Shell Game (11 page)

“Maybe they're right about Brand and his guys being American. None of them had accents.”

“You mean Brand and his two VPs here in San Francisco?” Morel asked.

“Yes. Roger Tate and Ben Wright. I don't imagine anything came up when they ran those names?” Alan asked.

Morel shook his head. “Nothing. Names mean nothing to these guys. They pick a name, use it for the duration of the con, then chuck it. Investigators refer to the name they were using just so we can keep track of who we're talking about.”

Taylor nodded. “We understand. We discussed that.” She was quiet for a minute, then asked, “What now? Where does it go from here?”

“There are a lot of people at the Bureau mighty pissed off right now, and that could help us. There's the possible Canadian connection, and we can always hope they match the DNA on the body they found in the bathroom with Alicia Walker. Other than that, we don't have a lot.”

“Ghosts,” Alan said. “These guys are ghosts. How is that possible with today's technology?”

“Sometimes I think technology makes things easier for the bad guys,” Morel said. “If someone's got money and a bit of savvy, they can disappear quite easily. If you keep yourself clean and never get fingerprinted or have your DNA stored on a police database, you can just blend into the crowd. There are a lot of crowds out there these days.”

“Six billion people on the planet. That's a pretty big haystack,” Taylor said.

Alan's voice was grim. “And we need to find one.”

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN

Three weeks.

Twenty-one days had passed since they had first learned of Alicia Walker's death. Alan and Taylor had fielded nine calls from Sam Morel telling them that neither the San Francisco police nor the FBI had anything new. Trying to dredge up Tony Stevens's real identity had slowly drawn to a dead end. The Bureau had circulated his picture across the United States and to Interpol. No hits. There were no boats registered to a Tony Stevens anywhere in the Bahamas. DNA profiling had come up empty. Nothing on the cadaver's fingerprints either. Tony Stevens was a John Doe.

The Canadian angle had died a slow death as well. Edward Brand may have injected Canadian expressions in his speech, but the man wasn't on the Canadian radar. Hawkins and Abrams had linked up with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and ran searches through their extensive database. Not even the slightest glitch. The entire investigation was slowly grinding to a halt.

Taylor glanced up from her desk at the sound of a quiet knock on her door. Kelly Kramer was leaning against the door jamb. She jumped up, rounded the desk and gave him a hug. Both wore smiles.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as they sat on the couch against one of the walls without windows. Taylor's corner office at Ad-dicted, her new employer, was spacious and tastefully furnished. Dry-mounted posters of previous ad campaigns hung on the walls, and soft music played through the ceiling-mounted speakers. Her view was north to the bay, where a gentle October mist trailed across the water.

“I missed you,” Kelly said, his handsome face still smiling. “Wanted to make sure they were treating you okay over here.”

She let her eyes drift around the room. “I don't mind it as much as I thought I would. Nick's got a great team in place. No wonder we were always fighting with him for the best clients. He runs Addicted much like G-cubed.” She grinned. “And he's paying me very well. I'm already on track for a most generous bonus.”

“We miss you,” Kelly said. “Everyone at G-cubed misses you a lot.”

“How is it over there?” she asked, not really wanting him to answer.

“It's good. Pretty much business as usual. The new owners were smart enough to realize they didn't need to reinvent the wheel. The groups are intact, and we've managed to retain all our clients. But we've noticed your boss is spending time on the golf course with some of those clients.”

“Yeah, I noticed as well. But that's business, Kelly. If the tables were reversed I'd be all over them.”

“I suppose.” There was a short silence, and he thoughtfully stroked his goatee. “I'm quitting.”

Taylor didn't show surprise. “What are you going to do?”

“I figure it's time to use that Master's degree in Crime Investigation I spent five years getting. I threw my résumé out on the market and had three offers. Two in Washington and one in Dallas.”

“Washington? D.C. or state?”

“D.C.”

“You going to be a spy?” Taylor asked. Again the grin.

He returned the smile but shook his head. “Can't talk about it. But it's with the government.”

“Ooh, it's true. I'm going to know a spy,” Taylor said.

“That's a good line. If it helps to pick up women, I'll go with it.” Kelly grinned. The last thing he needed was help picking up women.

“Be careful,” she said.

He nodded. “Anything new on what happened?”

She shook her head. “Sam Morel over at Central District still keeps Alan and me in the loop, but there's not much new to report. We thought they had something a couple of times, but none of the leads worked out. One of them was kind of up your alley.”

“How's that?”

“Sam managed to track down six of the computers NewPro used while their San Francisco office was up and running. He had some computer whiz scan the drives, and even though they'd been wiped clean, he still got some data off them. It pointed to Mexico, but the trail just dried up.”

“Where are the computers now?”

“The FBI had them for a week, but they had trouble even duplicating what Sam's guy got off them. I think they sent the computers back to Sam's office. Why?”

He shrugged. “I could take a look. You never know.”

“Sure. I'll call Sam and see if he could arrange it. You don't mind?”

“Mind?” He reached out and took her hand. “Taylor, there's not a day goes by when I don't think about what happened to you and Alan. If there's any way I can help, I want to.”

“Okay. That's really sweet of you.” She squeezed his hand. “I'll call Sam.”

“Thanks.”

They slowly unhooked hands. “Have you made a decision on which offer you'll take?”

“I have. Washington. It's closer to Baltimore, actually.”

She smiled. “National Security Agency? Their main complex is somewhere between Baltimore and D.C.”

He didn't nod or shake his head, just sat impassively. It confirmed her guess. “I've got to be going,” he said, standing. She stood, and they hugged again. “Call me when you get the okay on the computers from your cop buddy.”

“Will do,” she said.

Kelly rounded the corner and disappeared from sight. Taylor returned to her desk and dropped into her chair. She swiveled about and stared out over the bay. The view was stunning. She loved San Francisco and the eclectic intensity that made the city so different from anywhere else she had visited or lived. It pulsed with originality and energy. The good news was that she didn't have to leave the city. They had found a rental not far from their current house, and although the monthly lease was steep, it allowed them to stay in the city itself and not have to venture into the surrounding communities. It was strange to think of renting after owning houses for so many years, but going that route allowed them to bank the proceeds from the sale and wait until they were in a position to buy something they really wanted, not just an interim house. Alan was at home packing up the last few things. The moving truck was coming tomorrow. Their possession date wasn't for another two weeks, but the movers had given them a huge break on the price for moving on a Wednesday in the middle of the month rather than waiting until the end of October when they were swamped.

Things had gone well at G-cubed. The new owners had honored the company's commitment to the children's hospital, and she was seeing evidence of their work springing up all over the city. The billboards were designed to tug on the heartstrings, with pictures of small children with a parent and captions like,
You give me strength
. It was a brilliant twist, and it gave her some reassurance that she had sold her company to the right people. She turned away from the view and touched her mouse. The computer screen came back to life.

She returned to work, her mind split between the campaign she was overseeing and her personal situation. Her life had changed, and she had accepted the change. Maybe Kelly would find something on the computers, maybe not. She realized that she didn't really care. The money was gone, and it was time to rebuild. Alan and she were solid, they had come through the ordeal even more committed to each other than before, when their lives were so predictable. That was what really mattered.

Her computer beeped, reminding her of an eleven o'clock meeting with her clients. She packed up the latest drawings for the print ads on product line and tucked them under her arm. Close the deal, make Nick Adams a half million dollars in fees. Collect her salary and go home.

God, how her life had changed.

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

Kelly Kramer locked the room behind him and went in search of Detective Sam Morel. Central District was quiet, the clock just ticking up to midnight. Thursday, October 19, dropped into the history books as the minute hand crossed twelve. A couple of minutes later Kelly found Morel sitting in the coffee room with his feet on the table. He had a steaming cup in his hand and waved to the empty chairs. Kelly sat opposite him at the table.

“Well, did you find anything on the computers?” he asked, cautiously sipping the hot liquid. When Brent Hawkins returned the six computers to SFPD, Morel had set up a time for Taylor's computer expert to have a look at the hard drives. Kelly Kramer had started working on the computers at five o'clock and hadn't left the room for seven hours except once to use the washroom.

Kelly had two sets of typed pages with him, and he laid them side-by-side on the table. One stack of papers was a compilation of the forensic investigations by both the San Francisco police and the FBI. They were almost identical. But his was two pages thicker, and he had highlighted the differences.

“I've dug up some stuff that your guy and the FBI both missed,” he said. “It was hidden pretty well, and it doesn't surprise me that neither of you found it.”

“Why's that?”

“One of the computers was encrypted at its most fundamental level—the basic input output system, or BIOS as it's usually called. It's almost impossible to decrypt a computer with that level of encryption, as the BIOS is directly linked to every component. Without the password you can't access any peripherals linked to the computer, including the hard drive.”

“Jamie and the guys at the FBI never said they had trouble with any of the computers,” Sam said.

“Again, no surprises there. Unless they dismantled the systems, they wouldn't have noticed the second hard drive. It operated like a computer within a computer, with its own BIOS. And that was the one with the high-level encryption.”

“So how did you bypass it?”

“It's complicated, but I'll keep it simple. I used a shorting jumper, then removed the power supply to the memory on the motherboard. Once I had wiped its memory clean I input my own password and reconnected the power supply. It's a little more complicated than it sounds.”

“Okay. What did you find?”

He flipped the page over so Sam was looking at it right side up and pointed to the highlighted entries. “The drive was wiped clean, just like the others, and I had to get what I could out of the slack space. It looks like this might jibe with the Mexican connection. I think it's an invoice for some sort of antique. It was ordered specifically by Edward Brand.”

“Negretti and Zambra telescope, Antigüedades Coloniart,” Sam read the line aloud. “Could be. Antigüedades is Spanish for antique, I think. Should be pretty easy to find the shop.”

Kelly nodded. “I think so.” His finger ran down the page. “There's no address, but it says Zona Rosa down a little further in the text. And I know for sure that Zona Rosa is in Mexico City.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “You know computers, you know Mexico City. What don't you know?”

Kelly laughed. “That's an easy one. Zona Rosa is quite famous. I've only been to Mexico City once, about fifteen years ago, but it was a cool place to visit even back then.”

Sam scratched his head and leaned back in his chair. “First the banks and now this. The Mexican connection is really entrenched in these computers. But so far, the FBI has nothing, not even a hint of where the money is, if it really is in one of the three Mexican banks we found earlier. You find anything else of interest?”

“There's a few other words spread about the disc, but it's mostly junk. I've highlighted it for you.”

Sam glanced at his watch and stood. “Thanks for coming in on short notice,” he said, extending his hand.

Kelly said, “Taylor's one of the best people I've ever met in my life. I'd do anything for her. Glad I could help.”

“I'll see you out,” Sam said.

They walked down the hall and Kelly asked, “Realistically, what are the chances?”

“Police work,” Sam responded, their footsteps echoing through the hallway, “Is just connecting the dots. Criminals inevitably leave clues, and those clues are like singular dots. String them together and a pattern will begin to emerge. This might be the break we need to get the investigation on track. Maybe, but there are no for-sures in this business. At least it's something for Taylor and Alan.”

“They could use some good news.”

“Yeah, I think so. Every new bit of information is a bit of hope. They're quickly running out of that. It's been five weeks, give or take, since Brand disappeared with their money, and both of them are starting to think the trail is too cold to ever heat up again.”