Under Hidden Skies (Shadows Between Lies Book 3)

by Nicky Webber

  ‘It’s ingenious,’ the scrawny analyst, with thick rimmed glasses said to Bruno and the managing director. ‘Whatever is going on, it’s out there. I’ve seen nothing like it. Very difficult to trace.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ Bruno asked, shifting in the compact leather club chair opposite the managing director’s expansive desk.

  The large, graying director tilted his head. His jowls shifted forward, contracting his mouth into a tiny red cat’s ass shape before he spoke. ‘Well, that’s why we called the police. It’s some kind of cyber-crime. It looks that way, but we can’t figure out how they’re doing it.’ He picked up a silver pen and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger, silently regarding Bruno as if an explanation would be miraculously presented.

  ‘There’s been an internal investigation of sorts,’ He continued, ‘and all we can come up with is one of our highly regarded, trusted employees enters the building at odd hours aligned with dates when we run random audits and system maintenance. He may have a perfectly plausible explanation.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Bruno took notes and leaned forward. ‘Who is this guy? What evidence do you have that links him to anything suspicious?’

  The banker slouched back in his high-backed tan leather office chair. ‘This may sound ridiculous but it’s all we have for now.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It’s one of our staff who plays a pivotal role in our money laundering team. Is there enough to make Fred the culprit? There’s nothing much to go on. We don’t know how he does it but his activity, frequently in and out of the building, and this morning one of our guys found video surveillance from one of our branches’ safe deposit rooms with him doing something strange. It’s hard to tell what’s going on.’

  Bruno continued to scribble, looking down at his notebook before asking. ‘Can I have this suspect’s name?’

  ‘Sure, but I’m not saying he is a suspect. But you know, he’s all we have. He may be entirely innocent.’

  ‘No one is ever entirely innocent,’ Bruno said, poised to write the name.

  The banker snorted, grinning. ‘Here’s his personnel file. Confidential, of course. We are keeping a close eye on him now. His name is Davis, Fred J Davis.’

  Bruno swung his head upwards as if he had whiplash. ‘Did you say Fred Davis?’

  ‘Yeah. Why?’

  ‘Nothing, it’s the name of my father-in-law, but it’s a fairly common name. I’ll check it all out. Have you got the surveillance material too?’

  ‘Sure.’ The older man rummaged in his top desk drawer and removed a 64-bit memory stick. ‘Here you go.’

  Bruno stood, thanked him, and escaped the office.

  Back at the precinct, Bruno set his laptop up in a small lockable room to view the surveillance material in private. He plugged in the memory stick and fast forwarded the video clip before finding the exact spot the banker had mentioned.

  The video images show a man with his back to the camera, his face fronting the doorway with his right hand removing a paper cup from his jacket pocket. Within seconds he appears to splosh coffee accidentally over a security box on the stainless-steel table in the middle of the room. He rummages in a business folder and removes a cotton handkerchief or paper towel, it’s partly obscured by the individual’s body.

  Bruno stops the tape and replays it again, trying to figure out if the individual is the Fred Davis he knows. It’s possible, but he’s not a hundred percent sure. He lets the video play again. The man seems to rub the cloth over the closed security box. What for? It makes little sense. What the hell is he doing? Bruno leans closer to the screen and then gasps. The actions look distinctly like someone trying to clean the surface. Is he be attempting to remove his own fingerprints?

  Bruno blows up the image and can see the hands, covered in blue surgical gloves, as they flash in and out of view. He needs to find out who owns that safe-deposit box too and will need a warrant to get the information. He inhales deeply and continues watching, hoping to see the man’s face.

  A security guard opens the door and the pair talk. Pity there’s no sound. Bruno peers closely at the screen, reversing and forwarding it twice, trying to make out what’s being said, but it’s hopeless. The man bends down and wipes the floor. Coffee. Aha. It’s only coffee he’s wiping up. He bends down, dabbing his shoes and when he stands up again, he turns, and his face looks directly at the camera. It is Fred!

  Bruno slams the laptop closed, gathers up his files and leaves the room, returning to his workstation in the open plan office. It cannot be Fred! He’s too straight and predictable. But smart enough to swing something like this. There’s no way. Bruno pockets the memory stick and grabs his jacket, leaving the office for a walk and pick up a coffee.

  Outside he breathes, pulling the fresh air into his lungs, calming his racing heart. It has got to be a mistake. He cannot tell anyone he knows Fred, or they will take him off the case. His first proper case. The one to deliver his promotion. They will find out Fred’s a family friend. What if it turns out to be Fred? No, it can’t be. But what if Fred tells the authorities that he knows Bruno? He saw his entire career flush down the gurgler.

  He needs to talk to someone. Suzie? He will be deeper in the hole if they find out he has discussed a strictly confidential case with his wife. But she wouldn’t say a thing. Suzie may help him work out the best way forward. Hell. Fred. Surely not. It’s too crazy and unbelievable.

  There is barely any evidence linking him to the fraud. It is all circumstantial and meaningless. He only spilled coffee. It had nothing to do with the case. An accidental coffee, although it seemed like an unusual incident. Bad luck. As for the timing of him going in and out, well, that’s his job, right? He gets called out to the office all the time for everything happening on the computer systems. He has got to be innocent. Fred did mention being trapped in a financial straight-jacket, with lots of debts to pay off, and he seemed awkward talking about Bruno’s job a few weeks ago, too. Almost too interested in Bruno’s case load. He mentioned investigating a money laundering scam. He didn’t want to apply regular police assumptions to the case and to Fred. What the hell is he going to do?

  CHAPTER 38

  Pull the Project

  Safely home in LA, the tourists unpacked and settled into their regular domestic lives. Logan and Fred returned to the office coal-face, and Maddy carried on with her part-time job. During the languid evenings, they relived their magical holiday, combing through photographs on one another’s cell phones. It was the most exceptional holiday any of them had ever experienced.

  ‘What?’ asked Hawke, looking askance across the table at his parents while they all shared dinner on a school night. ‘Are you guys saying Morocco was better than being in New Zealand? Better than beautiful Whangamata?’

  Maddy was the first to respond. ‘It’s just so different. You really can’t compare, but Morocco was a whole new experience, and we learned so much.’

  ‘It’s a fascinating place with a mix of cultures and an extensive history. We stood in palaces and mosques that dated back to the 1156 AD.’ Logan said.

  Maddy smiled and passed the salt to Logan, who pulled a face. She already knew what both men wanted and often anticipated their likes and dislikes. This came as no surprise, given the almost half a century of domestic servitude she delivered to these two men in her life.

  ‘Talking about religion, I remember driving you, Hawke, back from elementary school, and you were quietly sitting on the back seat.’ The two men grinned, remembering the story Maddy was about to tell their son.

  ‘You were silent while I was driving along,’ explained Maddy. Then I heard your voice say; ‘Mom? Were you alive when Jesus was born?’

  ‘I did not!’ Hawke laughed.

  ‘Oh yeah. You did,’ Maddy said, chuckling with the others.

  ‘You were only just six years old,’ Fred said.

  Hawke chuckled, raised his eyebrows, and glanced back down at the photos on his mother’s cell phone. ‘Wow. These ar
e incredible,’ he said.

  ‘The Romans were there too, so the history goes back for over 2000 years and well before Jesus was born,’ Fred added.

  Later, when Logan and Maddy had gone to bed, Fred and Hawke sat talking in the living room. Both holding a glass of scotch as they discussed details and progress with the project in lowered tones. Fred didn’t want to risk arousing any interest from the sleeping pair on the other side of the house.

  ‘I still want to remove the project software over weekends,’ Fred said, stifling Hawke’s objections. ‘You can’t be too careful.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Hawke, inhaling a deep breath. ‘But isn’t this taking things to over the top?’

  ‘Not in my book,’ Fred replied.

  ‘What if we work on a plan to move it to another international bank?’

  ‘Right. How’s that going to happen?’ Fred said, taking a deep gulp of the soothing scotch and ice.

  Hawke blew out his breath and looked down at the carpet. ‘You keep saying we’re getting close to an annual audit. Why not pull it off and then hold it for six to eight weeks? Then connect it back to the server just as it was?’

  ‘You know why Hawke,’ Fred’s said, mildly irritated. ‘My commitment to this risky operation was for one year and one year only.’

  ‘Come on Dad,’ Hawke rarely called him that, alerting Fred to the fact that Hawke was likely to deliver a manipulative sales pitch.

  The two men stared in silence at one another.

  Hawke leaned forward across the coffee table and said in a thick whisper; ‘We’ve really made a fortune and paid off most of our debts. You guys have had an overseas holiday. Let’s face it. The project has been an unmitigated success without an inkling of being found out.’

  Fred remained stony-faced, his lips pressed together. Hawke tilted his head and raised his eyebrows, signaling to his father that this was all true and made logical sense.

  ‘It just on rinse and repeat,’ grinned Hawke, trying to break the tension.

  But Fred was unimpressed. His body language and limited recognition of facial expression made it impossible for Hawke to understand if Fred would consider a second round.

  Fred begrudgingly acknowledged the considerable impact being out of debt had brought to their lives. There was no mistaking how relaxed and happy everyone was, with the massive weight and responsibility lifted from their shoulders.

  While Fred was mentally processing Hawke’s plea, his son interrupted.

  ‘I’m not saying do it for another whole twelve months,’ he whispered. ‘Just think about it for another six months to make sure we are well clear of all debt and have a bit of play money. Not much, just some savings for the inevitable rainy day. That’s how we got in schtick. So why not build a bit of fat into our savings while we can?’

  Fred’s blue eyes regarded Hawke. It made sense. They had gotten away with it for almost a year. Why not for another few months? The family would really be in the clear and enjoy life. The way the project sliced fractions from transactions meant the likelihood of being caught was so marginal it was hardly worth thinking about. Hawke could tell Fred was about to speak, and held his tongue, biting it between his front teeth to restrain himself from interrupting. He could see Fred was on the cusp of considering his proposal.

  ‘All right,’ Fred said, leaning back on the sofa.

  ‘Yeah!’ said Hawke a little louder than a whisper and punched the air.

  Fred frowned, leaning forward, waving his right hand at Hawke to force silence. ‘Hey! Remember where you are.’ Fred’s frustration leached into his words. ‘If Logan and Maddy get wind of this, we are done for. That’s a promise.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Hawke whispered, contrite.

  They both briefly repeated the plan to pull the project for eight weeks and reload for a further six months. Fred took out his cell phone and counted out the months and weeks and gave Hawke the date.

  ‘That’s the end date. Diarise it,’ Fred said firmly to the younger man. ‘It’s the deadline. No more after that date. Remember, we have to pay taxes and wind the business down, sell the other four fake childcare businesses, which gives us a way of explaining the income and selling the business. After that’s all done. It’s over, and I’ll trash the code and any trace of it.’

  Overnight Fred thought of planting more evidence against Logan. He reassured himself that this was just a back-up cover plan if anything went haywire. Logan was leaving for New York on Thursday and was away over the weekend. This allowed him an opportunity to plant updated elements of the project software code on Logan’s laptop, unless he took it with him. He had told Fred he would leave his laptop behind, as it was a family celebration with his siblings over a long weekend away. Logan didn’t feel like working or dragging the computer with him. Hopefully, he would stick to that option. Fred knew it wouldn’t be hard to work out his best friend’s laptop password. He had set up the Wi-Fi and networked the household computers together. Logan’s passwords were all pretty obvious.

  Three days later Fred was home alone on Saturday afternoon when Maddy went to the shopping mall to meet her friend Jess for a coffee and a catchup. Fred knew he had to act swiftly and had spent the previous few days preparing for the laptop hack. He had downloaded fragments of project code and child facility transactions, bank details, and fake business ID information onto a memory stick.

  By the time Maddy had backed out of the driveway, Fred was in Logan’s study and quickly flipped open the laptop. Within two minutes, he was inside Logan’s folders and back-up drive. He planned to hack the date stamps on the files he was uploading from the memory stick, so it put Logan in the thick of it back before the first child day-care center was ‘opened’ to the public.

  It had taken two hours to hide the offending code, deep in the hard drive and in what looked like an innocuous .exe folder. Fred glanced down at his watch as he removed the memory stick. He flipped the laptop lid closed and patted it, hoping he would never have to implicate Logan. He felt relieved in a way. There was no compromise for liars, and Logan deserves it if things go sour. This was a sure way of pulling his friend down with him. Why wouldn’t he? Logan had lied to him about Maddy for all those years. Logan deserved to pay.

  CHAPTER 39

  Merging Two into One

  The sun streamed through the slatted blinds slanting through the living room, casting soft afternoon shadows lengthening across the carpet. Maddy and Hawke sipped tall glasses of soda water. The perspiration from the clinking ice clung to the outer surface of the glasses. Mother and son sat chatting, laughing, and enjoying one another’s relaxed company.

  ‘You know Sacha reminds me so much of you,’ Hawke told Maddy.

  ‘Hardly.’ his mother laughed, not taking him seriously. ‘She’s young and blonde for a start.’

  Hawke waved his hand. ‘No. I’m not talking about mere appearances. Mom,’ he said. ‘I’m talking about your personality and sense of humor. Sacha could almost be you.’

  ‘Poor kid,’ joked Maddy. ‘I don’t know if I should be flattered or concerned that you have a kind of Oedipus complex.’

  ‘She’s definitely the one,’ he continued, ignoring his mother’s provocative comment. ‘She’s really woken me up. I feel… that we are meant to be together.’

  Maddy looked closely at her son. She could tell from his serious expression that he wanted to confide in her and convey the depth of his love for Sacha.

  ‘She’s my best friend,’ Hawke stated, as if this was a revelation to himself.

  Maddy smiled at him, so young and beguiled by the excitement and lust of new love. But she wasn’t about to shatter his experience. ‘Believe me, I completely get that. I married my closest friend and live with our joint best friend.’ Maddy grinned. ‘Both Logan and Fred reflect opposite to one another. That explains why they get on so well and implicitly understand what the other is thinking or needing.’ She paused, contemplating the dynamics a little more. ‘I guess that’s why I’m the lu
cky one I get to enjoy the love and companionship of two men who each bring something different to our shared friendship.’

  Hawke frowned and gazes into Maddy’s eyes. ‘But in what way?’ he asked carefully, not wanting to break the spell. This was the first time they had discussed his mother’s living arrangements in any depth.

  ‘Well, it’s several things,’ Maddy tried to explain. ‘Logan is about big-picture thinking and more spontaneous, willing to take chances. While Fred is more detailed, spends more time in his head, which I guess,’ she grinned, ‘is not surprising as he writes code and needs to be comfortable problem solving and writing all that mind-blowing coding language. He’s happy to be left to his own devices. He’s less demonstrative and more independent in some ways. As we’ve grown older, I’ve realized that both of them are just as emotionally needy as one another.’

  ‘So, are you telling me, in the final analysis, all men are the same?’

  Maddy smiled at Hawke. ‘That’s a tough question. I guess. The basic maleness is very similar. Most men hate shopping, hate what they call nagging, hate long explanations, and basic female traits seem to cause irritation.’

  ‘I suppose it’s hard to generalize,’ added Hawke.

  ‘Yeah. True,’ Maddy responded. ‘But it makes sense for me because Logan fills in the emotional gaps that Fred has, while Fred provides stability and forthright, no-nonsense pragmatism that Logan lacks. They complement one another like bread and butter, and I guess I’m the peanut and raspberry jelly.’

  ‘As long as you don’t become the meat in the sandwich,’ Hawke chipped in.

  She smiled and thought for a few moments. ‘If we merged them into one man, they would make the perfect husband and father. Not that anyone has a perfect husband, darling.’ she chuckled with Hawke, highly amused at her confession.

  At that same moment, Fred and Logan walked through the front door carrying groceries in large brown paper bags and set them on the top of the kitchen counter.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Logan asked as he walked towards them, seated in the open-plan living room.