Broken Build: Silicon Valley Romantic Suspense

by Rachelle Ayala

  “No. Let her go, please.” Dave struggled against the handle, and another jolt of electricity sizzled through his body, paralyzing him.

  Sherry threw her head against the headrest and laughed. “You know? She’s not the angel you thought she was. Not only did she sleep with Rodrigo and hand over your baby, the slut got pregnant and had an abortion.”

  His nerves sizzled from the last zap, and he didn’t know up from down. She couldn’t have. Not Jen.

  Sherry twirled the stun gun in her hand. “Ask her where she was when your wife died? Huh? I dare you.”

  Dave clamped his mouth. Impossible.

  “Okay, I’ll let you in on a secret. Jennifer Cruz was so jealous of Jocelyn that she set her up to die. She parked Jocelyn’s car way out in that field and stayed behind to clean the nursery. When they were finally finished, they headed for the car. Only Jennifer forgets something, and Jocelyn walks back to fetch it. A diaper bag, I believe? Jennifer tells Jocelyn she’d meet her in front of the church with the car. She straps Abby into the car seat and zooms back through the now empty lot. Kaboom! Jocelyn didn’t know what hit her! Jennifer calmly drives off, leaving your darling wife to bleed to death on the pavement.” Sherry mockingly sniffed and wiped a fake tear. “Such a good actress. Too bad she was a fatso.”

  Dave’s heart crackled with a thousand watts of pain. Jen banged her head against the door and made muffled cries.

  “I don’t believe you,” Dave said. “She loved Jocelyn.”

  “Believe what you want. You can ask her in hell.” Sherry started the ignition. “This here is a Camry three point five liter, two hundred sixty-eight horsepower V6.”

  She stepped out of the car and opened Jen’s door. “Say your prayers, puta.”

  Pulling Jen by the armpits, she dragged her out of the car and threw her onto the pavement. Calmly, Sherry climbed into the driver seat. “Now, the fun starts. Ding dong, you lose. Say goodbye to your little chingadera.”

  Sherry gunned her engine and jerked the steering wheel. The car circled where Jen lay. Bound around the wrists and ankles, Jen was exposed like a worm on the sidewalk after a rainstorm.

  “No!” Dave shouted, before another million volts of electricity jolted him. All he heard was the sound of tires squealing and the rumble of Sherry’s Camry racing from one end of the lot to the other.

  Chapter 41

  Jen rolled onto the asphalt tar. The door slammed, and the Camry’s wheels churned dust in her face. Its tires screamed and ripped toward her. The headlights switched on.

  Her heart shattered like blown glass. This was it. This was how Rey died. Oh, God, save me! The motor thundered. The car bore down on her. Jen rolled frantically. Broken glass dug into her back and sides. The wheels whipped by, barely missing her.

  Pebbles and dirt scraped her cheeks. Jen kept rolling. Turn, elbows, knees, chest, back. Roll toward the parking blocks. Debris cut into her with every movement. Blood and pain smeared on her arms, legs and torso.

  The car jerked around at the end of the lot and revved its engine for another try. It came skidding toward her. She flopped over one set of parking blocks and rested between the opposing sides. The Camry careened toward her and jumped the blocks not five feet away.

  Jen’s pulse crested like the raging surf. The car would soon come back for another round. She squirmed over the opposite block and kept rolling. The Camry made a U-turn at the end near the church and roared toward her. If she could just get under Dave’s SUV. Before she could wiggle to the side of the lot, the Camry cut her off, narrowly missing her with a loud squeal as it skidded to the end of the row.

  So, the bitch was playing a game with her. Jen gritted her teeth and rubbed the plastic ties against the parking block. Her ankles throbbed against the ties. If she could get them off, she could run. The harder she tried, the tighter the plastic dug into her wrists and ankles.

  The Camry’s engine rumbled, and it swung around the next row for another try. Jen tucked her chin in and rolled like a bowling pin toward the edge of the lot. She scooted backward over the last set of blocks and tumbled into a drainage ditch.

  Tires squealed and headlights pointed straight at her. Jen’s scream tore through her gagged lips. Just before impact, the Camry jerked hard to its right and tumbled wheels over roof. Its momentum carried it over the drainage ditch. It landed with a deafening metallic crunch on its top. A spider web of glass exploded, and a body flew through the windshield.

  Dave! Oh, Dave! Agonizing waves of pain pulsated in Jen’s chest. Dave. He couldn’t die. No, God, no. She wiggled like a crazed caterpillar, flailing and flopping toward the wreck. The Camry’s tires gradually stopped rolling. Steam puffed from its open hood.

  Silence.

  The terrain was littered with broken bottles and twisted pieces of rebar and jagged concrete. She could barely move her knees but she jerked and squirmed toward the car.

  “Dave, Dave,” she mumbled into her gag, her tears mixing with blood, and her head feeling faint. Dave, I love you. I’ll always love you.

  The distant sounds of sirens alerted her and before long, a set of searchlights blinded her. Hands lifted her and placed her on a stretcher. They removed the gag.

  “Let me go. Let me go to Dave. David!”

  They tied her down and put an oxygen mask on her face. Other hands attached a blood pressure cuff, and she was lifted into the ambulance.

  * * *

  Jen sat in the hospital bed and stared at her hands and arms. Not a single square inch was left without cuts and scratches. Her entire body ached as if stung by hundreds of bees. Bandages and tape covered her.

  A nurse attached a blood pressure cuff. “You’re looking a lot better this morning. Anything I can get you?”

  “Dave, is he okay?”

  The nurse turned on the machine. “You mean the man in the car? He was brought to the hospital.”

  Jen could barely breathe when the machine strangled her arm. Dave was alive. They didn’t bring dead people to the hospital. “How is he? Can I see him?”

  The nurse shook her head and typed the readings into a terminal. “Your blood pressure’s elevated. I can’t talk about other patients, but if you’re up for visitors, the detective and your lawyer are outside.”

  “Oh, I’m ready.” Jen smoothed her hair back and sat up, straightening her gown. The nurse opened the door and let them in on her way out.

  Owen, Detective Mathews and Lester greeted her.

  “How’s Dave? Will he be okay?”

  “He’s here with a head injury,” Detective Mathews said. “They operated last night.”

  “Is he awake? Can I see him?”

  “Not yet. Let him recover. He saved your life. The skid marks showed someone yanked the steering wheel hard to the right. Dave was handcuffed to the safety handle but he tore it off.”

  “It was horrible.” Jen covered her mouth. “I saw him get thrown from the windshield. Thank God he’s not dead.”

  “Actually Sherry’s dead,” Owen said. “She was the one thrown. She wasn’t wearing her seatbelt.”

  “Sherry?” Jen was confused. “I thought that was Patty Brown in the car, but Dave kept calling her Sherry.”

  Mathews cleared his throat. “Sherry Miller and Patty Brown swapped names in the mental hospital. Your roommate is the real Patty Brown. But she took her ex-husband’s last name, Montoya.”

  “Where’s my roommate?”

  “She’s been arrested as an accessory,” Mathews said.

  Jen clasped her chest. “The little girl! Is she okay?”

  Mathews smiled. “Emily was returned to Vera Custodio. Alex and his sister are with Child Protective Services. We caught Bruce trying to drive away with them.”

  “But Patty er… Sherry says Emily is Abby, is that true?”

  Mathews shook his head. “Vera insists Emily is her niece. Bruce had tied up Vera and Lola and picked up Emily after school. We’ve taken swabs from all the children and DNA from the deceased an
d the adults in custody. We’re missing Mr. Jewell’s because he wasn’t awake to give consent.”

  “Wait. I have his blood on a sweater, and my sister, Christy is his sister.”

  “Not needed.” Mathews scratched his goatee. “Mr. Jewell’s father drove in early this morning and has given a sample. We’ll know soon.”

  “I’m so glad I found you,” Lester said. “You stopped responding to my instant messages. So I called my uncle.” He grinned at Detective Mathews who nodded.

  Jen looked from Mathews to Lester. “He’s your uncle?”

  “Yes,” Lester replied, “and he knows how much you’ve mentored me. I told him you had stopped responding to my messages and there was this massive provisioning of virtual servers. So we got worried and drove to your apartment and saw a bunch of fire trucks. Uncle talked to the fire marshal who said a crazy man pulled the alarm and escaped from the scene. So we drove back to Shopahol and Eddie said you were at a church activity.”

  “Church activity?”

  “That’s what Mr. Jewell told everyone,” Mathews said. “He left in the middle of a crisis. I figured it was a code word. I remembered seeing you and Mr. Jewell at Marina Baptist one Sunday, so Lester and I hopped into the squad car and headed over.”

  “And you know who else was at the parking lot?” Owen interrupted. “Nick, the SnotOgler, was video streaming the entire incident. I saw it on the internet and called the police. Of course by then, Mathews had already called it in.”

  Mathews took out a notepad. “But, since I’m here, I suppose I should take your statement.”

  “Her lawyer is present,” Owen said with a chuckle.

  Mathews pulled on the tops of his trousers and sat on the edge of the bed, and Jen gave him all the events from her point of view.

  Half an hour later, the detective tucked his notepad away and stood. “Thank you for your cooperation. I’m happy to tell you that Bruce and your three attackers were all over themselves turning in state’s evidence. Any other questions?”

  “Sure. Who killed Rey Custodio?”

  “Right now, every one of them claims it is the one you thought was Patty Brown who turned out to be Sherry Miller, but I’m not sure it’s that simple. The memory stick is a wealth of information, and we need to also follow the money trail. Rodrigo was hitting some big pockets, and there’s a list on the stick with codenames. It’s going to be a long investigation and some big wigs are going down. We also think Craig Pearson hired Rey and his buddies to steal code to prove Dave infringed on their patents. And then there’s the harassment, extortion and impersonating the kidnappers.”

  Jen shuddered. “I wish Dave’s awake. Sherry accused me of some pretty wild things. I hope he didn’t believe her.”

  Owen said, “You can’t worry about it right now. There’s stuff on the stick that might implicate you as an accessory to the kidnapping.”

  Mathews cleared his throat. “I thought you’re her attorney. That’s the only reason I let you look at the stick, not to suggest charges.”

  Owen’s face reddened.

  “It’s fine,” Jen said. “I’m prepared to take the punishment. I owe it to Dave for losing his daughter.”

  Mathews lowered himself to the edge of her bed. “I’m probably out of line here, but I spoke to the D.A. this morning, and she’s not going to prosecute.”

  Jen stared at him, unbelieving. “But why? I must have committed a crime somewhere in there.”

  “Sure, she could throw the book at you.” Mathews put a stern look on his face, but couldn’t hide the twinkle in his eyes. “Lying to the police, withholding evidence, even possible accessory to the kidnapping. Put you away forever. But the real kidnapper is dead, and the D.A. has a heart.”

  “What? How do you know?”

  “Cuz I broke it long ago.” He leaned over and patted her hand. “Take good care of Mr. Jewell, and we’ll call it even.”

  * * *

  Jen returned to her apartment with Owen. She waited while her landlord unlocked the door. The remains of crime scene tape were scattered on the floor.

  “There you go,” he said. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

  “She’d like the locks changed,” Owen said.

  “Yes, of course.” The landlord shook his keys and handed her a spare.

  The tuna fish and apple juice had been cleaned up, but dirty dishes still sat in the sink. The smell of dirt and gunpowder twisted her stomach. Back to the dump. She had tried to see Dave before leaving the hospital but was told his mother refused all visitors.

  She scanned the kitchen. “My laptop and purse are gone.”

  Owen picked up a trash bag and stuffed in the debris. “The police took them as evidence, but I can get your things back this afternoon. Care for some takeout?”

  She picked up a lollipop stick and tucked it into a plastic bag. “Looks like they missed this one.”

  Perhaps she could still prove Emily was Abby somehow. Vera could be lying.

  “Uh, Jen? What are you doing?” Owen eyed her quizzically.

  “Nothing, it’s just a lollipop stick.” Jen patted his shoulder. “How much do I owe you for this ordeal?”

  “I’ll have my office figure it out.”

  “Office? You have an office now?”

  “Yep. I’ve decided to go into Criminal Law. Forget old fogies and their wills. Bo—ring.” He mocked a yawn. “But actually the bill will be zero. You helped me decide.”

  “Oh, thank you.” She kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll be in the poorhouse when our company goes bankrupt from the faulty upload.”

  Praveena, Lester, Satish, Wei, and Holly barged in with baskets of food.

  “Whoo hoo! It’s party time!” Satish whooped.

  Praveena’s cheerful voice rang. “You’re the queen of OgleNet. Everyone’s blogging about you and the video of that car trying to run you over.”

  “Yeah, that was some acrobatics, girl.” Satish pumped his fist. “You were really moving.”

  “Wait, wait!” Jen gaped at them. “What about the code? Did it crash the Mississippi network?”

  “No, nothing at all,” Holly said. “Satish and I looked at auto-update again. Bob is so stupid. He only read the message that said it completed successfully, when in reality nothing happened.”

  “Yeah, Jen, and we know why,” Lester said. “When Holly mentioned nothing happened, I went back to the source code change log and found that you had commented out the code. You’re in serious violation because build engineers are not supposed to touch the code.”

  Praveena wagged her finger. “And no one code-reviewed your changes. You snuck it in right before the Black Friday build.”

  Wei held his cell phone and recorded everyone.

  Jen clapped her hand over her mouth. “I totally forgot about it. That means everything Sherry Miller made me do was for nothing. The code never updated!”

  Owen clapped. “You’re a genius. I know nothing about computers and stuff, but I’d say you just saved the company again.”

  Gloom settled over Jen. “But Dave’s still in a coma. He doesn’t even know.”

  Everyone fell silent as Jen twisted the ring on her finger. So much had happened she didn’t even know where to start. Sherry accused her of blackmail, extortion, aiding and abetting the kidnapping, having an abortion and killing Jocelyn. Her heart ached, and she slumped onto a chair.

  “Hey, hey,” Satish put his hand on her shoulder. “You’re still the hero. If you hadn’t commented out the update code, the entire shopping network would have failed last night and our stock would be worthless. I’m sure Mr. Jewell will thank you when he wakes up.”

  If he wakes up.

  * * *

  Jen entered the storage room to retrieve the backup memory stick. Rodrigo must have left a clue about what he'd done with Abby. She picked up the green memory stick and put it in her pocket, then opened a box of photos.

  This time, she saw the tall, thin man with the rolled-up
shirtsleeves planting trees in the schoolyard. Her mother held the shovel while the man dropped in the root ball. A group shot at a restaurant showed the volunteers and the teachers. Mami was sitting next to him, Dave’s father. And she actually looked happy.

  She flipped through more photos. As Mami’s pregnancy progressed, the man disappeared. Jen’s father looked at her with undisguised happiness, holding hands on the beach. How his heart must have been broken when he eventually found out the truth.

  Jen wiped her eyes and put the photos away. She picked up a cheap netbook from Best Buy and stuck the memory key in. Sure enough, poems appeared with names taken from Greek mythology.

  His interpretations were off the wall. Perseus received showers of gold. Callisto was impregnated by a bear and her condition revealed in a bath. Orpheus looked back on Eurydice too soon and was granted a little image bearer, but not his true love.

  She typed, “meaning of Emily” into the search engine. “Emulation.” That’s it!

  Jen called Vera and Lola, and they invited her over for dessert and to talk about their ordeal. In half an hour, Jen knocked on Lola’s door. They welcomed her with lumpia, a Filipino eggroll, and puto bumbong, a glutinous rice cake. Lola was only too happy to pull out Emily’s baby pictures. Emily pointed to the pictures. “My daddy, my daddy in Heaven.”

  The images flipped in front of her eyes while Lola and Vera oohed and tickled Emily for being so cute. December 2006. Abby and Rod posed with Santa Claus at the mall. April 2007, Abby and Rod celebrated her first birthday, even though Abby was born in March. The cake and banner said ‘Emily,’ but the baby girl in the photo kissing Rod was Abby.

  Jen’s scalp prickled with realization. Rod had masqueraded Abby as his niece, Emily. Did Vera and Lola know? What about Rey? He had to have suspected, but he seemed to have played along. Maybe he confronted Rod and threatened to expose everyone. Then Sherry realized Rod would squeal about Jocelyn’s death. Jen shook off a chill. She’d let the police figure out who killed whom. The important thing was she found Abby.

  Vera and Lola twittered until Emily’s bedtime. Jen was treated to a continuous saga of Emily from the time she was Abby until both her fathers were buried. Rod first, and then Rey. Jen asked for an extra wallet size of Emily’s first visit with Santa, and they gave it to her. She kissed Vera and Lola goodbye while they pushed a box of puto bumbong on her to take home.