Clawback (33 page)

To Cami's immense relief, McKinzie pushed the gun aside. “I won't need that,” he said. “I'm not exactly helpless, you know.”

“Really?” Jessica said. “Okay, have it your way.” Picking up the weapon and returning it to a small-of-the-back holster, she turned and left the room.

J
ason McKinzie slumped in his wheelchair and did a slow burn. How dare the bitch talk to him like that? How dare she come in here and start ordering him around like he was some sort of underling? Who was paying the freight here? It was one thing for her to do her damned job, but it was something else for her to decide she was running the show. She wasn't, by God. He was! She was the hired help, and he was in charge.

Then he glanced at the girl. That's all she was, really a little girl—barely out of high school from the looks of her. Sitting there on the barstool with her legs dangling in midair, she looked more like a baby in a high chair than she did an adult. And Jessica thought he should be scared of
her
? Like hell.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” she said.

She spoke so quietly and he was so lost in thought that he almost didn't hear her. “Sure,” he said, waving. “Help yourself. The powder room's right over there.”

A
li Reynolds, stuck in a massive traffic jam, used the time to phone Peoria PD. A fatality hit-and-run on the 60 had shifted most of the near west side's north/south rush hour traffic onto I-17. Unfortunately, Dave Holman was already almost back in Prescott before Ali managed to reach him. His advice had been short and sweet.

“Call 911.”

She had done so, immediately, speaking to an operator who regarded this as some kind of prank call. Eventually Ali got kicked up to a supervisor, where she had to repeat the story from the beginning.

“A possible hostage situation?” the supervisor repeated. “I'll put you in touch with the Peoria PD watch commander.”

“Who are you, again?” Watch Commander Harold Martinson asked after Ali again laid out the situation. “What's your connection to all this? You're saying a possible kidnapping, but this sounds like a straight-out missing persons case to me—a Yavapai County missing person, at that. And what makes you think this so-called kidnapping victim is being held in my jurisdiction?”

Ali wanted to scream out of pure frustration. “My name is Ali Reynolds, with High Noon Enterprises,” she said as civilly as she could manage. “Camille Lee is our employee. Early this afternoon she and her car both vanished while she was on her way from the Village of Oak Creek back to our offices in Cottonwood. A wrecked VW Beetle was later found along that same stretch of highway, the one she would have used.”

“Yes,” Martinson said. “I've got that. I have the report right here—stolen vehicle, wrecked with no injuries, and no trace of the driver. You do understand, Ms. Reynolds, that this incident may be entirely unrelated to your missing employee.”

“Cami's phone was found nearby,” Ali countered. “It had been tossed off into the brush near the roadway not far from the wrecked vehicle.”

“And yet you were able to find it?”

Ali sighed. “Yes,” she said. “I didn't find it personally. My people did.”

“And now you're claiming that Ms. Lee's missing vehicle, a red Prius, is currently located inside the garage of the residence at 15540 West Par Five Drive here in Peoria?”

“Correct.”

“You know this how?”

“As I told you, Cami works for us—for my husband and me,” Ali insisted. “Because we're concerned about our employees' safety, we've installed GPS locating devices on all of their vehicles, Cami's included.”

“I'm not sure that kind of spying on your employees' private lives is even legal,” Martinson said, “and it makes me glad that I'm not one of them. That said, what you're giving me is pretty thin. You're asking me to send in a SWAT team based on what you've told me so far. Ms. Lee is an adult, right?”

“Right.”

“She's not related to you, there's been no official missing persons report filed anywhere, and she's been off the radar for a total of what, five hours?”

“Four.”

“So what happens if my guys bust into a house on your say-so—a house in a very nice neighborhood, by the way—and find Ms. Lee tucked in bed with her boyfriend—or girlfriend, as the case may be? What happens then? Who comes off looking like a first-class fool? Not gonna happen, Ms. Reynolds. Not on my watch.”

“Thanks loads,” Ali said, not bothering to stifle her sarcasm. Ending the call, she inched over to the exit at Glendale and continued north and west, traveling on backed-up surface streets. Then she dialed Stuart Ramey.

“Peoria PD basically told me to go piss up a rope,” Ali said. “I'm stuck in traffic, and heading for Par Five Drive as fast as I can.”

“You're going there without backup?” Stuart said. “You can't. Don't do it. B. will kill me.”

“I don't have a choice,” Ali said. “What's going on at your end?”

“One of Jason McKinzie's e-mail accounts is active again. He's been online searching the Net for . . . wait for it . . . information about Jason McKinzie. The computer he's using is one that—as far as I can tell—has never been on the Internet before. The activity seems to be coming from—guess where?—Par Five Drive in Peoria, at the same location where Cami's Prius is still stationary.”

“Where the local cop shop has just declined to participate.”

“Maybe we need to call the FBI.”

“Maybe so,” Ali said, “but I'm worried about that. If we alert them based on information you've lifted by hacking into Jason McKinzie's life, it might invalidate his arrest. I don't want any of our actions to end up jeopardizing a later conviction. Like it or not, Stu, I'm going to that address, but I'm not stupid. I'll take a look around and then I'll leave.”

“I still don't like it,” Stuart said. “But hold on a minute. I've got something else for you. Haley Jackson showed up a little while ago with a monstrosity of a computer. Not steam-driven, but close. It took three men and a boy—well, your father and me, anyway—to carry the damned thing inside. It takes up most of a desk all by itself, and your dad just finished getting it plugged in. Once we have it up and running, we'll be able to see what was on that drive without having to run the risk of loading the information into one of our computers. No telling where those files have been, and considering the power of the worm that wiped out OFM's files . . .”

He paused. “Okay. It's finally done booting up, and here's the unnamed drive.” In the background Ali heard the distinctive key clicks of an old-fashioned keyboard.

“Haley says password protected,” Ali said.

“It is indeed,” Stuart replied, “but I'm taking a wild guess here. Dan stole the files, he's dead, and Jason McKinzie is currently on the lam. Let's try Mr. McKinzie's one-size-fits-all password, which, thanks to your parents, I happen to have right here.” A second machine gun blast of key clicks came through Ali's phone, followed by another pause. “Yup,” Stuart said. “There you go. Got it.”

“Got what?”

“Abracadabra. The drive opened.”

Ali could barely contain her excitement. “What's on it?”

“I'm looking. A huge database, for one thing—hundreds of names. That one looks like it might be an OFM client list. There are several that appear to be accounting programs. Those are all accessible, by the way. In addition, there are several much smaller files. Those are encrypted.”

“Is it maybe the same encryption key that unlocked the South African photos?”

“Nope. All it took to unlock those was McKinzie's password,” Stuart said. “I just tried that one on these, and it didn't work.”

“Keep trying,” Ali said, and then she added, “Okay, I'm here now. I'm just pulling up.”

“Ali,” Stuart pleaded. “I beg you. Please do not go near that house without backup.”

“But I do have backup,” she said, “and you're it. Stay on the line, Stu. There's a local municipal election coming up—a special election. I just saw a yard sign for someone named Lois Rogers who's running for city council. I'm going to go up to the door, ring the bell, and pretend I'm one of Lois's campaign workers. If someone opens the door, I'll try to peek inside. I may be able to get a glimpse of what's going on.”

“What if things go south?” Stu asked.

“If that happens, it's your job to run up the flag.”

O
nce Cami heard the shower running, she knew this was her moment. If ever she was going to act, it had to happen now, while Jessica was in one room and McKinzie in another; while it would be one-on-one rather than two-on-one. As for which one she should take down first? No question. Jason McKinzie was “it.”

Jason had made his opinion of Cami Lee blazingly clear. He regarded her as little more than a fly on the wall—a minor irritation. He had no idea Cami posed any threat at all, much less a serious one. Not keeping the gun had been his first mistake. As for mistake number two? That was his complete lack of hesitation in allowing Cami to use the restroom.

Yes, Cami told herself. She'd take on Jason first. Once he was down, she'd try to make a break for it, out through the back patio and onto the golf course. There would be people out there she could ask for help. And if Jessica happened to finish her shower before Cami had a chance to get away? Well, she'd cross that bridge when she had to.

On her way to the powder room and still searching for potential weapons, Cami found herself staring at a collection of likely looking prospects. On a glass coffee table set between two large upholstered sofas stood three Kokopelli statues. She hadn't seen them before because, due to the high backs on the oversized sofas, the statues had previously been out of Cami's line of sight.

Like the ones on the wall, these Kokopelli figures, too, were made of thin sheets of hammered copper. Each one was attached to a marble base by a single brass strut. Cami could tell just by looking that the two taller ones would be too large and heavy for her to wield effectively. The smallest one, however, appeared to be a good fit.

She'd been telling the truth when she'd said she needed to use the bathroom. Once inside, she was happy to relieve herself. Studying her face in the mirror while washing her hands, she recalled a time when she'd lost a student body election by a single vote. She'd done what everyone always said you were supposed to do. She'd been told that she should always “play fair” and “be a good sport” and not put herself first. Abiding by those dictums, she had voted for her opponent rather than for herself. Had the election ended in a tie, the principal would have had to choose between the two candidates. With Cami's rule-abiding vote for the other girl, Cami had taken the decision out of the principal's hands and made the choice for him.

Still standing in front of the mirror, Cami straightened her shoulders. Sitting on the barstool with her feet dangling helplessly in the air, she'd been as much a victim inside the house as she had been in the car with a loaded gun pointed in her direction. That was over. She was no longer helpless. Now she was angry.

No rules
, she vowed to her image in the mirror.
Not this time.

She came out of the powder room fully prepared to do battle with Jason McKinzie, only to find that he wasn't there. He was no longer seated at the dining room table. He was gone and so was his computer. Thinking he must have joined Jessica in the bedroom, Cami hesitated. If the two of them had hooked up again, her best bet was to make a break for it right now. She should go somewhere and call the cops. After all, she knew in general where Jessica and McKinzie were going. She also knew which vehicles they'd be driving.

Just then the gauzy sheers over the patio sliders puffed slightly as a hot breeze blew into the room. That was when Cami realized one of the sliders was standing wide open. Looking past the patio and lap pool toward the backyard, she caught a glimpse of McKinzie, computer in hand, ducking through an oleander hedge at the back of the property and then sprinting out across the open fairway.

Before Cami could make a move to follow, Jessie, clad in a robe and with a towel wrapped around her wet hair, appeared in the near end of the bedroom hallway. She and Cami must have seen the open slider at almost the same instant.

“What the hell?” Jessica demanded.

Bathrobe means no holster
, Cami told herself.
No holster means no gun and no rules.

Jessica was still staring at the open patio door when Cami launched her attack. Grasping the smallest statue by its supporting rod and holding the base in front of her like a mini battering ram, Cami threw herself toward Jessie, aiming for the throat. Somehow, out of the corner of her eye, Jessie must have seen Cami coming. She spun around and tried to dodge back down the hall, moving fast enough to deflect the incoming blow without avoiding it completely. Rather than hitting Jessie full in the throat, the marble base slammed into the side of her face, slicing open her cheek and sending her reeling.

Unfortunately, Cami wasn't exactly left unscathed. Carried forward by her own momentum, she smashed into the wall next to the hallway, knocking the breath out of her lungs and the statue out of her hands. Standing together on the coffee table the statues had seemed substantial enough. In reality they were nothing but cheap knockoffs. Cami's so-called weapon landed on the tile floor and exploded into pieces. The faux marble base shattered. The rod, separated from the copper figure, rolled in one direction, while the Kokopelli itself slid out of sight under one of the sofas.

By the time Cami regained her equilibrium, Jessie had done the same. The next time Cami saw her opponent, Jessie was on her feet and stark naked. The robe was gone and so was the towel. She vaulted toward Cami with a length of material stretched between her hands.