Tahoe Skydrop (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 16)

by Todd Borg

  I thought about tip-toeing over to the fence near Jonni. If I could get her to believe my intentions were good, I could maybe lean a downed log over the fence, climb over and get her, climb back, and escape down through the forest. But I knew the alarms would go off. Multiple men who were in very good shape would come after us. Even if Jonni could run very fast, there was little chance we could escape. The men had at least one rifle with a scope.

  And if Jonni distrusted me and was resistant, I would have no luck getting her out. They’d likely capture or kill me, and my efforts would ensure that Jonni was kept in a locked room from that point on.

  After several minutes, the guard called out. “Any luck on that phone?”

  “Maybe,” Jonni said. “I was able to do a full shutdown. Now I just need to start in DFU mode.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It’s a kind of safe mode. It’s about the firmware. If that doesn’t work, I’ll try recovery mode.”

  Knowing nothing about phones other than how to make calls and use Google Search and Maps, I had no idea of what Jonni meant. I wondered if what she said was true or if she was merely throwing out terms to try to confuse the guard. After being kidnapped and treated abusively, anything she could do in retaliation would be justified.

  The guard didn’t respond. It was obvious he had no idea what Jonni was talking about.

  “How much longer?” he eventually said.

  Jonni didn’t look up from the phone. Her thumbs made fast, staccato taps. Then she put the tip of her index finger on the screen and moved it back and forth. Whatever she was doing, she was in a hurry. “Probably five more minutes,” she said.

  “That’s all the time we’ve got. I’m taking you back to your room in five.”

  The other two men appeared around the corner of the lodge closest to me. They were talking. Because Jonni was farther from them than I was, she couldn’t hear them. I didn’t think they could see her.

  “I can’t tell if the kid knows what the password is or if she’s playing with us,” one of them said.

  “He,” the other man said. “The kid is a he.”

  “Seems like a she to me. Anyway, we tried pressuring her. Him. I really scared him last night. I thought he was going to break. But he’s a tough nut.”

  “I’m guessing we’ll wear him down. If not, we get rid of the kid.”

  They walked over to the man who’d been guarding Jonni. One of them pointed to the bandaged wound. They spoke in low tones that I couldn’t hear. The guard gestured toward Jonni. The two men nodded, then went inside the lodge.

  I wondered why none of them seemed suspicious about Jonni working on the phone. But maybe the wounded man hadn’t mentioned it. Jonni was far enough away that the other men might not have noticed.

  Jonni seemed to be working on the phone with an intense focus. She tapped the screen. Moved her finger as if swiping different pages.

  I got to thinking about what could happen if she could make the phone work. She’d probably want to send a text or an email. I knew that some email systems were set up for use with a specific phone. Jonni’s phone had been taken away. But maybe she had a web-based account on Gmail or something similar. If so, she could use any phone to access it. If she didn’t have such an account, maybe she could set up a new one while acting as if she was trying to fix the guard’s iPhone. Then she could send a “Help, I’m being held prisoner” email to her dad, trying to describe her location. Or she could send a text from the man’s account and then delete it so he wouldn’t find it in his sent file.

  I watched her tap furiously. Two or three minutes later, she stood up and walked over to the guard.

  “I think it works now,” she said.

  “Really? You fixed it? I know that the boys who normally can do this stuff are totally nerdy. So I guess it makes sense that a girly boy like you could do it, too.”

  “You can probably release the pressure on your artery. But keep your wounded hand above your head for an hour or more. After that you should keep it in a sling or tucked up in your shirt so your hand doesn’t hang down low. Otherwise the blood pressure might blow open your wound.”

  The man nodded and used his good hand to take his phone. He used his thumb to try it.

  “My email and phone both seem to work. I guess you’re good for something.”

  The man didn’t notice that Jonni wasn’t looking at the phone. She’d turned and was looking up under the eave toward one of the motion sensors I’d spotted earlier.

  The guard stood up, pocketed the phone, opened the door, and ushered Jonni inside.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  I left my stakeout place and hustled down the mountain with Spot. We rushed through the forest. Spot can run downhill at high speed. He got far out in front of me, then turned and looked back up the mountain to see what was taking me so long.

  I thought about what I’d seen as I hopped and slid and scrambled down the slope. Why would three armed men be up on a lonely ridge guarding Jonni? Two men, unarmed, would have been sufficient to keep a 24-hour-a-day eye on Jonni. In fact, unarmed men would do a better job, because any hiker coming through the woods who happened to see the armed men would likely report it to the police. Clearly, these men didn’t care about efficiency and common sense. They cared about a macho sense of intimidation, even if their subject was a young child. Perhaps the people behind the kidnapping felt that their efforts to acquire a billion-dollar software prize suggested extreme support measures. It’s the same principle people miss in countless situations. Anytime you have something very valuable, the more extreme your protection, the more you announce that value to the world. Hiding value in plain sight is often a safer approach.

  When the guard talked about a password, it made me wonder if Jonni somehow had the key to the stolen software.

  In addition to excessive guard forces, one more thing seemed obvious.

  The men I saw were merely enforcers. Their general, the decision maker, was someone else. I had no way of knowing if he was on or off the premises. The man on the phone when we’d been shot at was called Lucas, and he had a strong accent. I’d heard enough words from the men at the lodge to know that none of them had an accent.

  A half hour later, Spot and I were down the mountain and climbing into the Jeep. I checked my cell reception. There was none in this remote location.

  I drove out toward the highway, checking every half minute. As I thought about what I’d tell Vince, I came to an uncomfortable conclusion. It made sense to tell him his child was okay. But he would be agitated and would demand that I tell him where his kid was so that he could storm the castle. Such an action would be unwise and probably unsafe for Jonni.

  Saving Jonni would require a careful plan. We would need to consider all possibilities. If we just charged up the mountain, the guards would intercept us, maybe kill us, and maybe decide that keeping Jonni alive was too much of a risk.

  I decided to act in Jonni’s best interest, and not tell Vince I’d seen his kid. From what I’d witnessed, I believed that Jonni would still be alive in the morning. With planning, we could figure out the best way to rescue Jonni.

  When I came to an area with cell reception, I called Vince.

  “Any word from the kidnappers?” I asked.

  “No! Those bastards said they’d let Jon go!”

  “Let’s not jump to any conclusions. They may be arranging the release as we speak.” The statement could possibly be true.

  “But you don’t know that, right? You have no idea.” Vince was nearly shouting.

  “Correct. I have no idea.”

  “This is killing me,” Vince said. “They might be killing Jon.”

  “Try to take some deep breaths. I’ll call you in the morning.”

  Vince hung up on me.

  I dialed Street.

  I thought we should meet in person before I told her what I’d discovered. When she answered, I said, “Checking in to see if you can bear to spend an
other hour without my voice in your ear.”

  “No, of course I can’t,” she said. “Just fifteen minutes alone and I’m bereft.”

  I visualized a silent film star, a distraught look on her tortured face, her arm up, forearm against her forehead.

  “Would a visit be appropriate?”

  “You may not believe it, but I opened a bottle of wine, which I could share,” she said.

  “Really? I’m shocked.”

  “And I’ve already had some to drink.”

  “I’m on the West Shore, so it’ll take me an hour or so.”

  Spot stood wagging as I pressed Street’s doorbell. When Blondie barked from inside, his wag went from adagio to allegro, and he turned his head a bit and focused so intently on the doorknob that I thought it would heat up and be too hot to touch.

  The door opened, and Blondie pushed past Street and ran with Spot out into the night. Street raised up on tiptoes and kissed me.

  “Now you can put your bereftness back in the closet,” I said.

  “The bereft closet. Everyone should have one to store away loneliness.”

  “Even so, you like to be alone more than anyone else I’ve ever met,” I said.

  “Well, I am an entomologist, after all. If I loved being with people all the time, I would hardly choose to study bugs.”

  Street turned and walked into her kitchen. “You should have some wine before it’s all gone.” She set out a glass.

  I knew it was a joke. There was a glass on the counter with a tiny pool of red at the bottom, and the bottle next to it was still full. I poured some wine.

  “Loneliness versus merely being alone is an interesting concept,” Street said.

  “One could probably divide occupations by a person’s affinity for constant social interaction and human companionship.”

  “Yes,” Street said. “The dichotomy of the people who have a great need for people and the people who don’t. On one side would be hairdressers and camp counselors and professors and doctors and bartenders. On the other side would be the scientists and artists, chemists and foresters and astronomers and poets and painters and composers. Most of the scientists and artists I know prefer work over casual friends. I have no close friends the way you have Diamond to pal around with. The people I connect to best are fictional, played by actors who never come closer to me than the other side of the TV screen. I love that their actions and speech are carefully written and directed and then edited for effectiveness and clarity. Some spontaneity is lost, but there’s no wasted time.”

  “That’s probably why you don’t like small talk. Takes too much time. You’re more production oriented.”

  Street made a chuckle. “You’ve noticed? When people start gossiping about celebrities or their neighbors, or chatting endlessly about clothes or their Facebook pages or their selfies or their children’s favorite video games or their grandchildren’s adorable T-shirts, I find myself thinking I’ve got so much work I want to do and I’m never going to get those fifteen minutes back in my entire life.”

  “Yet you’re talking with me, sipping wine. I’m a lucky guy.”

  “Well, I’m not a complete shut-in, and I’m not a misanthrope,” Street said. “I like to spend time with you. I’m just an introvert, happy to spend most of my time alone.”

  “But you are alone by your choice. I’m also largely alone, not by my choice but by your choice. I’m a loner by default.”

  “You also like to be alone,” she said, “puzzling out the calculations of human criminal psychology. Speaking of which, anything new on Vince Cooper’s son, Jon?”

  “Yes. I didn’t know if I should talk about it. He’s safe, but he’s still captive. It’s very distressing to not be able to immediately rescue him.”

  “I don’t understand,” Street said.

  “He’s been taken up to an old stone lodge that was built by Isaiah Hellman on a ridge above Sunnyside. Hellman called it Stone Lodge, and it’s now owned by Yardley LaMotte. I couldn’t rescue the kid because there are three armed guards with guns and knives. They are all no doubt twisted. But one of them is a sadist and plays with his knife. He gets a kick out of threatening the child.”

  Street leaned forward and put her hand on my forearm. “I see what you mean. Instead of relief at learning of his whereabouts, seeing him with the guards and not knowing how to free him is even more stressful.”

  “The kidnappers stressed that they would kill the kid if we called the cops. So I’ve been trying to think of a rescue approach. But I’ve had no luck. I don’t want Vince to do something rash, so I haven’t told him, yet. I’ll tell him tomorrow. Maybe Diamond will have an idea and we can make a plan to save the kid. In the meantime, I’ll try to believe he’s safe for now.”

  We sat in silence.

  Street said, “I feel so bad for that boy.”

  “An interesting development,” I said, “is that the boy Jon is, at least by some measures, really a girl who goes by Jonni.” I explained all the details of what I’d seen.

  “How ironic,” Street said, “that Jonni can finally be herself in the company of violent men who are holding her prisoner.”

  “Yeah. It shows that life in a child’s own home is not necessarily emotionally safe.”

  “If a parent doesn’t support a child, yes,” Street said.

  “I’m curious if you know anything about gender stuff.”

  Street sat on one of the stools at her kitchen counter. “Not much. I read science journals. Some are just about entomology or forensics. But others are filled with a wide range of subjects. As you might imagine, most of the articles are very dry. So dry that even my eyes start to glaze over. But over the years I’ve been exposed to some of the new knowledge about human sexuality and gender issues.”

  “Is this thing with Jonni - born like a boy but feeling like a girl at such a young age - common?” I pulled out another stool and sat nearby.

  Street made a little frown, thinking, as always, before she spoke. She chose her words carefully.

  “I think the best way to put it is that gender is not a black-and-white concept. The idea that you’re either a boy or a girl and that it corresponds to your body is naive. Scientists have learned that it’s vastly more complicated. Gender is a spectrum of characteristics, some physical, some psychological. We’ve known some of this for years. And we’ve seen the gender spectrum in many other animal species as well.”

  “And this is completely different from homosexuality, right?” I said.

  Street nodded. “That’s about gender preference in a mate. This is dealing with gender perception of self, the question of ‘Am I a boy or a girl or in between?’ The range of internal gender issues is very broad. But for the moment, let’s use the gay-straight preference concept as an example of how society develops awareness. Not too many years ago, people didn’t know how many people in their community were gay because of the stigma and general reticence about the subject. Not even gay people knew how big their group was. Jump forward in time, and we now know that there are a lot of gay people.”

  “You’re saying that we’re discovering there are lots of people who are like Jonni, too.”

  “Yes, definitely. Our society is starting to loosen up a bit. People are starting to reveal their feelings. Not much. But some.”

  I asked, “Do scientists know what causes these issues?”

  “Not comprehensively, no. The causes are broad spectrum as well. For example, if you only look at physical characteristics, most people are born looking like one gender or the other. But a surprising number of people are born with a mix of physical characteristics. In the old days, they called these people hermaphrodites. Sometimes it’s caused by a child having two X chromosomes and one Y chromosome, which is one more chromosome than normal and creates both male and female development. But some people with ambiguous physical characteristics have just two sex chromosomes, and their physical ambiguity comes because of developmental reasons.”

&
nbsp; I was thinking about what Street had said about stigma. “And no doubt that’s another area people are reluctant to talk about.”

  Street nodded. “Exactly. What parent is going to want to share that with their neighbor? ‘My child looks sort of like a boy and also sort of like a girl.’ The very subject conspires against the bulk of the world’s understanding.”

  Street drank her last drop of wine.

  I picked up the bottle, gave her a few more drops, then refilled my glass.

  “I don’t know how psychology works any more than a layperson,” Street said. “However, I have a colleague, Nina Mazzo, who is a clinical psychologist specializing in developmental psychology. She could explain. I’ve been meaning to check in with her. Maybe this would be a good opener for calling.”

  “You don’t need to do that for me.”

  “No, it wouldn’t be just for you.”

  “It’s well into most people’s dinnertime,” I said.

  “She’s in Hawaii. Three hours behind us, adjusting for Daylight Savings time.” Street looked at the clock. “Eight-thirty here, five-thirty there. She’ll probably just be getting home from work. I remember her saying that she always takes her medicine after work and that her medication of choice was a margarita. I could catch her during her margarita hour.”

  “Does she have a hus… I mean, a partner? I wouldn’t want to interrupt their evening.”

  “Nina is like me, married to her work. Unlike me, I don’t think she has a partner who is willing to put up with her cloistered evenings. We could Skype her.”

  “Is that one of those video calls?”

  Street gave me a look of surprise.