Blind Rage (32 page)

The kitchen greeted me with bright cheeriness and the smells of bacon and coffee, which made my stomach growl. Alice must have cooked earlier and gone on to other tasks because Tess was alone, seated at the table in the nook, sleepily pouring milk into a bowl of cereal. The tip of her finger was hooked over the lip of the bowl, and when the milk in the bowl rose high enough to touch it, she tipped the milk carton upright on the table. Clever girl. She stuck her finger in her mouth and sucked the milk off, pulling it out between pursed lips with a pop.

“Good morning, sunshine. You’re up early. Sleep well?”

She turned toward the sound of my voice and made a halfhearted attempt at a smile.

“I feel like a zombie,” she said. “I hardly got any sleep.”

“Me neither. We’ll be a real pair at school today.”

She groaned, bent over her bowl, and shoveled a spoonful of cereal into her mouth.

“Hey,” I said, shifting my weight. I remembered she couldn’t see the color creep into my cheeks, but that didn’t seem to settle the butterflies in my stomach. “I wanted to apologize for being such a dick yesterday. I mean, seeing Helen get shot like that really got to me, but that’s no excuse for bad manners.”

“That’s okay,” Tess said. “I guess I was probably kind of a witch myself.”

“Nah, you were fine. Considering I tackled you and all.”

She spooned more cereal into her mouth instead of replying, so I figured the subject was closed. I grabbed a plate from a cupboard and served myself bacon and toast from the serving platters next to the stove. I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table across from Tess with my breakfast.

“I was thinking.” I swallowed a bite of toast. “Maybe the clue we got yesterday was designed to throw us off. I mean, finding that phone was too easy, you know?”

She raised her head and chewed slowly.

“Remember what the first couple of e-mails said?” I went on. “‘Seeing is believing’ and ‘Don’t believe everything you hear.’ Maybe that’s the point. We’re not supposed to believe the ringing phone in your dad’s office is the answer to the clue.”

She took another bite and ruminated.

“He used another phone for work,” she said at last. “He made me promise not to call him at that number unless it was an emergency.”

“Do you remember it?”

Her face screwed up as she tried to recall. The muscles in her face suddenly relaxed, and her hand groped the table instead, eventually landing on her own phone.

“I have it programmed,” she said. “I never called it. I always left him texts or voicemails on his personal phone. He always got back to me eventually.”

She activated the speakerphone feature and spoke a command. The line connected and the phone on the other end rang three times before a male voice answered.

“Hello?”

Tess turned her face toward me in shock. I motioned her to say something and realized she couldn’t see me. I reached for the hand holding the phone and lifted it toward her mouth. She resisted, then snapped out of her trance.

“Who’s this?” she demanded.

“Who’s calling, please?” the voice said.

“I asked you first,” Tess said. “Who is this? Why do you have my father’s phone?”

After a moment of hesitation the voice said, “I think you must have the wrong number,” and hung up.

Tess held the phone out. “Do you believe that? Someone stole my dad’s phone.”

“Come on, Tess. He hasn’t used it for more than a year. His account was probably canceled and the number assigned to someone else.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Why would they cancel his phone? They didn’t cancel his personal number.”

“I don’t know. Maybe the company wanted to save some money. It’s no big deal. We’ll figure out what the clue meant some other way.”

She put a finger in the corner of her mouth and nibbled the nail. “I know that voice, Oliver.” Her eyes widened. “Tad. It was Tad.”

I frowned. “How did he get your dad’s phone?”

“I don’t know.” She bit her lip and blinked. “But that was Tad’s voice, I’m telling you.”

“Okay,” I said softly, “we’ll check it out.” I thought for a moment, munching on a strip of bacon. “We need to figure out some way to get him alone. He’ll never say anything if he’s with his posse. Any ideas?”

Tess fell silent, but I could see the wheels turning in her head.

“Last year,” she said, “when Tad got his license, his parents gave him a car—a nice one. He trashed it. Got drunk one night and totaled it. His dad was so mad, he told Tad he could walk until he earned enough money to buy his own car. So he walked or got rides from guys like Carl. I bet he hasn’t bought a car yet, and with Carl . . . well, you know, Tad’s probably walking again.”

I glanced at my watch. “You know where he lives?”

She nodded. “I can tell you how to get there.”

I wolfed down the last strip of bacon and bite of toast, and washed it down with a gulp of coffee. Rising from the table I said, “Are you ready?”

She’d already picked up her bag from the floor next to her chair and put her phone in it. She stood.

“We need to get my books,” she said.

She put out her hand. I took it and placed it on my arm. She walked faster and with more confidence when I escorted her, I noticed, though she knew the house well enough to navigate on her own. As soon as we were in the hallway outside the kitchen, she turned her head and called over her shoulder.

“Alice, we’re on our way to school. I want to be early. Could you please tell Marcus? I don’t want to have to go find him.”

Alice’s voice floated out of her office. “I’ll take care of it.”

On the way out, I grabbed Tess’s backpack from the library where we’d left it. Fred was back on patrol, and when we emerged through the front door, he nodded at me and got on a cell phone. By the time we’d gotten in the rental sedan, Fred’s partner Barney had hoofed it over from the guesthouse and joined Fred in the SUV parked in the circle. They pulled out right behind us. I eyed the rearview mirror nervously. I wasn’t thrilled to have eyewitnesses to what Tess and I were planning. But I had a feeling that Flintstone and Rubble wouldn’t hassle us.

We drifted out onto the road, the gray car a ghost in the swirling mist. The SUV quickly disappeared in the fog behind us, the only sign of its presence two round, bright patches in the murk—its headlights. They must have been able to see spots of pink where our taillights rouged the gloom, because the lights maintained their distance.

Tess told me that Tad lived off the same main road she did, but about a mile closer to school. If he walked to school, he’d have to be on the road by now in order to get there on time. I drove slowly so we didn’t overtake anything too quickly. Nonetheless, the dark figure of a pedestrian alongside the road loomed out of the fog so fast that we passed it before I pulled the car over to the shoulder and braked to a stop. I jumped out and walked back past the trunk before the figure materialized out of the mist. Behind me, I heard Tess open her door and take tentative steps.

Stooped, with eyes downcast, Tad trudged toward me, weighed down by a backpack loaded with books. The glow of the car’s taillights caught his attention, and he raised his head, eyes moving from me to Tess and back.

He straightened and stopped. “What? You giving up your ride for me or something?”

“We just have a couple of questions,” I said.

Twin cones of light swung to the side of the road and straightened, illuminating him from behind. He glanced over his shoulder. When the headlights didn’t move and no one emerged, he faced me again and trudged forward.

“Hey, we want some answers,” I said.

“Blow me,” he said as he passed by.

I grabbed his arm and swung him into the side of the car. He folded over the trunk, and I quickly stepped next to him, grabbed the back of his neck, and bounced his face off the sheet metal. He squealed in protest. One hand flew to his nose and he used the other to try to lever himself off the trunk. I shoved his head down again, this time rapping his knuckles against the car. In turn, his nose was mashed into his palm. He screeched in pain. I grabbed his collar and pulled him up.

“Okay, okay! Stop!” he yelled. “No more.”

“Not so tough without the homeboys around, huh?” I said.

I spun him around and bent him back over the trunk lid with an arm across his chest. Tears sprang to his eyes and he gently felt around his nose with a thumb and three fingers. Tess placed her hands on the far side of the trunk and felt her way around the back end of the car. I snuck a glance behind us, but there was no movement in the fog, just the steady beam of the SUV’s lights weakly burrowing into the mist.

“My dad’s phone,” Tess said. “How’d you get it?”

Tad’s face went blank. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I called you. This morning.” Tess’s voice grew shrill. “You answered my father’s work phone. How’d you get it?”

“You are one crazy bitch,” Tad said. He sniffed and spat on the pavement. “I didn’t take anyone’s phone, and I sure as hell didn’t talk to
you
this morning. You must be high on something.”

I bent him back farther and pulled an arm back, fingers closed into a fist. His eyes grew wide.

“Jeez, wait! I’m telling you straight! I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

Tess sighed. “Let him go, Oliver.”

I grabbed a fistful of fleece vest, hauled him upright, and gave him a shove in the direction he’d been walking. He stumbled a few steps. When he regained his balance, he straightened and turned, his mouth twisted into a snarl.

“You’re both dead meat,” he said. “I don’t care how long it takes—you’ll both pay for this.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I’m shaking. Get out of here.”

I took a step toward him. He startled, turned, and hustled away, glancing once over his shoulder to see if I was following.

Tess had already found her way back to the passenger door and got in, slamming the door. I climbed in the driver’s seat. She faced forward as if staring out the windshield.

“I was sure it was Tad’s voice,” she murmured. “He doesn’t know anything, does he?”

“Not from what I saw.” I started the car and pulled out into the street. When I passed Tad, he glowered and gave us the finger. Lights flashed in the rearview mirror as the SUV pulled onto the road behind us. The fog thinned enough for a moment to see Tad stare at the SUV as it passed him.

“I know who it was . . .” Tess said quietly. “Tad’s father.”

I glanced at her. “You sure you want to go down this road again so soon?”

Her nostrils flared. “It makes sense. They sound almost exactly alike. And I could see why Mr. Cooper might have my dad’s phone—he’s head of security at MondoHard.”

I looked for a flaw in her reasoning but didn’t find one. “Okay, so the question is how you can get it back.”

She chewed on a fingernail for a moment.

“Uncle Travis,” she said.

Travis swiped his key card and ducked into the stairwell. Besides needing the exercise climbing the stairs provided, he wanted to keep a low profile. The elevator was too busy this time of day. Then again, anyone who wanted to trace his movements could monitor the security cameras all over the building, or simply track his key card swipes. No sense getting paranoid about it. He took the stairs two at a time, wondering why no one else took advantage of the easy workout. A few flights up, his heart rate had increased to about 110 beats per minute and his breath came fast and raw in his throat. Too fast. He hadn’t been working out enough. His pulse should still be below a hundred, but it dropped quickly as he eased through a door into the hallway and slowed his pace. He checked his watch. Still early by office standards, but later than he usually made it in.

Pushing his way through a door, he entered the large office shared by some of the game coders. As usual, the ambient light was dim, most of the illumination in the room coming from the glow of large monitors scattered around the room. The air was already warm from the heat of several computer towers, though Travis knew these guys spent most of their day accessing the servers over fiber-optic Ethernet cable. The office was empty save for Derek, who sat at his station, fingers flying over his keyboard. Travis let a hint of a smile pass his lips, pleased to have guessed right about the kid. He walked up behind Derek and put a hand on his shoulder. Derek jumped in his seat and jerked his head around.

“You!” He clutched his chest. “Jeez, man, don’t sneak up on people like that.”

“Good focus,” Travis said, “but you always want to keep part of your brain on alert.”

“Yeah, and how do you do that?”

Travis shrugged. “Practice.” For an instant, he thought of all the nights in Afghanistan that he’d slept with one eye open, hearing attuned to the slightest sounds. It didn’t make for very sound sleep, but it had saved his life on more than one occasion.

Derek swiveled the chair to face him. “What’s up?”

“You tell me.”

Derek reached behind him and grabbed a memory stick off his desk, fingers idly toying with it as he held it up.

“This is one fascinating little piece of work. I was able to recreate most of the missing file. It’s source code for some kind of program. Whoever wrote it is a freaking genius.”

“Why? What is it?”

“Hell if I know, man. I’d need to see a lot more code to begin to guess. But part of this is a logic tree that boggles the mind. Whatever runs this program is likely to be as close to AI as anything I’ve seen.”

“Artificial intelligence?”

Derek’s head bobbed up and down, and his eyes glowed with excitement. “Dang straight. The coder wants something to think, analyze some sort of situation and make a decision based on input—
sensory
input.”

“You mean like visual and aural cues?” Travis said, his chest tightening. He kept his voice calm and hoped he looked nonchalant.

“Yeah, and I get the impression it could analyze even more data than that. Maybe temperature, humidity, spatial make-up, like the contours of the surroundings and air quality.”

Travis chewed the inside of his lip. “But you don’t know what the program actually does?”