Dead File (26 page)
“Tell you what I
am
going to do. Unless you need me to cover some legitimate news, I’m going to spend some time walking my fingers through computer files.
Your
computer files. Including navigating the path from here to your home PC. Let’s see if we can find any electronic fingerprints that might help us solve a
recent
crime—you know the one I mean.”
“Thanks, Maxi, but it won’t help. Believe me, I’ve thought about this backwards and forwards. I know what you’re going to see. I gave Sunday all my passwords. The logs will show that she accessed my home computer about a hundred times to work on the book. For countless hours, for days on end. So what’s that going to prove?”
“I don’t know. Would she ever have copied the whole manuscript to disk?”
“Sure. The very first day she started working on it, she made a copy to take home and review to get up to speed. Making a copy of
DBD
takes all of about forty-five seconds on the system.”
“Did she make just that one copy?”
“I have no idea, but what would it matter? All she’d need is one.”
“Or two—one to make your official changes on and a parallel one to disguise as a completely different book.”
“Easily done.” Wendy shrugged.
“By the way, where is she now?” Maxi asked, looking around the newsroom. “She used to be here days, nights, weekends, holidays—how come she’s not here today?”
“Who knows?” Wendy said cynically. “She’s probably out doing her after-Christmas shoplifting.”
“Right. Was she here yesterday?”
“No. Her internship is over. And I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve seen the last of her.”
Maxi felt Wendy’s dejection. “Well, I’ll just take a look through your files, okay? Can’t hurt.”
“Okay. I’ll write out my new passwords. I just changed them, but they’ll get you to the same places. Or if you use the computer in my office, you won’t need passwords. Curt set me up on remote access to my home computer.”
Curtis Cannistra was a twenty-two-year-old technical whiz kid who was working on his computer-technology master’s at Cal Tech and working part-time at Channel Six for college money. Pete Capra told people he couldn’t believe how lucky he’d been to find this guy. In just a few months Curt had thoroughly updated most of the computer systems at the station.
“How do I connect?”
“Just double-click on my remote-access icon and you’re in.”
“Easy. I’ll be in your office.”
“Yell if you need me to answer any questions,” Wendy said. “And I’ll yell if any actual news breaks out.”
Maxi walked over to the row of glassed-in offices along the perimeter of the newsroom and went into the one marked WENDY HARRIS. Wendy never locked her office door. Nobody did. Taking a seat at the computer, Maxi settled in to play cyber detective. Maybe she’d find something to indicate that Sunday Trent was doing more business than just editing Wendy’s book. Maybe she’d find a trail of text going out to some New York literary agent.
Fat chance, she knew, as she clicked on Wendy’s remote-access icon and prepared to rummage through her home files.
K
endyl sat in the living room of her tony high-rise on the Wilshire corridor, sipped grapefruit juice, and studied her long, red fingernails. And sulked. It was noon, and she was still in her floor-length gold charmeuse lounging robe. Maybe she wouldn’t bother to get dressed at all today. New Year’s Day, the first day of a brand-new year, when you were supposed to feel fresh and new and filled with promise. Exciting plans. Great expectations. What a crock. She had nothing to look forward to. And Carter was being a moody prick.
At least a dozen New Year’s Eve invitations for her boss had come across her desk. She’d begged him to take her to one of those posh parties last night. Or out to a restaurant for a late dinner, then maybe a New Year’s Eve drink at midnight. He’d cut her dead. Couldn’t she see how inappropriate that would be? he’d snapped. So she’d suggested that he just come over to her place—they’d have wine and caviar and kiss the new year in. No, he’d said coldly, he was in no mood to celebrate.
She had to be kidding herself if she thought they still had a personal relationship going. Whatever they’d once had was in tatters. Gillian’s death seemed to split the two of them farther apart, not bring them closer. In truth, Carter’s wife’s death seemed somehow to render Kendyl and him … over.
Her phone rang. She looked at it for a moment, then answered it with a small, hopeful, “Hello?”
“Kendyl?”
Not Carter. “Yes . . .”
“Hi. It’s Claire. Happy New Year!” Claire Jenkins was a friend from the office. “What did you do last night?” she asked.
“You know, I had a raging headache and I just stayed home,” Kendyl said. “I had a cup of tea and watched the celebrations on television.”
“I can understand that,” Claire said. “It’s been such a terrible time for the company.”
“Yes. Here’s to the new year,” Kendyl said. “Let’s hope it’s all behind us now.”
Claire talked about the New Year’s Eve party she went to, at a prominent Beverly Hills plastic surgeon’s home, a colleague of Claire’s physician husband. Kendyl listened with half an ear until her friend brought up Sandie Schaeffer’s doctor.
“Wally Stevens was there,” Claire said. “He had the best news about Sandie.”
Kendyl’s hand flew to her mouth. Was Sandie talking? And what was she saying? She felt her heart sinking.
“. . . said that Sandie is making great strides,” Claire was going on.
“Is … is she still in Intensive Care?” Kendyl asked.
“Oh, no. I heard she’s not only out of the ICU, she’s out of the hospital. Her father took her home over the weekend. I’m betting Sandie’s going to make a full recovery and will be able to come back to work at some point.”
Claire chattered on, about Sandie, about the party, about who was wearing what, office dish. Kendyl barely heard. She interrupted, told Claire she had to run, she was due at a New Year’s brunch.
Putting down the phone, she felt her stomach contract. Did
Sandie remember what happened that night? Would she tell about it? And how, Kendyl agonized, how the
hell
had she known that the person in the ridiculous ski mask, the person holding the gun, was her?
Before that night, she’d never in her life held a gun in her hand. The plan was to scare Sandie with it. But Sandie had gasped, “My God,
Kendyl.
It’s
you!
” That’s what had startled Kendyl so she’d inadvertently pulled the trigger and the gun went off.
Carter had told her he’d never used this gun, or any gun. That he’d had it for years and had a legal permit to keep it in the office. And that it wasn’t loaded.
Wrong.
Now she was in deep trouble. How was she going to protect herself from this specter that was gaining on her, breathing down her neck? Carter was a powerful man; he would get off with a suspended sentence. He didn’t pull the trigger. But she was the one who would go to prison. And in her gut, she seriously doubted that Carter would be putting himself out on a limb to protect her.
She felt dizzy. Panicky. She had to do
something.
And she had to figure out exactly what to do fast, before her world caved in.
Maybe she should go to the police, tell them what happened. Before Carter did. She’d have a better chance that way. She’d break down and sob, and tell how Carter Rose had put her up to it. Her boss. And how she had never meant to hurt Sandie Schaeffer. It was an accident.
Her phone rang again, and she jumped. She stared at it, and froze, couldn’t pick it up. She heard her own voice on the answering machine. “Hi, it’s Kendyl—leave a message, and I’ll get back to you.” Click. Then, “Hi, darling—”
Carter!
She pounced on the phone. “Yes, Carter . . .”
“I need to see you. I’ve got something for you.”
“Um … where are you?”
“In your lobby. Call the guy at the desk and tell him to let me up.”
“Oh. Okay. I’ll call him.”
She clicked the receiver a couple of times to disconnect, then punched up the speed-dial number for the lobby. Then instructed the guard to send Mr. Rose upstairs. Then ran through her bedroom and into her master bath, and dabbed on some makeup, a little blush, eyebrows, light lipstick, a squirt of perfume. It took her ninety seconds.
She scrutinized the results in the mirror. Pathetic, she thought. But the fact was, Kendyl Scott was blessed with angular cheekbones, luscious full lips, moist olive skin, a wealth of silky brown hair that fell loosely around her shoulders this morning, and a tall, slim body that made strong men weak. She didn’t need even a minute and a half of primping. There was no way Kendyl Scott could not look stunning.
She rushed out into the living room at the sound of the doorbell. Sweeping the front door open like Loretta Young in her prime, the silken gold dressing gown swirling about her accentuating every sensuous curve, she bestowed her most radiant smile on Carter Rose.
Carter came in the room and pulled her into his arms. “Happy New Year, darling,” he mouthed against her neck. Then he pulled back, put his hand into the pocket of his trench coat, the one she’d worn that night, and pulled out a small, black velvet box. From Harry Winston.
In her wildest fantasy, it was the most exquisite diamond ring she could ever have imagined.
M
axi came back over to Wendy’s computer terminal in the newsroom and handed her a sheaf of papers.
“What’s this?” Wendy asked.
“It’s a printout of every access made to your home computer in the last two months. Take a good look at it. Start from the end and go backwards. I’m going to run back to my office to check my messages. I’ll be back.”
Wendy squinted at the small type. She took out a red felt-tipped pen and started marking the papers. By the time Maxi got back and pulled up a chair beside her, she had thoroughly scanned the list.
“Okay, got it scoped,” she said. “When the access hit is by the remote icon, it would be me. I’m the only one who goes into my home PC by that icon from my office, and I’m pretty much the only one who’s ever in there. Occasionally Pete, once in a while a writer, but they would never use my computer.”
“Do you always access by your remote icon?”
“No. I password in if I’m sitting out here in the newsroom and I don’t want to bother walking back to my office.”
“When you access from out here, could it be for long periods of time?” Maxi was pretty sure she knew the answer to that.
“No,” Wendy confirmed her guess. “It might be to make a quick note about something that just occurred to me and I don’t want to forget later. Then I’m in and out. Too busy on the job out here. If I actually do have a chunk of time to work on the book while I’m here at work, I go into my office and close the door, to escape the noise and insanity. And I access by remote icon.”
“And you never use passwords from your office machine?”
“No. No reason to.”
“Okay. So any of these logged time periods that are longer than, say, ten minutes, would be you if it’s by remote-access icon, and Sunday if it’s by password, right?”
“Yes. But I still don’t see—”
“Humor me. What are these red checks you made?”
“I’ve marked all the hits using passwords—because, as you just said, those would be Sunday’s.”
“See anything out of the ordinary?”
“Nope. They start a couple of weeks ago—that’s when she began working on the book.”
“So, nothing unusual?”
“Nothing unusual.”
“Look closer at the red-checked times and dates. Can you be sure Sunday was here on all of those days?”
“I really can’t, Max. Sunday was an intern. She had a regular news schedule. After school and weekends, basically. But as you know, she was here a lot of extra hours, and at odd hours, on the book project. She was issued her own security card—she came and went freely.”
“Do any of the dates look odd? Any of them days when you happen to know she was somewhere else? Think, Wendy. I’m just wondering if anyone else could have latched on to your passwords.”
“No,” Wendy murmured, scanning the printed sheets. “Off the top, I have no reason to question any of these dates or times. They’re all within the window of her workdays here.”
“And how did she leave things with you?”
“She told me she was taking a few days off to ski at Mammoth over the Christmas break and she’d be back in to the station next week.”
“Even though her internship is finished for this semester?”
“Yes. She had to hand in her security pass, but she said she’d work out some hours with me, and Pete said it was okay for her to come on the lot. We were almost finished with the rewrites. We figured about another week.”
“Think we’ll ever see her again?”
“Not if she stole my book.”
Maxi sighed. “And as you said, we’d never be able to prove that she snatched the material, altered it, and sent it off to a literary agent, anyway.”
The two sat and stared at the printed sheets. “There must be a way,” Maxi said finally. “Let’s look at the remote accessing you did yourself.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Got a green pen? We need a different color.” Wendy dug around in the top drawer of her desk. “How about purple?”
“Fine. Get out your schedule.”
“You know my schedule. I’m here every day from eight in the morning till seven, seven-thirty at night, after I archive the Six. And sometimes till after midnight if I’m producing the Eleven.”
“Do you keep track?”
“Not really. I’m here when Pete needs me.”
“Okay. Well, let’s just look.”
Maxi took the purple felt-tipped pen in hand and started from the bottom, checking off the last hit Wendy had made by remote access to her computer at home. “This morning,” she said. “Ten-seventeen.”
“Yup. Checked my home e-mail.”
“Yesterday, three times.” Maxi made three purple check marks beside the access records. “Remember these?” Wendy did. And she was able to verify the approximate times on up the list. Until they got to one hit that made her pause. “Thursday, December twenty-sixth, one-twelve
A.M.
For sixteen minutes and twenty-two seconds.”