by Rachel Ford
Nancy yelped. Alfred took a seat. “Sugar cookies,” he repeated.
“Alfred Favero, what in the hell is going on here?”
It took a few minutes of explanation before he was able to bring her up to speed on the particulars. She was livid, and he was grateful for the fact that he had to call Josh to stem the tide of her anger.
The marine was astonished. “You’re saying I used that device?”
“Yes.”
“Bullshit. I know better than that.”
“Future you didn’t,” Alfred said, adding dryly, “You must have been overcome by the sight of me, dead in that elevator.”
“I’m on my way,” Josh said in a moment. “Don’t open your door to anyone else. Understand?”
“Understood.”
Now, the taxman was again faced with Nancy’s wrath. “So you knew about this since last week?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been lying to me for a week and a half, Alfred?”
“Not lying.”
“Lying!”
“Concealing. For your own protection.”
She glared at him. “Lying by omission. And my protection?” She scoffed. “How many times have I died now, in these alternate timelines?”
“A few,” he admitted. “But they never come to pass. Because we change them.”
“Why the hell would you conceal that from me, Alfred? Don’t I have the right to know when my life’s in danger?”
He stood silent in the face of her anger for a moment. Then, he said, “I don’t know. I thought…it was the right thing to do.”
“Dammit, Alfred!” She shook her head. “I thought I could trust you.”
“You can,” he pleaded. “Nance, of course you can.”
“Can I?”
“Of course.”
“You’ve been hiding this all this time, lying to me.” She shook her head. “All that shit about crowds and not wanting to go the party…was any of that real?”
He swallowed. “Not entirely.”
“Not entirely? You mean, not at all. What, you had to change the timeline?”
He nodded. “You – you from the future – warned me.”
“Me?” She frowned. “I thought you said I died?”
“Some of the times. But I died that time.”
Her frown deepened, but there was less anger than a moment before. “You died?”
He nodded. “You came back. You used the device.”
“That’s why you wanted to take it,” she realized. “It wasn’t that you were afraid of break-ins.”
“No,” he admitted. “I didn’t know if we’d need it.”
“Dammit Alfred,” she said again, but there was more injury than fury in her tone. “Why didn’t you just tell me from the beginning.”
He took a seat again, feeling rather miserable. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It made sense at the time.”
She paced the room, then she came back to him. “Alfred, you can’t lie to me like that. You can’t – you can’t hide shit like that from me. I need to know I can trust you, that when you tell me something, I can believe it.”
He nodded glumly. “I know, Nance. I know now, I mean. Josh was right. I should have listened; he said we couldn’t keep you in the dark.”
She sighed and shook her head. “I can’t believe you’d involve Josh before you’d involve me. Dammit, Alfred.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Josh arrived shortly thereafter, to find Nancy in a contemplative mood and Alfred in a sullen one. “Alright, tell me everything. From the beginning, this time.”
The taxman’s first explanation had admittedly been rather scattered. He tried again, starting with the marine’s arrival this time.
“Oh hell. I knew it wasn’t Barret.”
“What made you suspect Barret, anyway?” Nancy wondered.
“Well, he had modified the audit file.”
“Yeah, but he probably pulled it,” she reasoned. “So his name would be on the list.”
“And he pinged me about the file size as soon as I started my search.”
Nancy shrugged. “Well, you were pulling a lot of data. That would slow everyone’s search.”
Alfred blinked. “But he was here at the same time we arrived.”
“He probably cut out early too. I know he’s a big fan of Swell Dude.”
“You mean, that might all just be coincidence?”
“I think it has to be,” Josh said. “If I – future me, I mean – said he didn’t leave his room, he didn’t leave his room. Therefore he’s not our guy.”
“Sugar cookies. If he’s not, who the heck is?”
“I don’t know,” Nancy said, “but we have to find out. And sooner rather than later.”
“How are we going to do that?”
Her brow creased. “I can pull up the audit history.”
“I thought you needed special access for that?”
“You do,” she said, flashing the first smile he’d seen from her since his revelation. “I have it already.”
He frowned at the idea that someone from the nerd bunker was granted more clearance than a senior analyst with the IRS, but decided not to push his luck with her by mentioning these concerns. Not now, anyway. “Okay,” he said. “So you can see who looked at the file?”
“Yup. Let me grab my laptop.”
“How is that different from the list Alfred saw?” Josh wondered.
“Alfred was looking at who modified it. That shows in your file revision history. I’m going to be pulling everyone who even looked at it – whether they made changes or not.”
“Oh.”
She’d fished out her laptop, and brought it to the desk. Then, she sighed. “So much for the no-work-weekend pledge.”
In a few minutes, Nancy had connected to the hotel’s wireless internet, and brought up the audit log in question. “Geez,” she said. “This is a popular file.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah. It’s got me, of course, and Agent Dixon.”
“Who is Dixon?”
“The agent who requested the IP check.”
“Ah.”
“And then there’s…let’s see. Six other names.”
“Six?” Alfred frowned. That seemed unusual to the taxman, for a file related to a charity that was undergoing a passive audit.
“Yup. Rae Macron, Tully Sanders, Randall Walker, Dan Li, Sue Boucher, and May Fitzgerald.”
“Any of those names mean anything to you?”
“Not a thing,” she sighed. “Let’s bring up the org chart.”
After half an hour of fruitless investigations, starting with the IRS org chart and directory, and culminating in targeted cyber snooping, they still came up emptyhanded. There was nothing suspicious about any of them on their social media profiles. Sanders, Macron, Boucher and Li were junior analysts, Fitzgerald was a data quality tech, and Walker was a network engineer. In theory, they all had reasons to be in the file. Nor did the access logs show that it had been opened at odd hours.
“I don’t know,” Nance sighed. “Any one of them could have been in there for legit reasons. This is a passive audit. The ECF doubled its fundraising last year, that probably flagged it for an audit. When Dixon sent me the file, it sounded like he was not particularly interested.”
“You think he farmed out the auditing, to the analysts?”
“Probably,” Nancy nodded. “He’s a special agent. He’s not going to waste his time crunching numbers unless he actually suspects something.”
Alfred frowned at this dismissive description of his role. It was, he knew, how many of the special agents felt. But, still, as far as he was concerned, analysts were the backbone of the organization. Without the ‘number crunching,’ the field monkeys like Agent Dixon would either have nothing to do or would have to learn to do the real work themselves.
“So,” she was continuing, “that leaves us with absolutely nothing to go on.”
“Shit,�
� Josh said. “Then what are we going to do? It’s not safe for you two to even leave your room at this point. We’ve got to figure this out.”
Nance’s eyes widened. “Wait a minute.”
“What?”
“There is one thing I can check.”
“What’s that?”
“In the audit database, you can flag files.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you can put a flag on them – so if someone opens that file, you get an immediate alert.”
Alfred was frowning. “How does that help us?”
“Because if someone flagged the audit file, that will tell us who our mole is. You said the first visitor you got mentioned that I was working overnight.”
“Yeah.”
“How’d the killer know? He had to have some kind of alert to tell him I’d pulled up the file.”
Josh nodded eagerly, and the taxman said, “Oh. Good thinking.”
Nancy brought up the access history again, and worked her way through a few screens. Then, she punched in the file name, and ran her query. “Son of a bitch.”
“What?”
“There was a flag put on the file by Randall Walker,” she read, “shortly after the data was pulled.”
“Randall Walker,” Alfred repeated. “He’s the network engineer, right?”
She nodded.
“You think he’s our guy?”
“I think it’s highly likely,” she said. “But he’s not the killer.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s in the office. Look.” She turned the laptop so Alfred could see her screen. The messenger app was loaded, and sure enough, there was Randall Walker’s name, in “Ready” status. “The killer’s here – he’s got to be, since he got us about fifteen minutes ago in that other timeline.”
“So Walker’s our mole in the IRS,” Josh said. “But he’s got an accomplice here.”
Nancy nodded. “It’s got to be.” Now she turned to Alfred. “Babe, when that first future-you visited, did he say anything about what I found? Anything at all?”
The taxman shook his head. “Not that I remember. Just…we’d fought-”
“We fought?” She was surprised by the revelation.
He colored. “A little, I guess.”
“About what?”
Josh, meanwhile, cleared his throat pointedly. Alfred was rarely so glad to hear from the marine as he was at that moment, because Nancy flushed, and said, “Sorry. What else did he say about the case?”
“Not much. You found something. You weren’t sure about it, so you called me to verify. And then…well, then the assassin showed up.”
“Dammit. That’s not much to go on.”
“No.”
“And I don’t remember anything standing out as out of the ordinary when I signed off on it for Dixon.” She sighed. “Well, we’re just going to have to see if whatever it was I saw jumps out at me a second time.”
“Wait, what? You’re not opening that file again, are you?”
Nancy shrugged. “What else are we going to do? We can’t take it to Caspersen. What are we going to say, ‘Walker’s got a flag on this file, we think he’s trying to kill us’? She’ll think we’re nuts. And I’m sure he’s got a good reason cooked up in case he gets questioned.”
“You can’t open the file, though, Nance,” Alfred objected. “That’s what got you killed in the first alternate timeline.”
“The timeline’s changed, though, babe. Whoever our killer is is already after us now, in this timeline.”
“She’s right,” Josh put in. “It’s not like you can get deader than dead.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nancy was frowning at her laptop. She’d been frowning at her laptop for the last hour and a half, pausing only long enough to grab a refill of coffee and use the bathroom once.
“No luck yet?” Alfred asked. He’d been asking the same question every five or ten minutes.
The answer had always been the same, too. “Nope.”
He frowned now. In his mind, he returned to the first visit he’d gotten. He tried to remember everything that was said, tried to recall every specific word his future self had uttered. But that had been a week and a half ago, now, and he’d been in a state of partial shock at the time. He could remember the general gist of what had passed, but nothing more.
Then, all at once, he blinked. “There was one other thing.”
“What?”
“I – future me, I mean – mentioned a date.”
“What date?”
“September-something.”
“Something?” Josh repeated, aggravation seeping into his tone.
“Maybe the twelfth? Or tenth?” Alfred shook his head. “I don’t remember. It might have been something else too.”
Josh’s frown deepened. “Great.”
Nancy, though, was nodding eagerly. “That’s good, Alfred. That’s very good. That at least narrows our search to one month.”
She adjusted the filter on the file, and the feed shrunk to a fraction of its original size. “Alright. This should be more manageable.”
It was an optimistic prediction. The minutes rolled by, and no epiphanies came to Nancy. The taxman, watching over her shoulder, was no more enlightened than she.
Nine o’ clock rolled around, and she turned baleful eyes to him. “We’re missing the autograph drawing.”
“At least we’re not getting knifed in the elevator,” he reminded her. His intention had been to focus on the bright side, to see the silver lining in their cloud, but she seemed otherwise inclined.
“Thanks, Alfred,” she said, frowning at him.
The minutes continued to crawl by. As ten rolled around, Josh said, “I’m starving. You guys hungry?”
“Starving,” Nancy agreed. “We didn’t get breakfast yet.”
“Me too,” Alfred added.
Josh glanced at her screen, and the same, seemingly endless rows of text she’d been staring at for hours now. “Any progress?”
“Not a damned thing.”
He nodded. “Alright. I’m going to go downstairs and get some food.”
“Wait,” the taxman protested. “What about the assassin?”
“You keep the door locked. Don’t open it to anyone, don’t leave for any reason.” He shrugged. “You’ll be fine.”
Alfred wasn’t thrilled by the prospect, but the growling of his stomach did urge cooperation. That, and he didn’t want to deal with the marine when he was hangry. “Fine.”
“Thanks Josh,” Nancy said.
“Course. And don’t forget, Alfred, make sure you bolt this thing after me.”
“Yeah, yeah. Of course. Believe me, I don’t want to end up getting skewered.”
The marine shook his head, but made no comment as he headed for the door. He glanced out the peephole, then opened the door and surveyed up and down the hall. Then, he stepped out.
Alfred closed it after him, and heard Josh’s voice on the other side. “Lock it.” He rolled his eyes, but complied. Then he went back to sit by Nancy.
“Babe,” she said in a few minutes, “can you get me another coffee?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks.”
He brewed her a fresh cup, and she accepted it with a, “Thanks, Alfred.” She sat back, now, and sipped her coffee. “I don’t know what the hell I saw the first time,” she sighed. “But, whatever it was, I am not seeing it this time.”
“You’ll get it, babe,” he said. “You always do.” Cautiously, he slipped an arm around her shoulder. She had every reason to still be mad at him, he knew, and he didn’t want to risk her further ire. But he felt strongly that he needed to hold her, too, and that consideration won out in the end. She didn’t pull away or try to shake him off, so he hugged her.
She leaned into his arm, and sighed again. “And if I don’t? We can’t stay holed up in a hotel room forever.”
He kissed the top of her head. “You
’re the smartest person I know, Nance. You solved it once. You’ll solve it again.”
She wrapped an arm around him in turn, holding the coffee mug in the other hand, and leaned her head against him. For a moment, they sat like that, unmoving and quiet. Then, he spoke. “Nance?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry. I should have told you right away. I shouldn’t have lied. Can you forgive me?”
She squeezed him to her. “I shouldn’t,” she said. “I should stay good and pissed after that.” She lifted her head, so that her eyes were fixed on his. “But, the thing is, I think I already did.”
“Did?”
“Forgive you.”
“Oh.” He leaned in to kiss her, ignoring the awkward way their two separate chairs inserted themselves between the pair.
They both started as a knock sounded at the door. “Sugar cookies.” His heart rate had spiked at the suddenness of the noise, but now he laughed. “That must be Josh. That was quick.”
She kissed him and smiled. “Go on then.”
He did, smiling to himself as he went. It was cheesy, but he felt as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He could breathe again. It didn’t even matter that there was a killer on the loose, waiting to knife him. Nance was on the case; she’d figure it out. And, in the meantime, she’d forgiven him. Life was good.
He unlocked the door, and opened it. “That was…” He trailed off. It wasn’t Josh waiting, but a dark-haired young man in the livery of housekeeping staff. “Uh…can I help you?”
The young man smiled, his square jaw flexing with the motion. “Towels,” he said. By way of demonstration, he raised his arm, calling Alfred’s attention to the stack of towels he held. “Someone called for towels.”
“Oh.” The taxman frowned. “Not me.” He turned, calling, “Nance, did you ask for towels?”
But, all at once, he felt the door shove against him. He turned back, but in place of the mild-mannered housekeeper stood a man with murder in his eyes; and in place of the towels was a switchblade.
Alfred yelped, throwing himself against the door. The assassin threw his own weight against it. He was, the taxman realized with dismay, quite a bit larger than himself. Despite Alfred’s best efforts, the door started a backward arc.
