Authors: Meg Gardiner

Mission Canyon (32 page)

BOOK: Mission Canyon

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Now undone by photographs of Isaac’s corpse lying naked on a steel autopsy table, with the Y incision open on his chest, and his skull half off. This was the final violation, images to destroy Adam: a desecration of Isaac’s memory.

‘‘They’re going to publish the photos,’’ he said.

I shook my head. ‘‘No.’’

‘‘On the Net. Pervert sites, for twisted . . .’’ His head dropped, and he fought for control. ‘‘Necrophiliac sites. Holy God, he was my
brother
. And they’re going to put these up for freaks and monsters to get excited about.
Madre de Dios
. . .’’

His words dissolved into a lament. He raked his fingers into his scalp.

‘‘Is Brand taunting me? Is this a horrific game?’’

‘‘It’s i-heist, this guy Mickey Yago. And it’s no game.’’

‘‘Why is he doing this?’’ he said.

Because he’s a sadistic head case . . .

‘‘It’s a tactic. They’re using these photos to get at Jesse,’’ I said.

He recoiled. ‘‘They’re defiling Isaac’s memory to hurt Jesse Blackburn’s feelings? That’s too much.’’

‘‘Listen to me. They want you to lose it, to go to Jesse and—’’

He held out his hand. ‘‘Give me the photos.’’

‘‘No.’’ I shook my head.

‘‘I want Jesse to see them. To know what happened to Isaac because these people have an argument with Jesse.’’

If he confronted Jesse right now, the explosion would be in the megaton range.

I said, ‘‘Don’t.’’

‘‘You’ve been begging me to talk to him. Why are you shielding him now?’’

‘‘I’m not. Mickey Yago is using you, trying to drive you over the edge. If you have a knockdown-drag-out with Jesse, you’re playing into Yago’s hands.’’

‘‘Too bad. Where is he?’’

‘‘I don’t know.’’

‘‘I’ll call him. Can I use your cell phone?’’

Evan
would flash on Jesse’s display. ‘‘He wouldn’t answer it.’’

‘‘Why not?’’

My scalp felt tight. ‘‘Things are going badly with us at the moment.’’

His brow beetled. ‘‘Oh, I’m . . . Damn. I didn’t know.’’

I leaned against the car next to him, staring at the mountains. They glowed in the sun. It was heading toward six. Happy hour.

‘‘Is there anything I can do?’’ he said.

Even with Adam stressed to the point of fracture it was still there—his innate decency and compassion. I put a hand on his arm, shaking my head.

He reached for the photos and I let him take them.

‘‘I’ll deal with this,’’ he said.

‘‘How?’’

He folded the photos and stuffed them in his back pocket. ‘‘Decisively.’’

Gravel flew from beneath his tires when he drove away.

They were closing in.

To obtain the autopsy photos, i-heist had either broken into the coroner’s files, bought them from a clerk, or breached security and found them online.

My third phone call, to the hospital IT department, hit pay dirt.

‘‘Sandoval, Isaac. Date of death?’’ the woman said.

I gave it to her. I had already explained that I was Adam Sandoval’s attorney.

‘‘I need to know if the autopsy photos are in your computer database.’’

I heard her hitting keys. ‘‘Yeah. We have them.’’

‘‘One more question. Which Mako security software are you running?’’

‘‘Just a sec.’’ Quiet on the line. ‘‘Hammerhead, version six.’’

I thanked her and hung up. I went looking for Kenny Rudenski.

Almost everybody was gone for the day when I walked through the door at Mako Technologies. Cars were sparse in the big parking lot. The black-and-white photos on the walls hung in shadow, and a janitor was pushing his cart across the lobby. The front desk was unmanned.

But a second later, Amber Gibbs came bustling out of the women’s room.

She beamed. ‘‘How’s the lingerie?’’

‘‘Scratchy. Yours?’’

‘‘I feel like royalty.’’

She hummed around the desk, looking brisker and more purposeful than I’d ever seen her. Maybe Countess Zara had powers I didn’t appreciate.

‘‘I’m looking for Kenny Rudenski,’’ I said.

‘‘I don’t know if he’s still here.’’

‘‘Could you call and find out?’’

Her face twitched. ‘‘I’m kind of in a hurry.’’

‘‘Please.’’

‘‘It’s just . . . Pop Rudenski needs some papers—’’

‘‘Amber.’’

‘‘—and he asked me to bring them to his office before he leaves.’’

‘‘Come on, I’ll walk back with you,’’ I said.

She looked flustered. ‘‘Okay.’’

Grabbing a folder, she unlocked the keypad on the security door and we headed down the corridor. A security guard stood at the vending machine, dropping coins in. He nodded to us.

Outside Kenny’s office, his secretary’s desk was unoccupied. How lucky would I be if Kenny was gone as well? I stopped and Amber kept hustling down the hall.

I knocked and opened the door. The lights were off. I went in and shut the door behind me. I looked around. The office smelled like aftershave and tennis balls. The computer monitor was dark. I sat down at the desk.

Okay, now what? I opened a few drawers. Pencils, rubber bands, a bottle of rum. This was fruitless.

There was a jangle of keys outside the door, and I jumped. The door handle turned. It was the security guard.

‘‘What are you doing in here?’’

My pulse was knocking against my temples. Attitude, Delaney.

‘‘I’m trying to find a piece of paper so I can write Kenny a note.’’

I rustled through his desk and, behold, found a notepad. I took a pencil from a holder on the desk. The guard watched, not moving. Shoot.

Behind him in the hall, Amber came bustling back. He turned. She smiled at him, and his posture straightened. He hitched up his belt.

She glanced over his shoulder at me. ‘‘Oh, Junior’s not in?’’

‘‘I’m just writing him a note.’’ Lie, rinse, repeat.

‘‘Okay.’’ She looked at the guard. ‘‘Len, help me get some stuff in my car?’’

He said, ‘‘You bet.’’

They walked off, leaving the door open. Their voices receded. Len’s keys jingled down the hall.

How long before he came back? Forget the desk. Whatever I wanted would be on Kenny’s computer. I tapped the keyboard and the screen bloomed awake.

Enter password
. Damn. The cursor blinked
ha, ha.

I stared, thinking that Kenny wasn’t stupid, but he was arrogant. I picked up the keyboard and looked underneath, hoping he had taped the password there. Nothing.

If I wanted to access Kenny’s files, I was going to have to guess his password. Fortunately, I knew from writing about cybersecurity, password guessing is likely to succeed. Passwords usually have six to eight characters, and people tend to pick bad passwords—children’s names, pets, hobbies—because they can remember them.

However, I had to presume that Mako would limit log-in attempts, probably to three tries. How could I narrow down my guesses? If at least I knew how many characters the password protocol called for, I might be able to do it.

Kenny, however, wasn’t going to leave that information lying around. He was too crafty.

But Amber wasn’t.

Did I have time? I would have to run.

Don’t just sit here. Go.

I dashed out. Sticking a piece of paper in the security door to keep it from locking, I hurried to the front desk, looked out the front door, and saw the guard flirting with Amber in the parking lot. Did these two have any clue how close they were to unemployment?

I lifted Amber’s keyboard, ran my hand under the monitor, under the desk, and under her chair. Nothing. I looked outside again. Amber was getting in the car.

And then I saw Mr. Frog, her stuffed animal, propped next to her monitor. Success. A Post-it was stuck on his little bottom.
Dazl*ng
. I hurried back to the computer.

Kenny’s password was going to contain seven characters. And it would probably require a numeral or at least one character other than a letter of the alphabet.

Think. Think about Kenny. What did he like? Himself. Cocaine. Dirty money, sex, cars.

I put my fingers on the keyboard and typed,
McQ4een
.
Incorrect password.

Come on . . .
Carrer*
.

Incorrect password
.

The Porsche, he loved that Porsche . . . the image returned to me of his vanity license plate. I counted the number of characters on my fingers. Typed it.

KPS3CUR
.

The screen cleared. I’d done it.

A new prompt appeared on the screen, and I remembered that Jax had mentioned multilevel security—the first password gave you nonprivileged access. A second password was then required for higher-level, privileged access.

The prompt remained, the cursor blinking at me.

Okay, Kenny. I vote for hubris. I think you believe nobody would get this far, and so you’ve made the rest of the trip easy for yourself. The prompt waited for me to type the password.

I touched one key:
return
.

I was in. A message on the screen said,
90 sec timeout returns keyboard to 10 min nonpriv mode.
If I stopped typing for ninety seconds, the computer would automatically revert to nonprivileged mode for ten minutes before I could get back in again.

I went to
search
and typed
Segue
. Three files appeared.

The first folder was full of documents—letters, memos, correspondence—and spreadsheets. I opened them as fast as I could, listening for Len’s keys to jingle in the hallway. I skimmed the documents. Incorporation papers—from the Cayman Islands. Lists of company directors—Kenneth Rudenski, Maricela Vasquez de Diamond, and Mikhail Yago . . .

Then I found the financials. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were running through this company: to Mako, from Mako, to a variety of other entities. They had techie names, venture capital names, and I bet that if I could access them, they would show the same directors as Segue.

I breathed. Segue was indeed a shell corporation, attached to Mako. A slush fund for i-heist money. This was the stuff the FBI was after. The stuff Jesse needed.

I-heist had plainly sunk their claws into Kenny Rudenski, deep. They were partners now, or maybe parasite and host. Was he doing it willingly, or under duress?

I had to get this evidence to the police. Tonight. Once Kenny touched this computer, he would see that somebody had been looking at this file. And when he did that, he’d make sure that these files disappeared. Or maybe he’d make sure that the somebody disappeared.

But I didn’t have a minidisk or a CD burner. And wouldn’t it be charming for the security guard to find me at Mako’s printer, collating and stapling confidential corporate documents?

But I did have e-mail, and so did the FBI. I fished through my purse for Dale Van Heusen’s business card, but had left it at home. Plan B.

Three cheers for Web-based e-mail. Punting caution aside, I connected to my account. I could delete the connection from Kenny’s browser history afterward, but any one of a dozen geeks down the hall in engineering could find it as easily as if I’d written my name in peanut butter across the screen. I didn’t care. Let him know it was me.

I accessed my account, chose
new message
, and attached the Segue files.

Jingling in the hallway again. Keys, and now I heard Len whistling. Could Dazzling Delicates lingerie truly be accounting for his and Amber’s happiness?

The jingling stopped. Uh-oh. And I hadn’t had time to send the e-mail.

Under the desk. Kenny’s executive model looked like a solid cube of walnut from the front, so I dove off the chair to hide beneath it.

And saw my blunder. This big tank of a desk didn’t sit on the floor; it was raised about six inches above it on clawed feet. Someone standing in the doorway would be able to see my rear end on the carpet.

Does my butt look big in this?

I pressed my feet against one end of the well under the desk, pressed my back against the other, and shimmied off the ground. I heard the door open. My breathing echoed off the wood. The lights flipped on. Footsteps approached. What was he doing? My thighs started shuddering.

Leave, I thought. Go away. Now.

How long had I been away from the keyboard? After ninety seconds the computer reverted to nonprivileged mode. . . . If Len didn’t get out of here soon, I would be locked out of the system for ten minutes. And I hadn’t sent the e-mail file.

Noise above. He was standing over me, punching buttons on the phone.

‘‘Harry? Len. You see a gal leave by the back door? About thirty, light brown hair . . . no, she came in without a visitor’s badge, was snooping around Junior’s office. She ain’t here now.’’

I willed him not to walk around the desk.

‘‘Yeah, I’ll meet you by the loading dock.’’ He left without closing the door.

I lowered myself to the floor. Scooted out, saw the screen still active. Staying crouched, I reached up to the keyboard and hit
send
.

No time to stick around. I hoped this would get the ball rolling with Agent Van Heusen.

I quit the browser program, ready to dash, and a new window popped open on the screen. It was labeled
Mistryss Cam
. It was a view from a Webcam. In grainy black-and -white, it showed a desk, and behind it picture windows opening onto a Spanish-style courtyard and driveway.

It was a view of Kenny Rudenski’s study at home. Why had it unexpectedly appeared of its own volition?

A message appeared on-screen:
Front Door
.

I stared at the screen. Outside Kenny’s picture windows, somebody was at his door. I saw a Toyota pickup on the driveway, bright in the evening sun.

BOOK: Mission Canyon

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