, you idiot. Ex-boyfriend. Freddie Sparks. Is that all? I have a client waiting, and God knows I need every one I can hang onto.”
“Just a couple more questions. When did this happen? When was the event at the Metropole?”
“Around a month ago. The last Saturday in February.”
“And Freddie took you to his room? You didn’t go to yours?”
“That’s right. I need to go. Don’t contact me again until the job’s done.” She disconnected.
Caleb and Jonathan looked at each other.
“I’m glad I was recording that,” said Caleb. “What’s her deal? Is she batshit crazy, or what?”
“Make a backup of the call,” said Jonathan. “In case Freddie ends up floating in Wellington Harbour.”
“Yeah, I’m on it.” Caleb terminated the recording, and then emailed himself the file. It would be stored in four places, as of now. On his phone, in his cloud drive, in the email cloud, and in his inbox. He’d make another copy of it later, for his offline backup drive.
“Maybe I’m missing something,” said Caleb, “but the Do-Nothing option looks the best to me.”
Jonathan nodded. “Along with the Stay-the-Fuck-Away option. Or take it to the police. She’s asked you to put a hit on her supposed boyfriend, and no matter how you look at it, that’s not right.”
Caleb’s instinctive reaction was to shy away from the cops. Nothing good ever came of interacting with them. “I’ll think about it.”
“Yeah, right. That’s your way of being polite when you actually mean not in a million years.”
Despite himself, he was amused. “I actually mean when hell freezes over and the devil sells ice cream in Midland Park.”
Jonathan rolled his eyes. “Let’s get back to work.”
They returned to the main office, to address the rest of the team.
“Now we have a name for Nicole’s boyfriend,” said Caleb. “Freddie Sparks. Not exactly a common name. I need his digital footprint—if he exists.”
“On it,” said Nat. “By the way, since we’re all busy, I phoned out for pizza, if you want to share. There should be plenty.”
Caleb glanced at his watch. It was lunchtime. “Thanks. I’ll chip in to the cost.”
“No worries.” Nat continued typing, focused on the task at hand.
It was a strange sensation to see his team working while he watched, but he felt weirdly in limbo. Disconnected from the activity. He needed to get involved in something. He walked to the smartboard and checked the names to each of the tasks, to see if anything was unallocated. A couple of the investigation threads for the red teaming exercise hadn’t been started yet, so he put his name against those.
The afternoon passed in a blur of pizza and coffee, but Caleb called a halt at four, to check progress. Toby and Will were digging into the digital footprints of key people, and Devin was working with Jonathan to create a generic but official-looking email, to use for phishing purposes. In other news, their search for the mystery courier gave no results. He’d vanished.
“It bugs me that we don’t know what his angle is,” said Caleb. “Devin, I want you to monitor the feeds from the whole building from now on, not just our office. If the courier comes back into this block, I want to know about it.”
Devin nodded. “Will do.”
“There’s no sense in staying late,” said Caleb. “We’ll be pulling plenty of all-nighters when we start the attack routines, so get away early today, while you can. See you all tomorrow.” He went back into his office, flanked by Jonathan.
“You’re too soft on them,” said Jonathan, but he followed up with a smile. “How do you feel about the progress we’re making?”
“It’s good. I’m keen to see what you and Andi can find out tomorrow, and once we get the phishing underway, I can roll out the data-mining tool and get digging into their network structure.”
“Sounds good. You seeing Emma tonight?”
“Her mum’s invited me for dinner.”
“Let me know when she hears from Mark?”
His tone was deceptively casual, and Caleb was alert. “Ask her yourself.”
“Eh, I keep forgetting.”
Yeah… no. Jonathan wasn’t the forgetful type. Was he trying to keep tabs on Mark and letting Caleb know in a subtle way? Damned spies. He was sick of their tangled mind-games.
He was glad of the interruption when Andi tapped on the open door.
“Hey,” she said. “Fancy going for a beer tonight? I’d like to introduce you properly to Griff.”
“Nah, I’m good. Thanks, though.”
“No worries.” She tugged on a puffer jacket and her usual knit cap. “See you both tomorrow,” she said, and then left.
“I’ll be off,” said Jonathan. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“Anything like what?”
“Like anything.” He grinned and shrugged. “Boss’s orders. Mark
wants to make sure you have backup if you run into any issues.”
Caleb’s phone buzzed, as he made his way out of the building.
It was Delilah again. “Hi,” she said. “Can we talk? Soon? I don’t want to do this on the phone.”
“I’m just leaving the office. Where are you now?”
He heard footsteps down the line, and the sound of her breathing. “Junction of Willis Street and Lambton Quay. Meet you by the cenotaph in five minutes?”
A minor detour. “Sure.”
What bombshell was she going to drop on him now? He walked slowly to the memorial statue, a short distance from his office, and lurked under the branches of the sprawling pohutakawa trees nearby. The area around the cenotaph was shiny, with new tiles and bench seats in the shadow of the Beehive, the centre of government. More changes since he went away. So much had changed in his city, and not only the structural things, with buildings closed or demolished after the Kaikoura earthquake a few years earlier. People behaved in new ways. He’d lost count of the number of people scootering and skateboarding down the streets, dodging around pedestrians. And don’t get him started on the headphones addiction.
Did every person under the age of thirty have a set of headphones glued to their head when they left home in the morning? Or was everyone so damn insular that it was too difficult to be polite? With phones or buds in place, they didn’t need to speak to anyone, to acknowledge when they bumped into you, or to thank you for basic politeness. Either that or they yakked on their phones or surfed Instagram and Facebook while they walked along, oblivious to anybody around them.
Three years—that was all. In some ways, it felt more like thirty. He was now a stranger in his home town.
“Hey.”
He spun around and saw Delilah, cheeks pink and hair windswept. “Hey,” he echoed. “What’s up?”
“What was the name of your lawyer at the trial?”
“Elliott Garber. Don’t tell me he’s dead as well?” He meant it half as a joke, but the seriousness of her expression made him think again.
“I’ve no idea,” she said. “I just spent the last hour at the Law Society office, trying to locate him. According to their records, Elliott Garber doesn’t exist.”
Chapter Ten
“That’s insane,” said Caleb. “Are you sure?”
Her lips pursed. It didn’t take a genius to see she was offended. “This is what I do, Mr. Rush. I research. I know the right people to ask and the right places to look, and no, I haven’t made a mistake.”
The wind tugged at her denim jacket, and she shivered. She had to be freezing in that tiny skirt, even with the thick tights she wore. Not that Caleb was looking at her legs.
If only he could walk away and forget this conversation ever happened. However, he needed to talk to her. He sighed. So much for getting out early. “Do you want to get a drink? Go somewhere warmer?”
She gazed at him, as though unsure. “Go on, then. The Old Bailey?”
It was too early in the evening to be crowded in there. He could manage half an hour. “That works.” They turned and headed up Lambton Quay together, walking briskly, and not talking. It gave Caleb a few minutes to think about this latest nugget of news. His lawyer, the shittiest defence lawyer in the history of forever, didn’t exist. Nah. That was bullshit. Delilah might think herself to be a slick journo, but this had to be a mistake.
He’d buy her a drink and see what she knew. Nothing more.
It was warm inside the pub, and to Caleb’s relief, there were plenty of seats against the walls. No freaking out this evening. With a confidence that was entirely false, he walked with her to the bar. “What do you want?”
“I’d love a glass of Shiraz.”
He gave the order to the waiting barman. “And a coke, please. No ice.” They were silent while the drinks were served, and then Caleb led her to the quietest booth.
“Thank you.” She dipped her nose into the glass. “Mmm. This is a good one. Too early for you to have a drink?”
“I’m driving.”
She nodded. “Yeah. I forget that not everyone lives in the city. Where do you live?”
Nope. He wasn’t sharing his home address. “Not in the city.” He waited until she’d taken a sip of her wine before he spoke again. “Tell me about Elliott Garber.”
“Like I said, the Law Society has no record of any practising lawyer with that name. Not in New Zealand.”
“Maybe he’s moved to Oz.”
She huffed a sigh. “Do you think I’m stupid? Don’t answer that. No historical records for him either. How can that be? He stood up in court to defend you. Not very well, but he wasn’t a figment of everyone’s imagination.”
Why didn’t Mark say anything about this? Caleb pushed the niggling thought away. “I’ll bite. What do you think has happened to him?”
Delilah took another sip of the wine, and then sat back and popped open the metal buttons of her jacket. She wore a fluffy yellow sweater underneath. It clung to her breasts in all the right places, and Caleb made sure to keep his gaze above her neck.
“I wondered if he’d changed his name,” she said. “He did such an abysmal job of defending you that I couldn’t see anyone wanting to hire him after that, but the Law Society blew that theory away. That means his records have been sealed for security purposes or wiped. What other options are there?”
Caleb wrapped his hands around his drink. “There’s gotta be a simple explanation.” An explanation that didn’t scream conspiracy theory. Yeah, right. He was coming up empty on this one.
“When you figure out what that is, do let me know.” Her tone was cool, and she watched him over the rim of her glass as she took another drink.
“I’m sorry. It’s just…” How much could he say? The weight of the past few years lay heavy on his shoulders. “I wanted to put all this behind me. You know?”
“What I don’t understand,” said Delilah, “is why. Why would someone go to such lengths to make sure you go to jail? Who the fuck did you upset so badly?” She lifted one hand to push her hair back, and then leaned her chin on it, elbow resting on the table. “You must be relieved to have your normal life back.”
Normal? That was a laugh. His office full of government agents, and a psychotic celebrity threatening him.
“Yeah,” he said.
“I’m very sorry about your sister,” she said, her voice gentle. “That must have been hard.”
Aaaaand he was done. Talking about Joss to a journalist? Not gonna happen. Caleb stood. “I have to go.”
*
Emma didn’t like riding his motorbike at night, so Caleb rode to her house, and she drove them to her parent’s place. They greeted Caleb with open arms, as though he was a part of their family.
Sandra and Geoff were more like parents to him than his own had been. They talked about their company—selling board games—and how Geoff was slowly making inroads to what he called the Lord of the Rings crowd, the live-action role players. He had a growing business, supplying them with elf and dwarf costumes, and was to lease a section of his land to them. It was a far cry from red teaming, and the change of pace was good.
Caleb had briefed Emma on the latest call with Nicole, and for a couple of hours, he was happy to forget the rest of his life and enjoy the simple pleasures of a family dinner. As usual, Sandra packed up cartons of leftovers for his freezer, and as always, she refused to let him pay for them.
Suffice to say, the Blackthornes were the closest he had to family.
He hated to dent the good humour, but he had a question for Sandra, and it couldn’t wait. “If anything happens to me, and I have to disappear without notice, will you please look after Min?”
Emma looked up at his words, and Sandra frowned. “Disappear like how?”
Geoff placed a hand on his shoulder. “What aren’t you telling us?”
Why did he raise this? Because the business with Nicole was playing on his mind. “I’m on parole, a
nd if I make the tiniest slip—or somebody thinks I have—I’ll get banged up again as the default move. I get one phone call, and I’ll make that to Emma. If it does happen, Min would be better here than at Emma’s house.”
Emma slid her arm through his. “We need to make sure we have a shit-hot lawyer on speed dial, in case anything happens. Wouldn’t Jonathan’s organisation provide emergency legal advice if needed?”
It was a good idea, and one he hadn’t considered. “Yeah. You might be onto something, Ginger. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
“Don’t call me Ginger.” She mock-glared at him but was fighting a smile.
Things were good at the moment. He pondered this as Emma drove them back to her house. Apart from the threat from Nicole and the worrying things Delilah was uncovering, he had his business running, a roof over his head, and his adopted family. Life could be a lot worse.
*
When his alarm rang at stupid-o-clock in the morning, it took him a few moments to orient himself. He grabbed his phone. It was the feed from his old house at Peka Peka. Something had tripped the security system. He checked the time. A quarter past one in the morning. What the hell?
The house was on the market, and he’d stripped it bare. There was nothing inside to steal. He’d set a basic alarm system and connected it to his cell phone, but it didn’t tell him much. The house was pitch dark inside. The outside camera picked up a shadowy figure and flickers of torchlight. Was someone trying to break in?
He had two options—call the police or go check it out for himself.
He sighed. He wouldn’t get back to sleep now. He might as well drive up there and take a look.
Armed with a heavy-duty Maglite torch, he set off on his bike, driving quietly through the sleeping village and only opening up once he hit the highway. The roads were deserted, but it was still over an hour’s ride, and he daren’t speed, in case the cops pulled him over.
He hadn’t quite made it to the tiny hamlet of Peka Peka, when he saw a glow in the distance. Orange, with sparks rising into the air. Shit. He accelerated, leaning into the curves and riding hard. It was a house fire, by the size of it. His place? Why were there no flashing blue lights? Did he beat the fire service? His house stood alone at the end of a short track, but there were others in the area.