Tahoe Skydrop (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 16)

by Todd Borg

  Headlights appeared ahead. I flashed by them like a rocket ship at escape velocity.

  “Sir,” the voice said in my phone. “I’ve got an ambulance enroute. They will be coming south from Truckee down eighty-nine. I’ve told them you are in a Jeep. I’ve also got a Placer County officer on the line. I’ll patch him through to you.”

  “Deputy Baker, here. McKenna?”

  “I’m here.”

  “I’m heading south from Sunnyside. Where are you?”

  “I’m heading north, approaching Homewood.”

  “You know Eagle Rock?”

  “Yeah,” I said, barely able to hear the officer over the roar of my engine.

  “I’ll turn around there. Look for my lights and pull up behind me. I’ll be in contact with the ambulance. I’ll give you escort.”

  “Got it,” I said and hung up to concentrate on my driving.

  “You can do it, Jonni,” I called out to my unconscious passenger. “You’ve just started in this life, so there’s lots more to come. I know you’ve seen some ugliness, but it’s not all bad. There’s lots to live for, lots to explore. I’ve heard how you like that book by Ann Radcliffe, ‘Mysteries of Udolpho.’ Brie told me your favorite quote from the book, that ‘a well-informed mind is the best security against the contagion of folly.’ That’s you, Jonni. You’re one of the smart ones. One of the well-informed minds. We need you to fight on against foolishness. We need you…” I stopped as I lost my train of thought in my upset. So I just repeated the words. “We need you, Jonni.”

  After a minute, I added, “Brie and your father will be with you in the hospital, Jonni. And then they’ll be waiting for you to get better. They need you to be strong. The sun will shine again, Jonni, and the night sky won’t represent threat, but a sense of wonder and possibility.”

  And as I said it, I realized I too would be waiting for Jonni, rooting for her.

  I saw the sheriff’s deputy’s flashing lights in the distance. But the reds and blues were blurry through my tears. I wiped my eyes as I slowed and approached the patrol vehicle. I flashed my headlights and tapped my horn. The sheriff’s vehicle sprayed gravel as the driver raced away. From behind him, I could see he had turned on his oscillating headlights. His high beams flashing down the road, left side, right side, left side…

  The man sped up to 80. I stayed a half dozen car lengths behind him.

  Oncoming headlights appeared. I heard a faint hint of the deputy’s siren turning on, then off. The oncoming vehicle veered onto the shoulder as we raced by.

  The sheriff’s vehicle slowed a bit as we went past Sunnyside and the sharp curves just to the north of it. Then the deputy sped up as the road straightened out and we approached Tahoe City.

  There were more vehicles going both directions as we flew over the Truckee River and headed north. But they all gave way to his lights and siren. The deputy slowed down from 80 mph as we went by the turnoff to Alpine Meadows ski resort, then sped back up to 85 on the straight sections of highway. He slowed again at Squaw Valley and then began slowing more, even though the road was straight and empty.

  In the distance ahead came more flashing lights. As the ambulance approached, it slowed to a crawl, then turned 180 degrees, pulled onto the northbound shoulder, and stopped. Its rear flood lights turned on.

  The sheriff’s vehicle stopped well back and turned on its flood lights.

  I pulled between the vehicles and parked on the shoulder behind the ambulance.

  I jumped out and opened the back door as the paramedics were rolling the gurney out of the ambulance.

  I stayed back to let the pros work without my interference.

  One called out. “Where is the wound located?”

  “The cut artery is just above the back of the left knee on the inside. The exposed bone is lower, her tibia, I think.”

  Jonni was motionless as they transferred her onto the gurney, fixed her head position, and strapped her down.

  With ballet-like precision, they ran with her to the ambulance, folded the gurney’s leg supports, and slid the gurney into the ambulance in one smooth motion. Two medics jumped inside the back with her. One of them positioned an IV bag above the gurney as the other shut the rear door. The third got into the driver’s seat, and the ambulance raced away.

  EPILOGUE

  “The reason I want to be a doctor is so I can save people the way you saved me,” Jonni said. “I’m just a big pile of bandages,” Jonni said. “But I’m alive, thanks to you.” She looked up at me from her wheelchair, squinting against the brilliant summer sun bouncing off the water at the Commons Beach in Tahoe City.

  “You’re more alive than most people with no injuries at all,” I said. “Anyway, it was Spot who found you. He gets the credit.”

  Spot stood behind her. His head came over her shoulder from behind. His jawbone rested on her chest. His eyes were closed. He looked blissfully asleep. But his tail was doing a very slow wag. Jonni had her arms up, one hand rubbing his nose, the other fingering Spot’s faux diamond ear stud.

  The left leg support of the wheelchair was raised, and it had a large U-shaped bracket that kept her lower leg in position. Her knee and leg were surrounded by a thick bandage. There were several bandages on her head. Her upper right arm was encased in bandages.

  “Even after I got down to you, the reality was I didn’t know how to save you,” I said. “It was only after I remembered your rules for treating a lacerated artery that I got a grip on myself and started doing something.”

  “What rules?” she said, frowning, as Vince and Brie walked up. Vince had bad bruises on his forehead and jaw and looked unsteady. He sidled up next to Spot and leaned on one of the wheelchair handles for support. Spot didn’t move. He knew when he’d found prime real estate. Brie stood to Jonni’s side.

  “When I first saw you from outside the fence at Stone Lodge, the guard cut his thumb,” I said.

  “Oh, that’s right! I forgot about that.”

  “You explained how to treat cut arteries. So I repeated what you had said to focus my brain. Apply pressure with a compress. Elevate the wounded limb. Apply pressure to the artery upstream of the wound.”

  “Wow, you are a good student,” she said.

  “No, you are a good teacher. How long do they think it will take for the skin grafts to heal?” I asked.

  “On my arm? A few weeks. My leg is worse. I was told the bone and muscle surgery has to heal more before they fix the skin. They say it will be six months to a year before I’m all better.” She made a wry smile. “I was feeling so good having escaped the guard on his bike. I forgot how that kind of speed can tear your body apart if you hit the rails. But as one doctor told me, ‘as long as you’ve got fluid in your pipes, you can do almost anything.’”

  A group appeared on the stairs leading down to the beach from the street. Lucy LaMotte and her mother Emily Taylor, William Lindholm, and Anders Henriksson. Lucy looked stressed, as anyone would after finding out their spouse had been murdered. But she seemed to be holding up okay.

  I held out the cooler as they walked up. All took Sierra Nevada Pale Ales except for Lucy who took a seltzer water.

  I knew that Lucy and Emily had visited Jonni in the hospital. I made introductions to William and Anders. They chatted with Jonni and her parents. Spot held his ground and didn’t move from Jonni’s embrace.

  I walked over to where Street and Blondie stood with Sergeants Bains and Santiago and Martinez.

  “Did your little project go okay?” Diamond asked.

  I nodded. “Agent Ramos got the FBI computer pros on it.”

  “Did it turn out as you suspected?”

  “Yeah. The Tahoe Robotics software is safe.”

  As we talked I watched Jonni. She still had her hands on Spot’s head. But she was ignoring her visitors and was staring across toward Blondie. In classic rescue-dog fashion, Blondie looked both happy but also very aware of every little detail around her. Unlike Spot who thought ev
erything in the world was designed and created for his pleasure, Blondie was always on the lookout for unseen hazards. I worried that Jonni felt the same way.

  I saw another man coming down the steps.

  I waved at him. “Tapper Logan, our Tahoe Robotics guest of honor has arrived,” I said.

  He scowled. “I’ve never before had a picnic invitation feel like a subpoena. Did you invite me so you could throw me into the lake?” he said.

  “Not quite. But I do have a little surprise for you.”

  “Well, make it fast. I have work to do.”

  “Sorry, but you won’t be going back to work just yet.”

  He looked at the men next to me.

  “I want you to meet Sergeant Santiago of Placer County, Sergeant Martinez of Douglas County, and Sergeant Bains of El Dorado County. I have some questions for you, and they’re all interested in your answers.”

  “I don’t understand. You’re plotting something against me?”

  “You’ll find out shortly.”

  I put my arm around his shoulders and forcibly walked him over to where Jonni sat in her wheelchair.

  “Hey, everybody. I asked you here because I wanted to break some news. In case some of you don’t know, of the four men who were involved in Jonni Cooper’s abduction, one died up on Job’s Sister. We caught two of the others up at Stone Lodge, which sits on a high ridge to the southwest of here. Stone Lodge is where Jonni was held prisoner. We found the fourth man at the Hellman Mansion. Jonni got away from him, and he made the mistake of trying to chase her. He was on a bicycle, and she was on her rollerblades. The man never had a chance. She blew him away, and he is now rotting in a jail cell.”

  There were some chuckles and a cheer or two and a general sense of awe.

  “And if any of you heard about the man’s German Shepherd, the dog has already been placed in a good home here in Tahoe City.”

  I saw Street pet Blondie.

  “I know you’d all like to know why Jonni was kidnapped.”

  Everyone went silent.

  “The kidnappers’ initial crime was to steal Yardley LaMotte’s robotics software. However, that software was protected by a password, and they couldn’t use the software.”

  I looked at Tapper. “Everyone, this is Tapper Logan. He is what they call the Concertmaster at Tahoe Robotics. Tapper is more familiar with Yardley’s work than anyone else. As such, he knows Yardley put password protection on everything he created.”

  Tapper shot me a frightened look. He jerked himself out of my grip but didn’t try to run away. In addition to me, there were three athletic sheriff’s sergeants in the group.

  “So my question for Tapper is this: How would someone like yourself attempt to break Yardley’s password security?”

  “Well the principles of cryptography are straightforward,” Tapper said. “We have encryption and authentication. We have hash functions and various keys. All of these can be complex. It’s not something average people would understand. So there’s no point in me playing professor, here. Actually, most professors are pretty stupid about this stuff, too.”

  “Have you ever tried to figure out one of Yardley’s passwords?”

  Tapper looked infuriated. “What is this, a court of law?”

  “No. But if you don’t answer my questions, these law officers might argue over who gets to haul you in first. Answer the question.”

  “No, I haven’t tried to figure out Yardley’s passwords. Of course, I probably could. But Yardley was a clever fellow. It would take a long time, and I have better things to do.”

  “Then what would you do if you needed to get into Yardley’s computer files?”

  “I’d go phishing. The movies always show fancy tech devices for uncovering passwords. But that’s fiction. The truth is that almost every time a password is compromised, it’s because the password owner fell for a fake website or fake email attachment and then entered the password onto a page that was controlled by a thief. If a password owner is very careful, it’s almost impossible to get their passwords.”

  “Was Yardley one of those careful people?”

  Tapper made a big sigh as if frustrated with how dense and slow I was. “In general, yes. But Yardley periodically went to local schools as a sort of outreach teacher. He called it giving back to the community. He always came back saying the kids were so dialed into their phones they were worthless. They knew everything about their favorite musicians and their Facebook friends and nothing about anything smart or useful.”

  “He thought that about all kids?” I asked.

  “Well, no. He said there was one kid in one of his classes who was different. A real standout.”

  “And did he tell you the name of that kid?”

  “Yes. He said her name was Jonni Cooper.”

  Everybody turned and looked at Jonni. Vince and Brie were still next to her. They both beamed. Spot’s eyes were closed, appearing to sleep with his head on Jonni’s chest, but his tail was still wagging.

  I asked, “Did Yardley say what it was about Jonni that made him think she was a standout?”

  Tapper made an exaggerated nod as if Yardley had told him a hundred times. “He said he liked to tell the kids about password protection in conceptual terms, and he purposely made some of his comments almost transparent as to his own passwords. He always wondered if he’d ever come across a kid who paid enough attention to figure out what he was getting at.”

  “And Jonni Cooper was that kid?”

  “Yes.”

  I turned back to the group. “When I realized the only way for the kidnappers to get the password would be to force it out of Jonni, I re-examined which people were close enough to Yardley that he would have told them about Jonni. And which people knew enough about Yardley that they could send someone to pretend to be Anders Henriksson’s brother.”

  I held Lucy’s eyes. “I could only think of five people who had close access to Yardley and his ways and would have heard Yardley talking about Jonni. One was your mother, Emily Taylor. She lived with you both, and she no doubt heard Yardley brag about how he’d finally met a child who could figure out his password hints. The second person, of course, was you, Lucy.”

  She looked shocked.

  “You knew these things, too. You were very frustrated with Yardley. As you stated, he was a jerk. And he was impulsive about money, never consulting you, the better money manager. You also believed you were about to lose your house to foreclosure all because of foolish things Yardley had done. Your life hadn’t turned out the way you wanted it, and, more than anything else, Yardley was to blame.

  “Of course, the whole idea of losing the house was an illusion,” I said, “created by the mastermind of the theft and the kidnapping, a ploy put over on Yardley by a good actor who convinced him Anders Henriksson was dead, an actor who was good enough with his story that Yardley invited him into the helicopter with the notion that he could change his mind about the supposed foreclosure. That man was Lucas, who is now in jail.”

  Lucy was shaking her head and looking horrified.

  “The third person who knew Yardley well was Tapper Logan.”

  He jerked and stared at me.

  “As Tapper just explained, he knew Yardley’s password techniques. And Tapper, more than anyone, knew the value of Yardley’s software.

  “The fourth person was William Lindholm, Yardley’s first investor and, as Lucy said, the one person who had a better big-picture view of Yardley’s business than anyone else.”

  Lindholm snorted like a bull. “You’re on thin ice, McKenna. I have a team of lawyers. You say one more thing, and I’ll take everything you care about.”

  I ignored him. “And of course, who better than Anders Henriksson to provide the kind of information so an actor could know the perfect things to say to Yardley?”

  Anders turned bright red.

  I said, “How did the actor know the details of Yardley’s loan from Anders? It all came from someone that actor h
ad never actually met. Someone he corresponded with over an anonymous criminal network.”

  I paused and watched the group. Accusing looks competed with guilty looks.

  “A few days ago, I arranged a meeting at Lucy’s house. William Lindholm was there along with Anders Henriksson. Emily Taylor lives there with Lucy, so she was there, too. Tapper wasn’t there, but all of the assembled people knew him. I’d learned how the men who took Jonni associated with the Brotherhood gang network, and the gang used bitcoin for their payments. But I didn’t have a clue about who could be involved until Emily asked the simple question, ‘What is bitcoin?’ Both Bill Lindholm and Anders Henriksson gave good explanations, using Paypal as an example, not realizing Emily wasn’t familiar with Paypal, either. However, Emily sort of gave up trying to get the nuances of bitcoin, saying she’d just accept it was a digital currency.”

  I took a sip of my beer.

  “And that’s when I knew who had ordered Yardley’s death by having him tossed from the helicopter. But things often go wrong. And Yardley went to his death along with his computer and flash drive with the software.

  “Then the killer ordered Jonni Cooper kidnapped for two reasons. One, to force her father Vince to take men up to find Yardley’s body and get the flash drive, and two, to force Jonni to reveal Yardley’s password.

  “Of course, we now know Jonni isn’t easily manipulated. Not only did she refuse to unlock Yardley’s software, she used one guard’s phone to get into the security alarm they’d installed at Stone Lodge and crashed it, so it couldn’t be used. Because of that, we were able to make our entrance without being immediately noticed. One man, Lucas, got away, taking Jonni down a zip line. But we caught the other two.”

  The people still looked unsettled.

  “We found Jonni at the Hellman Mansion, which had the same backup entry as the Stone Lodge. And when the last man chased Jonni, her rollerblade skill exhausted him, and we caught him as well.”