Rundown (Curveball Book 2) (14 page)

We
pull into the driveway of my sister’s house, which is conveniently
located one block from a liquor store.  I have a feeling I may
need a little liquid courage to get through this. 

Never
did I imagine coming to this house without my sister.  She
hasn’t been here in months and life all around her house has gone
on.  Kids are playing down the street.  The landscaping
appears to have been kept up.  Everything is in its place,
except for her. 

Stepping
out of the car, I dig through my wallet for the instructions for
Alexis’s over-the-top home monitoring system.  The two-bedroom
ranch style house has a double-entryway, with the outside door being
more like a wrought-iron gate with about a six-foot space between it
and the front door to the house.  I walk up to the first door
and punch the access code, a number that updates every 60-seconds on
my phone, into the keypad.  Once we’ve entered the enclosed
area between the two doors, I grab the doorknob and wait.

“
Is
that a thermal imaging fingerprint verification system?” O’Conner
asks.

“
Is
that what this is called?”  The door opens and O’Conner
whistles through his teeth. 

“
Why
did your sister set her house up like Fort Knox?”

“
I’d
asked her to get a security system since she wouldn’t take in a
roommate.   She always was an overachiever.”

Lights
automatically turn on as we enter the living room, as if we’re
being welcomed home.  Everything is perfectly clean, exactly the
way she left things.  I take a stack of the unconstructed boxes
from Everett and walk through her home.  While Alexis lived here
for a few years, you’d never know it by the interior.  Few
pictures and decorations grace the walls.  The living room is
furnished with one couch and a TV.  The guest room has a bed and
nightstand, but that’s about it.  The kitchen has four bar
stools, but no table, and the bathroom is practically empty. 
There’s nothing in the shower or on the sink.   And then
it hits me.  She’d probably packed most of her toiletries and
had them in her suitcase the night she died.

“
There
isn’t really much to pack besides her bedroom.  If you guys
don’t mind emptying the refrigerator and pantry, we can probably
get out of here in a few hours.”

“
We
checked the kitchen,” Everett informs me.  “Both the
refrigerator and pantry are empty.”

“
What
about dishes?”

“
There
were a few plates and glasses in the cupboard, and some utensils but
that’s it.  We’ll box it up.”

Hmm.

Walking
back to her bedroom, it strikes me that when I had been here months
ago I’d been the last person to walk through these halls until now.
  I only stayed long enough to pick out a dress for her burial,
but apparently I failed to notice that she was living like she was
about to leave.   If it weren’t for her bedroom being
full of pictures and books, I’d swear this place was staged for
selling. 

Holding
onto the overhead doorframe, my eyes roam over her belongings. 
I swear I can sense her presence.  Slowly walking around the
room, I stop and sit on the corner of her bed trying to decide where
to start, as the 42-inch TV mounted on the wall turns on, displaying
six views of the house. 
What the hell, Alexis?
 
Clearly she was into high-tech gadgetry, but this is over the top…not
to mention expensive. 
What was she so paranoid about?

Turning
my attention back to the task at hand, I carefully wrap the picture
frames cluttered on her nightstand.  The first is the same
picture I have of us playing at the barn near my parent’s house. 
The second is of me, her and our parents when she graduated from her
master’s program.  There’s one of her and me the day I got
drafted by the Red Sox and another one from my first game.  The
other three are of her with college friends.  I pick up the one
of her and her friends studying when they were in undergrad. 
Running my thumb over the image of her face, I can’t help but think
of how young she was and how tragic it is that there isn’t a photo
more recent than these.  It breaks my fucking heart.  I
quickly wrap the items and place them in a box. 

Pushing
my emotions to the side, I open the drawer of her bedside table,
finding only a few things
―
a Kindle, a Seduko book and her
retainer.  I toss the first two items into the box for Goodwill.
 Picking up her retainer, my mind is flooded with memories;
Alexis tormenting me and my friends when I had sleepovers; she and I
sneaking down to the kitchen for cookies in the middle of the night;
and waking up to her saliva drenched retainer resting on my nose on
April Fool’s Day. 

I
do my best to fight the suffocating sensation that’s overwhelming
me.  I promised myself I wouldn’t break down, but fuck it.
 I’m past thinking that men don’t cry.   Life
without her hurts…bad.  I clench the plastic and metal mold in
my fist and let it all out.  My head drops to the other hand,
all my weight resting on my elbow that’s propped against my leg. 
Why does this have to be so fucking hard
? 

I
want to open my eyes and find her watching me like I’ve lost my
mind. 
Why did she have to die so young
?  I give
myself a few minutes to grieve and then force myself to get on with
it.  Wiping my face, I can’t help but laugh at myself. 
Of all the things that could break me, I lose it over a mouthpiece. 
 

I
stand up, head over to her bookshelf and begin placing all but a few
items in the box for donation, but not before I wrap Alexis’s
retainer and stuff it in my pocket. 

In
less than an hour, all of her books and trinkets have been packed and
her bedding has been bagged up.  I ignore that constant ache in
my chest and start working on her walk-in closet.  One by one, I
remove her clothes from their hangers and fold them before placing
them in the bag.  It’s as if I’m handling her belongings as
carefully as I’d handle her.

When
all the clothes are out of the closet and the hangers are stuffed in
a bag, I notice a built in safe on the sidewall that went unnoticed
until now because it was hidden by garments.  Unlike her other
gadgets, the safe appears to be old school.  My hand hovers over
the dial, trying to think of what the combination could be. 
First I try her birthdate, which fails.  Next, I try our
parent’s anniversary, no luck.  After another five failed
attempts I dial 1-4-3, Alexis’s code for ‘I love you’. 
When the damn thing unlocks, I fist-pump the air as if I’ve just
won the World Series. 

“
I’m
headed out for—“

“
Damn
it, O’Conner.”  I jump.

“
A
perimeter check,” he finishes.

“
Is
that really necessary?”

“
I
need fresh air.”

“
Fine,”
I mutter.  “I should be done in about 30 minutes.”

I
watch as he walks out of the closet and pauses near the pile of
folded clothes.  He turns back towards me and watches me
silently for several seconds.  “Take all the time you need,
son.”  He’s gone before I can respond.  For a crotchety
man, he’s not half bad.

Returning
my attention to the safe, I pull the door open.  At first
glance, there isn’t much inside—a thick manila folder underneath
Alexis’s passport, some cash and an empty case for an SD card. 
Hmm, I’ll have to remember to look for her camera.
  

I
move the items off of the folder and take it out.  Based on how
thorough her security system is I’m expecting detailed
documentation of all her affairs, like bank records and her will. 
What I don’t expect is for the contents to alter my life.  I
walk back into the bedroom and stop mid-stride when I read the label
of the folder:  Innovation Airways – Evidence of Corruption. 
 

All
the air leaves my lungs as I read the label a second time. 
What
the hell?
   I somehow find my way to the edge of the
bed and open the folder.  

Thumbing
through the inch-thick stack of papers that is mostly comprised of
email exchanges, a few things stick out.  The majority of the
emails have a logo at the bottom of a black spider with a red
marking.  Capitalized, bold letters with cobweb-like filler make
up the word ‘THREADS’, which is typed over top of the spider. 
The email addresses on the majority of emails are between two
people—
[email protected]
and
[email protected]
. 
 

BW
Threads? 

I
stare at the intricate logo design, mainly the spider. 
BW,
BW, BW
, I chant over and over again. 

Black
widow.

Curious
about what this organization is, I take out my phone, pull up Google
and do a search.  Nothing comes up. 
Strange. 
I quickly snap a picture of the logo so that I can do more research
later, stuff my phone in my pocket and sit back down to begin
reading.

From:
 
[email protected]

To: 
[email protected]

Date:
February 16th

Subject: 
Rumor has it…

The
new face of IA is looking to get his sister a job.  Her coding
skills are superb, and from what I’ve gathered from her graduate
advisor at MIT, she respects authority, is a hard worker and is
perhaps a bit naïve.  Sounds like the perfect understudy for
you. 

This
was written just a month or so before Alexis started at Innovation
Airways in their IT Security department. 
How could anyone
know I wanted to get Alexis a job there,
I wonder as I set the
piece of paper to the side and select another.

From:
[email protected]

To: 
[email protected]

Date:
April 20th

Subject: Confirmation
needed

The
opening act will begin promptly at 6:30am on October 2nd of next
year.  If you’d like me to reserve the Widow a ticket, I need
confirmation.

“
Opening
act?” I mutter to myself.  Noticing the date, I put
two-and-two together. October 2nd was the date of Innovation Airways
maiden flight, and the only widow I know was sitting next to me on
the plane. Holy shit.  These people planned to sabotage the
plane over a year before it happened?  How did no one else know
this?  Come to think of it, how did Alexis know this when these
correspondences predate her employment?  I can’t believe that
someone would want to hurt Breanne.  Maybe the reference is to
someone else.

Setting
the note down, I reluctantly move on to an email exchange between
Alexis and some Henry Ridges guy, discussing the code she wrote and
asking for a few changes.  At the time, she’d been employed at
the airline for a number of months.  Alexis responds saying that
the code will make the system vulnerable to hackers getting personal
information and using it for financial gain, or worse, make the plane
susceptible to attack.  The response from Henry Ridges is ‘do
it’.  The entire exchange is forwarded by dashes2 to 515,
along with his comments, “
we’re cutting this close.  I’ll
do my best to manage her, but I need her to send me the final coding
before anything further can happen.”
   

Red
letters are stamped on the front of the next page, which appears to
be a printed copy of a system user’s access log to some folder. 
Henry Ridges. 
Directly underneath that with an arrow
pointing to it is ‘dashes2’, and in the bottom corner are the
Roman numerals 515 with a circle around them.  Both are written
in Alexis’s handwriting.