by Lior Samson
“Wow, I gotta think about this. Hey, how do you know so much, anyway? You’re not a lawyer.”
“No, but I also started young, and I also made some miscalls. Wait until you’re eighteen, then if you want to go for the older dudes, it’s all cool. Just wait. It’s only a few years.”
“Okay, okay. Just don’t say anything to Mom.”
“What’s there to say? I’m headed upstairs for my shower. Catch you later, girl.”
— —
The look on Barbra’s face was a mix of pleasant surprise and discomfort when she arrived home to be greeted by Dana. “Wow, look at you, all tanned and trimmed. I thought we were splitting up—well, I mean taking different trails. You know what I mean.”
“We were. And are. I just turned tail to get some time to think through my next move.”
“What happened?”
“It’s gone from threats to attempts. Whoever is on the other side sent someone to kill me. If it wasn’t for the guardian angel Pop dispatched to watch over me, I would have been the one with my brains spattered all over the wall by my parking spot.”
“Oh my god.” She put her arms around Dana. “My poor darling.”
“Lucky darling. I’m still here. And don’t worry, I’ll be out of here as soon as I figure out where to lay low until the trial. I’ve been called as a witness.”
“Yes, I know. Leah and Hal keep me in the loop. But where will you go?”
“I was thinking of reaching out to Rolf. I don’t think many people would know of any connection between him and me.”
“Look, you already broke protocol by showing up here, so you might as well stay. We have both a police detail and extra private security now. This is probably as safe as you can get. Okay? And what’s this about your father?”
“Yeah, I just arrived back at the apartment when this thug shows up with a pistol pointed at my head, about to pop me. A guy Pop hired gallops onto the scene and pops him instead. Pop, pop, and re-pop! Sorry, I’m a little giddy. Adrenalin, narrow escape, plus two glasses of your fine pinot grigio on an empty stomach. Tandi made the choice for me, one of the Drucker vineyards.”
“Good choice, good for Tandi. And the visit with your family?”
“As good as could be expected. Aileen hasn’t changed, other than putting on still more pounds. Freddy … Pop—I’ve decided that’s what I’m calling him—he … well, let’s just say maybe there’s more to him than the drugged out hippy I grew up with and thought he was. Not all of it good, mind you, but, shall we say, my picture of him has gotten more complicated.”
“That’s good. At least, I think it is. So let’s head out to the deck with a couple more glasses of something good and talk about what’s next.” She hugged Dana again and ran a hand up and down her back. “God, how I missed you. And I worried. Constantly. We gotta stick together. It’s just too hard without you.”
“Is this the independent, self-assured businesswoman who once graced the cover of Construction Tech Quarterly? Is this—”
“Oh, god, not CTQ! I hated that picture almost as much as I hated the puff piece our PR people commissioned about me. I can’t believe you even know about that.”
“Knowing stuff is what I do, remember? And I thought you looked damn good. When I saw that photo, I thought, mmm, I hope I look that good when I’m her age.”
Barbra pushed her away playfully. “My age? What you talkin’ about, girl? Don’t you throw that ageist crap my way, twerp, just because you’re still on the short side of thirty.”
“Yeah, and don’t you wish you still had my tits, old lady,” she teased back.
“I do, girl, but any time I want to, I can just …” Before she could finish the thought, the lights in the house went out and the background whoosh and hum of appliances and air conditioning faded and died. “What the fuck? We have backup. Why …?” In the silence, two gunshots echoed. “Shit. Where’s Becca? We gotta get to the safe-room.”
“Last I knew, she was in the hot tub.”
“Follow me. If she’s as smart as she claims to be, she should be on her way to the room.”
Becca was waiting at the bookcase that disguised the vault entrance, waving her lit-up smartphone over the row of books. “I couldn’t remember the code.”
“B-O-O-K: Brown, Obama, O’Brian, Kimball.” Barbra pressed in on the spines of four books by those authors in sequence. The latch released with a loud click and the bookcase rolled aside revealing a steel door with a telephone-style keypad. Barbra tapped the same sequence, 2-6-6-5, and the inner door opened to a well-lit interior.
Dana looked confused. “How …? There’s no power, and I didn’t hear any backup generator kick in.”
“Separate system, battery-powered. Quick, let’s get in.”
— 36 —
Dana scanned the safe room, a tight fit, but outfitted for comfort with three reclining captain’s chairs and a sleep sofa. One entire wall was storage, with cabinets and shelves of supplies. The opposite wall sported a large-screen display, a slide-out keyboard, and a microwave. Becca immediately tried to use her phone only to find there was no signal. “It won’t work in here,” Barbra said. “Everything’s blocked. But we have an old-fashioned landline and hard-wired internet connection, so don’t worry, we’re not cut off.” She pulled out a stool and sat down at the keyboard.
“What are you doing?”
“Resetting the entry code, just in case. Todd had this whole protocol we had to learn and follow. He was so old-school in some things. Anyway, the new code is ‘COOL’ everyone. Whatever authors that equates to, of course.”
Becca chewed at her lower lip. “Are we really safe in here?”
“Yes, darling. Fire, bombs, gas, guns: whatever they can throw at us, we’re okay. The specs say we could stay in here several days if needed. And we’re connected to a dedicated surveillance system, so we can monitor what’s going on outside.” She launched a security app which started a rotating display of thumbnail images with the telltale green of infrared night-vision from tiny security cameras throughout the house.
Becca pointed. “There’s people out there, with guns.”
Barbra squinted at the screen. “That’s our security people. See the ID patches on their jackets?”
Dana shook her head. “Uniforms? That’s hardly a form of authenticated identification.”
A figure approached the camera covering the hallway past the bookcase. The man holstered his handgun and looked up toward the camera. His mouth started moving. Barbra keyed on the audio.
“—in there. My men have cleared the house and grounds. No intruders. If you’re in there, you can come out, Mrs. Wilson.”
“That looks like Donovan Cortez, although the night-vision is less than perfect. Cortez has been with Drucker’s security team for years. I think we can trust him.”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure. Everyone quiet while I use the intercom.” She pressed a button beside the screen. “Please identify yourself.”
“It’s me, Cortez, Donovan Cortez, ma’am. Here, let me show you my ID.” He held a badge holder up toward the camera.
“Okay, Donovan, you can open the safe-room door.”
“Sorry, ma’am, they don’t give us the code.” He looked around. “Only the family is supposed to know. I don’t even know where the keypad is. You have to open it from the inside.” Suddenly the image brightened. “There, they got the power back on. It’s safe, Ms. Wilson.”
“Is Jack Torrance with you? Is he on duty tonight?”
“Who?”
“Jack Torrance. You know, the tall guy.”
“Sorry, ma’am. I don’t know any Jack Torrance. I’ve been with Drucker Security Services almost eight years, now, and I don’t recall anybody by that name.”
Barbra keyed off the audio. “Well, that settles it.”
Dana angled her head. “What was that all about?”
“A test. If it was somebody pretending to be with Drucker Security
, they would have pretended to know Jack Torrance. There is no Jack Torrance. I just made him up to be sure it was Donovan. And I knew he wouldn’t know the lock code. He gave the right answers.” She started to tap the new code on the keypad and then laughed.
“What?”
“It’s the same numbers. B-O-O-K and C-O-O-L are both just 2-6-6-5 on a telephone keypad. Let me change it again.”
“Well, hurry up, mom, I’m getting hungry.”
“Okay, my snack-a-saurus, I’m hurrying. There, the new code is F-O-O-D. Think you can remember that?”
Dana smiled and nodded. Becca rolled her eyes.
“All right people, we can leave.”
In the hallway, Donovan Cortez was talking on his radio. “Okay, Wallace. Roger that. Get DC-SERT here on the double. We don’t want to leave the door wide open.” He thumbed off the radio. “Ms. Wilson, Becca, and …” He nodded toward Dana.
“This is my … partner, Dana Carmody. She lives here.”
“Sure.”
“So it was a false alarm?”
“No, ma’am. It was the real thing. They hacked the house somehow. I don’t know about that stuff. That’s why we’re getting DC-SERT—the Drucker cyber-security team— over here right away. I don’t think you should remain here. Is there somewhere else you can stay? At least until we sort this out.”
“Yes, there’s somewhere we can go. We thought we heard shots.”
“You did, ma’am. That was Kevin. He’s new and maybe a little trigger happy. I’m going to recommend some extra training for him, if you know what I mean.”
“So we weren’t actually in danger?”
“I couldn’t say, ma’am, but you did the right thing under the circumstances. I’ll have the office get in touch with you when we fix the security problem here. I’ll have one of my people stay with you until you’re safely away, but I wouldn’t take too long getting resettled someplace.”
“Okay. Becca, pack your camp duffle bag and be ready to leave in fifteen minutes.”
“Where are we going?”
“Don’t worry about that, just go pack. And what about you, Dana?”
“I’m ready when you are. I haven’t even unpacked yet. Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
“And how are we going to get there? I hailed LaRyde to get here, and had the driver drop me off a mile down the beach. If they hacked the house …”
“I’ve got an idea.” She hurried down the hall after the security guard. “Wait up, Donovan. Do you have a car here?”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s a Drucker car, for my use.”
“One of the standard ones?” He nodded. “Okay, call in and have Drucker bring you another one, tell the dispatcher you’ll file a report, but don’t. In a couple of days you can report it stolen, okay? Whatever CYA you need to pull is okay by me. I’ll make sure nothing happens against you. Got it?”
“Got it.”
— —
Becca, accompanied by one of the security detail, was the last to make it out to Donovan’s car where it was parked across from the entryway. “Ew, it’s ugly.”
“Maybe, but it will get us where we’re going.” She waited for Becca to close her door and the guard to step back. “Plus, Tonika told me how to turn off the GPS tracking on these models, so there won’t be a digital trace of where we went.” She pulled out from the curb, made a U-turn, and sped away.
— —
The penthouse at Rockland Suites was not the beach house, but its panoramic view of the lights of the Los Angeles basin was some compensation. Dana paced in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows and grinned. “Not bad. When you said you had a pied-a-terre, I pictured a modest little apartment tucked away in some obscure location. Actually, I kind of pictured something like my place.”
“This is modest compared to Todd’s and my usual retreat, but this is a lot more obscure. It does not show on the corporate books and not even Todd knew about this.”
“A secret life?”
“A getaway, just in case. It’s owned by the Beachland Educational Trust. It’ll be Becca’s when she turns twenty-one.”
Becca, frozen fruit bar in hand, entered from the kitchen. “What will be mine when I turn twenty-one?”
“A troubled, too-hot world with stormy seas encroaching from every side.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know all that climate change stuff.”
“Don’t belittle it, kiddo. It’s real.”
“I know that. That’s why I want to become an oceanographer. Water, undersea worlds—that’s the future.”
Barbra’s jaw dropped as her forehead wrinkled. “I didn’t know that, honey. You really want to become a scientist?”
“A marine scientist, yeah. It’s a growth industry.”
Dana put her arm around Becca’s shoulder. “Smart kid. Principled and prudent all in one package. We could take a lesson or two from you and your generation.”
“Der. Too bad your generation has been so slow to learn. Are we going to live here, mom?”
“For now, at least until they fix the beach house, maybe until this trial is over.”
“How long will that take?”
“Months. Maybe longer.”
With a glum look, Becca sat down on the white leather sofa. “What about school? What about my friends?”
“I don’t know, honey. We’ll work something out, I’m sure. In the morning, I’ll call my staff at Beachland and get them to arrange transportation and security. Give me your phone. You, too, Dana.”
“Mine’s a burner, never used. I already ditched the one I had out at the ranch.”
“Okay.”
Becca slipped her phone from the back pocket of her jeans and held it up. “What do you want it for?”
Barbra grabbed it with a roundhouse sweep of her arm. “To keep you from calling or texting anyone, at least for now.”
“But that’s not fair. Trust me. I won’t say anything.”
“I trust you—well, not completely, but mostly—but I also know you and absolutely do not trust whoever tracked us. Or Dana. They hacked into the house. This is for real, kiddo. Somebody wants to kill Dana—and maybe us.”
“You’re serious.”
“I am.”
“Wow, that’s so cool, like in that Zac Medford series on Amazon.”
Dana laughed. “Cool is not the modifier I would pick. I damn near peed myself when that guy came over with his gun pointed at my head.”
“Wow, you didn’t say that when you showed up.”
“We were talking about other things, if you remember.”
“Yeah, like …”
“Anyway, I think we all should try to chill out and get some sleep. We can figure out tactics and strategies in the morning. I don’t know about you, Barbra, but I could use a drink.”
“Sure, we can sit out on the deck. The night is warm enough.”
“Mom, I could, like, use a drink too.”
Barbra drew her head back in mock shock. “I thought you didn’t like the taste of alcohol.”
“I don’t, but I forgot to pack my vape kit, and …”
“You? You’ve been smoking weed already?”
“Der. Who do you think I am? I don’t smoke. Kids my age vape.”
“Kids your age are barely old enough to find their way home from school. I can’t keep up. Where did we go so wrong with this next generation?”
“Don’t have a cow, mom. It’s not like I’m into the opes like Jennifer.”
“Jennifer? Sweet Jennifer Macklin does opioids?”
“Well, yeah. It’s not like she’s the only one at the Academy. And it’s not like she’s buying it on the streets or anything. I mean, she lifts it from her mom’s supply.”
Barbra turned to Dana, who was looking on, tight-lipped. Dana shrugged. “Do we reap what we sow? Did we, all of us, set this up?”
“God, how the hell do I know? I thought Todd and I were doing all right. Now that he’s gone, I just don’t k
now.”
Becca put her hands on her hips. “Well, while you two are trying to figure it all out, will somebody just get me a damn drink?”
“No!” It was instantaneous and simultaneous from both Dana and Barbra.
Becca threw up her hands and stomped off. “Fine! I’m going to bed. If I can find a fuckin’ bed in this place. And you two can do whatever you fuckin’ want.”
Dana struggled to keep from laughing. “Well, at least we seem to be on the same page as parents.”
Barbra put her arm around Dana’s shoulders. “Yeah, and we seem to have the traditional parental hypocrisy shit down pat. Now, let’s go talk and see if we can sort out some of the other stuff. The trial starts next week.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
“I’m trying not to think about it. Mostly, I just put myself in the hands of the lawyers. You’re the one who’s going to be taking the stand for some key testimony. I just have to play the bereaved widow.”
— 37 —
The public and the press, having been deprived of the spectacle of a criminal trial, jumped all over the wrongful-death suit. The case ended up presided over by Phillip Steadman, a graying Brown-era protégé with a reputation for sartorial flamboyance and strict courtroom decorum. Dana had to admit that the remote prospect of the Drucker Proxy testifying in open court was a journalist’s wet dream, and Bannon Turndale made his move to fulfill that dream during pretrial motions.
Beneath his black robe, worn unzipped to mid-chest, Judge Steadman’s ascot was a flaming magenta bloom. He flipped back and forth between pages of the stapled portfolio in front of him before squinting toward the defense table.
“Do I understand number five correctly, Mr. Turndale, that you are proposing to put a robot on the witness stand in this court.”
“It’s not a robot. The telepresence unit is just a mobile means for the proxy to communicate. It would be essentially like having an abuse victim testify by closed-circuit video, a well-established precedent.”
“Except that there would be no human victim on the other end of your video link, if that is what it is.”
