Mina Cortez: From Bouquets to Bullets (14 page)

Miko nodded, quickly pulling her clothes on
over her pajamas, grabbing her hat, and heading for the door,
catching up with Mina and moving to help support her so both could
move more quickly.

There were a good number of people moving
about the floor now, reacting to the screams. Miko thought quickly,
taking advantage of Mina's injury and the traces of blood. Anyone
who looked their way got a quick, “burglar—she was hurt. Move,
please.”

Meanwhile, Mina thought of a few options for
ways out, before a thought hit her. She first headed for the
security offices on the ground floor. With the commotion on her
floor, this level was empty. The guard on duty was slumped forward
over the equipment, but nothing looked tampered with. A quick bit
of further investigation revealed he'd been shot in the back of the
head. He had never turned towards the locked door to his office,
which showed no signs of being forced. Mina quickly grabbed the
security vid, hoping it might, on review, give her some idea what
was going on, even if its being missing would require some
explaining later.

That was all the time for delay Mina felt she
had. At first, she started towards her bike, before the taste of
aluminum cut off that line of thought. Since the guy who broke in
clearly hadn't been expecting Miko, they'd be watching Mina's bike
if something went wrong, but might not have the parking area
covered. She had to assume there weren't too many of them about
since large groups here would be conspicuous at this hour. She
suspected, in fact, that there were probably three of them around
somewhere—or two, with one having gone through the window. With the
time to think about it, she decided that the assailant's body type
was pretty close to the smallest of the three men at the sandwich
shop, though that was hardly conclusive.

Whether he'd had any backup or not, the girls
made it to Vlad, and were able to pull out of the lot without
trouble. Mina wasn't able to tell what condition the man was in
after his fall, given that there was a small crowd gathered around
the area where he would have hit. She recognized a few of her
neighbors, but didn't otherwise see anyone she recognized, but from
a distance, in the dark, that wasn't a surprise.

Once they got a few blocks away, she started
explaining. Miko made her slow down and start over half a dozen
times, given how rushed all the details were. Finally, she got out
enough for Miko to switch to the questions.

“Okay, so ... wait ... you're just pretending
to be a flower delivery girl, and you're really some kind of
secret-agent-spy-cop?”

“I know it sounds ridiculous, but ... “

“No, no. I know when you're lying. What I
meant to say is that is
so
cool! You're like the last person
anyone would expect, so it's perfect!”

“Thanks, I think.”

“So, now the not-cool bits. They seriously
think Scott had something to do with this?”

“I don't know what to think. Given how
quickly they tracked me down, and how quick she was to jump on her
own conclusions. I ... I sort of think my boss might know more than
she's telling me.”

“You really think so?”

“Well, when I called to tell her what I'd
found, she was way more interested in jumping down my throat than
on, you know, the case. She certainly doesn't seem that worried
about me. Maybe they think I'm too much trouble, and they're trying
to get rid of me?”

“If they wanted to get rid of you, wouldn't
they have just called for a flower delivery to put you where they
wanted you, instead of, you know, shooting a security guard and
breaking in to a secure building?”

“Okay, point. Maybe so ... I still don't
trust her. She's so convinced Scott is behind this, and ... well,
you know him.”

“Yeah, poking around online is one thing.
Hacking school records to see if he can ... sure. Not something
like this.”

“So, I know what you're going to say, but I
need to say it. You shouldn't get involved. This is really, really
dangerous. I took the job, you didn't.”

“Only because they didn't offer ... yet. You
know I'm not going anywhere while you're in trouble. Besides, I
know how to prove Scott is innocent.”

“Wait, what?!”

“Yeah. We can't go to your place, they might
be watching. Probably shouldn't go to mine, just in case ... but
that's okay. I suspect no one expects a nine-year-old to be the key
to this case.”

* * * *

On the way to Scott's house, for reasons Miko
hadn't entirely explained yet, Miko tried to get more details out
of Mina. “So, if you're a spy on an investigation, and have people
after you, shouldn't you be—I don't know—calling in or
something?”

“Not yet,” Mina said, after a few moments of
thought. Sure, she probably should, but something wasn't sitting
right so far. “Last time I called in, after the thing at the
sandwich shop, my boss just chewed me out. I'll call in when I
actually have something. I doubt she cares if I get killed at this
point. At least then I'd stop screwing up her investigation.”

“So, real hardcase, huh?”

“Total. I'm starting to wonder if there's
more to it than that.”

“Like what?”

“She seems so convinced Scott is responsible
for this.”

“Which there's no possible way.”

“Right, but she won't believe it. It's like
she's not even looking at the evidence, she just wants to pin it on
him and have it go away or something.”

“You really think that?”

“Sounds crazy, right?”

“A little, maybe ... how much do you know
about her?”

“Not much. Aside from being one of the
scariest people I've ever met.”

“Which is always a prime quality in a
boss.”

“A boss who is going to chew me out even
worse when she finds out that I've told all about her top secret
organization to a civilian.”

“You mean your organization?”

“Maybe ... this might be my third strike or
something ... but I'm going to get to the bottom of this and prove
Scott had nothing to do with all this first.”

“You mean we are.”

“I'm going to be in enough trouble just
getting you into this this far. I want to hear this grand idea of
yours, then get you somewhere safe. You don't even have the
Inquisitor chip.”

“Uhm, yeah ... because that did you so much
good. Anyway, Scott is my friend ... and so are you. I told you
once, you're stuck with me til we finish this. Then we'll figure
the rest out. Besides, you're a super spy now. You need a
Kato.”

“I need a what? Or is that a who?”

“We seriously need to catch you up on your
history of great sidekicks. Watson, Kato, Tonto ...”

“Uhm, Watson was Holmes, right? And ... I
know Robin.”

“You have to ask about
Watson?
Seriously? Okay, fine. I'll be Robin, but I'm the first one. And
you're not getting me to wear the short pants, even if you ask
really nicely.”

“There was more than one?”

“Philistine.”

“There's no way I'm talking you out of this,
is there?”

“Not a chance in hell, Kemosabe.”

“Who?”

“Hopeless. Anyway, you're not going to be
able to do this with your bike and public transit, and you're not
going to find better wheels than Vlad. So, you know, benefits.”

“Okay, okay. So if we can't go to my house,
or yours, why are we going to Scott's?”

“Because Beth is there.”

“We're not telling her about this. No
way.”

“Not a word about the top secret spy stuff,
no. She knows Scott's passwords though.”

“First, you're sure? Second ... so?”

“Positive. On the rare occasions he didn't
finish homework by the time he got home, he'd let her log in and
play her characters on his accounts. She's almost as good a healer
as he is. Even with his cheating with the cyber-eye interface.”

“I'm not even going to ask. So why do we need
his passwords?”

Miko sighed. “Scott is addicted, and we both
know it. If he were some kind of evil mastermind, free to do as he
wants, he'd be logging in every day.”

“You really think so?”

“Addictions are addictions. Tell me I'm
wrong.”

“Rarely enough that it gets kind of
annoying.”

“Love you too. In any case, I'm not wrong
now.”

“The Director will never accept that as proof
of anything.”

“No, but it's a place to start. Sure, we know
Scott didn't do it, but this will erase all doubt, and we can
officially start trying to find a different culprit. Besides, maybe
there'll be some kind of clue there. Half of his online friends
don't know who he really is. Even without any details, maybe
there'll be something in his game mail about his boss, or
something. You said they were having some kind of problems ...
maybe he complained to someone? Not all the details, but, you know,
just that his boss is a jerk or ... something.”

“It's a stretch, but maybe. We can check. So
how're we going to get Beth's attention without waking her parents
up?”

“We just go around back. It's Friday night.
She'll have snuck out of bed to get on the computer by now.”

“You're sure?”

“Completely. I've babysat a few times on
Friday nights after Scott got old enough to be dragged along to
events full of snobby rich people his parents thought he should
know. That's always where I found her.”

Moving around the house and looking through
the back window into Scott's main computer room revealed the light
off, but the tell-tale glow of the computer screen. Miko tapped on
the window, until a small face peeked through it. A few moments of
silent gestures got the idea across, and Beth went to the back door
and unlocked it. “What are you guys doing here?”

“Shhh,” Miko replied. “We need to get to
Scott's game accounts, can you get us logged in?”

“Sure, but why?”

“Top secret, Munchkin. But if you do, I'll
loan you my vid player for the whole weekend, and set it up with
any series you want.”

“Leverage?” Beth asked. “Not just
cartoons?”

“You don't want to watch cartoons?” Mina
interjected.

“Cartoons are for little kids ... and Miko,”
Beth responded, going with her theme of being too old for all sorts
of things, while quickly catching herself before Miko could object.
“Besides, Eliot is on Leverage. Pow, pow!” she added, punching the
air.

Mina was lost, but not surprised that Miko
grinned. “Okay, Leverage. All the seasons.” She held up the vid
player, starting to work with it. “I'm throwing in A-Team too,
which is mostly the same, with more Eliot ... except they call that
guy B.A. ... and I think it a couple years earlier.” A pause in her
plugging in chips from her collection. “But only after you get us
in.”

“Sure!” Beth said, then hushed her voice,
glancing towards the hallway. With no sign of stirring, she ran to
the computer room followed by Mina and Miko. Logging out of her
game and into Scott's took only a few moments. As soon as they were
in, Miko took the computer chair, getting quick lessons from Beth
on how to navigate around between Scott's various characters and
accounts, and determining which were his and which were Beth's. As
soon as she felt they had enough, she handed the vid player over to
Beth, who quietly headed into the next room, the Szach kids' main
TV room, with its own entertainment system and big screen, so they
could watch their shows or play video games while their parents
used the main living room.

Miko logged into the first character, found
nothing there, and moved on. By the third, they had found an
apparent main character, or at least one who got a lot of in-game
mail. They started going through it, looking for anything out of
the ordinary. By the dates on the unread mail, they could be fairly
certain Scott hadn't logged into that character. They left much of
it unread if it seemed to have recognizable game-related titles so
they had some kind of evidence chain, while looking through
anything that stood out.

“Still nothing,” Miko responded after a few.
“But at least now we can be pretty certain he hasn't logged
in.”

“Not til we check all of his characters,”
Mina reminded her. “I'd like to just leave it at that, but I need
to be thorough on this. While we're on the computer, when we finish
this, we should take a look at the security film too. I could play
it on something smaller, but you traded away your vid player, and
this screen will let us see more detail,” she added.

“Good idea,” Miko agreed. “We'll do that
next. I don't think we're going to find much as far as work stuff
here, but we'll keep checking.”

They went through the rest of the characters
on the account, confirming all of the dates as best they could.
Near as they could tell, only Beth's had been logged in at all
recently. Not all of the others could be confirmed for certain, but
enough could to leave a definite pattern. Nothing regarding work
commentary, but much as Miko tended towards optimism, Mina hadn't
expected anything to be there. Scott was too paranoid about his own
security, and while some of the people online wouldn't know who he
was in real life, enough would that any information leaks could get
back to him. At best, she figured he'd probably vented about his
boss being a jerk a few times in whatever chat they were using.
While she was sure Beth knew some of Scott's friends online, she
didn't want to start bringing anyone else in on any part of the
investigation, witting or not.

She, and probably Miko, were in enough
trouble already, and while she hadn't had much choice on Miko
getting involved, she otherwise wanted to at least try to be
responsible about this after the trouble she'd already gotten into
over the two previous incidents. If her boss was somehow involved
in some sort of problems, or was trying to make the case go away,
that was one thing, but she had nothing but suspicions so far.