The Girl Who Didn't Die--A Suspense Novel
Page 20
“And when will I get Melissa back?”
“When I’ve verified that you plugged in the flash drive.”
“How are you going to verify that?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“How long will it take you to verify that I plugged in the flash drive?”
“One day.”
“What’s on the flash drive?”
“The less you know the better. Don’t let anyone see you plug the flash drive into David’s computer. Don’t leave the flash drive in the STS Industries building.”
“So I just plug it in and pull it out?”
“Yes. It must stay plugged in for at least ninety seconds. The computer must be on. So do we have a deal?”
“Yes.”
“Alice, if I so much as suspect that you went to the police, Melissa will die. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“I’m watching you, so don’t play games with me,” Vera said coldly.
“How do I know you’ll keep your promise?”
“We’re sisters, Alice. I wouldn’t break a promise to my sister. Can you do this tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. I have to ask David. Give me your email address, and I’ll let you know tonight.”
“Okay.” Vera told Alice her email address. “Try to do this tomorrow or the day after. The sooner you do this, the sooner you’ll get Melissa back. Any questions?”
“No.”
“Bye, sis.”
3
It would be very easy to do: she would go to David’s office, wait until he left the room and plug the flash drive into his computer. Piece of cake. No one was going to die, so her conscience would be clear.
Ninety seconds. David wouldn’t be back for at least ninety seconds if he went to the restroom to take a pee.
Alice watched the video of Melissa’s Skype call and then went home. In David’s apartment, she opened the flash drive and saw that it contained ten audio files. When she read the name of the fourth file, she realized they were Adele’s songs from her album 25. Were these files infected with a computer virus?
Alice pulled the flash drive from her laptop.
How long had the flash drive been plugged into her laptop? About half a minute.
Suppose the files contained a virus. Why would Vera want to infect David’s computer with a virus?
Perhaps she worked for one of STS Industries’ competitors.
You had to open the infected file to infect the computer with a virus, didn’t you?
Maybe it was a special virus that could copy itself from a flash drive to a computer.
The virus might spread across the entire company network, it might erase all their data.
Alice didn’t give a damn about STS Industries’ data. All that mattered to her was Melissa.
Alice went to the TV Guide website and scrolled through the TV listings, looking for a movie or a show about space travel. At ten o’clock on the AMC channel there was Armageddon, a Bruce Willis movie about an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.
Fifteen minutes into Armageddon Alice said to David, “Can I come to your lab tomorrow?”
“You want to come to my lab? Why?”
“I’m just curious. I’ve never been in a rocket science lab.”
“Okay. You can come.”
“Would you go on a mission like that?” Alice pointed to the TV screen, where Bruce Willis was arguing with Liv Tyler.
“Yeah, I would.”
At half past eleven Alice sent Vera an email saying: “I may be able to do it tomorrow.”
Chapter 47
1
STS Industries occupied a large five-story glass-and-concrete building in eastern Pasadena. After parking her car, Alice sent David a text saying: “I’m here.”
She felt calm and confident. Vera’s flash drive was in her wallet, wrapped in a twenty-dollar bill.
Piece of cake. Plug in, wait ninety seconds, pull out.
When Alice entered the STS Industries building, she saw three walk-through metal detectors. She went to the one in the middle, placed her phone, wallet, watch, and car keys in a plastic tray, and stepped through the arch. No alarm sounded.
Alice collected her belongings and approached the security desk.
“Hi, my name is Alice Cannon,” she said to the guard, a burly man with a shaved head. “I’m here to see David Beckner.”
The guard checked his computer and said, “Can I see your ID?”
Alice handed her driver’s license to the guard, and while he was looking at it, she retrieved the flash drive from her wallet and put it in her pocket. The guard gave the driver’s license back to her, then picked up the phone and punched in a number.
“Alice Cannon is here,” he said into the receiver. A pause. “Okay.” He hung up and said to Alice, “Mister Beckner is coming.” Then he gave her a visitor’s badge, which she clipped to her jacket lapel.
A minute later David came down to the lobby, and the guard let Alice through the turnstile.
“Are you staying late today?” Alice asked David when they got into the elevator.
“No.”
There were computer viruses that stole data. Maybe the files on Vera’s flash drive were infected with a spyware virus?
Vera might be working for a foreign government. She might be a spy.
Who did she work for? China? Russia? There were only a handful of countries that manufactured spacecraft.
Did Andrew Walsh know Vera was a spy?
They exited the elevator on the fourth floor.
“What do you do here?” Alice asked David.
“I design control systems.”
It didn’t matter what country Vera worked for. Alice didn’t care if a foreign government stole STS Industries’ data.
David unlocked the door to his lab with his employee card and let Alice in. There were five people in the room, four men and a woman.
“Hi.” Alice waved to them.
Numerous pieces of scientific equipment sat on the tables. Some kind of rocket part (Alice assumed it was a control system prototype) stood in the center of the lab.
Alice wondered if David had his own office.
“Guys, this is my girlfriend, Alice,” David said.
He introduced everyone to Alice, and she whispered to him, “Are you their boss?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have your own office?”
“Yes, I do. Let me show it to you.”
They made their way to the door in the glass wall to left of the entrance, and David unlocked it with his employee card.
“Nice office.” Alice went behind the desk and sat in the swivel chair.
David’s computer was on. The system unit sat on the floor under the desk. The blinds were shut, so no one would see her reaching under the desk.
Were there surveillance cameras in David’s office?
“This is a very interesting place,” Alice said. “Does your company have a catalog?”
She touched the mouse, and a login screen appeared on the monitor.
“Yes, it does.” David opened a cabinet, took out a glossy booklet with a picture of a satellite on the cover, and handed it to Alice.
She glanced around and saw no cameras.
“Do you have anything to drink?” she said.
“Coffee?”
“Yeah.” Alice opened the catalog.
David walked out of the room, leaving the door open.
Alice quickly pulled the flash drive from her pocket, uncapped it, found a USB port on the system unit, and tried to insert the flash drive into it. The flash drive did not go in. She turned it over and tried again. This time the flash drive slid into the port.
Alice looked at her watch. 4:16:41.
About half a minute later, David came back with a cup of coffee.
“Thank you, honey,” Alice said to him. “Everyone who works here must be really smart.”
“We have a lot of smart people here.�
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Staring at the catalog, Alice said, “Your company makes so many amazing things.”
“Yes, it does.”
Alice flipped a page. “Do you have talking robots here?”
“No, we don’t.”
Alice took a sip of coffee.
Was David going to sit there and watch her?
“Do you have a cafeteria here?” she asked.
“Yes. Are you hungry?”
“No. What colleges did your coworkers go to?”
“Caltech, MIT, Stanford.”
“I wish I were as smart as you.”
“Honey, you’re the smartest woman I know.”
Alice glanced at her watch. 4:18:13.
The flash drive had been plugged into David’s computer for more than ninety seconds.
Alice picked up a pen and began to twirl it between her fingers.
“Have you bought a pregnancy test?” David asked.
“I’ll buy it today.” Alice let the pen slip from her fingers, and it fell to the floor. She reached under the desk, pulled out the flash drive, and then grabbed the pen.
“What’s that thing in the middle of the lab?” Alice closed the catalog, picked up her coffee cup, and rose.
“It’s a prototype.”
When David turned his back to her, Alice put the flash drive in her pocket.
2
Alice stayed at David’s lab for another twenty-five minutes and then left. She bought a pregnancy test at a grocery store near David’s apartment building.
Alice thought of throwing the flash drive away and decided to ask Vera what she should do with it.
At half past five she sent Vera an email saying: “Done,” and then watched the video of Melissa’s Skype call again. At six-fifteen Vera replied: “OK.”
Chapter 48
1
“Did you ask Vera to call me?” Garcia said.
“She hasn’t contacted me yet,” Alice replied.
“When do you think she’ll contact you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay. Goodbye.”
Alice glanced at her watch. It was 2:21 p.m. In a few hours Vera would have verified that she had plugged the flash drive into David’s computer.
She might get Melissa back tonight. The thought made Alice’s heart soar with joy.
What about the girl that was believed to be Melissa? Her killer would go unpunished.
Who murdered that poor girl? Was it Vera? Her father? Kevin Munroe?
What if Vera broke her promise? There was nothing that could stop her from doing it, was there?
What can I do to make Vera give Melissa back to me?
She could kidnap Bobby.
She could kidnap Natalie Walsh.
She could find out where Vera was holding Melissa, and rescue her. And she would kill Vera and her accomplices so they wouldn’t bother her again.
Andrew Walsh probably knew where Melissa was held. Making him talk would be hard but not impossible. She could torture him.
What else could she do?
She could poison Walsh and then offer him an antidote in exchange for information about Melissa’s location.
It was a good idea.
She needed a poison that killed in a few hours and had an antidote. What poisons were used in Agatha Christie’s books? Cyanide. Belladonna. Strychnine.
What if Walsh didn’t believe that he’d been poisoned?
He would believe when he began to feel the effects of the poison.
Would she let Walsh die if he didn’t tell her where Melissa was held?
Yes, she would, and it would be his own fault that he died.
2
Alice found the spy camera she had ordered in the mailbox when she got home.
At six o’clock, she dialed Vera’s number on the disposable phone. Her call went to voice mail.
David came home at ten past six and suggested they go to the movies.
“I’m tired,” Alice said. “Let’s go tomorrow.”
She searched the website of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children for Caucasian girls who had gone missing in California, Arizona, and Nevada between June 20 and June 27 and got two hits: Angelina Wilcox and Lindsey Goodrich. Angelina Wilcox was seventeen years old and two inches taller than Melissa. Lindsey Goodrich, who’d gone missing in Fresno on June 26, was fourteen, had the same hair color as Melissa, was the same height as Melissa, and weighed almost the same as Melissa. Lindsey might be the girl that was believed to be Melissa.
Alice did some research and decided not to give Walsh real poison. There were a number of poisons that took a few hours to kill, but it was hard to predict when exactly death would occur (she didn’t want Walsh to die just when he was about to tell her Melissa’s location).
She would give Walsh something that would make him nauseous, and say it was poison.
At eight o’clock, nervous and impatient, Alice went for a walk. Ten minutes after she left David’s apartment, the disposable phone rang. It was Vera.
“Hi, Alice.”
“Have you verified that I plugged your flash drive into David’s computer?”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m outside.”
“Yes, I have verified that you plugged the flash drive into David’s computer. You’ll get Melissa back tomorrow morning.”
“Why not tonight?”
“I’m busy tonight.”
“How are we going to do it?”
“I’ll drop her off by your place.”
“My house?”
“David’s apartment building. Don’t tell David about the flash drive.”
“Okay.”
“If the cops find out about the flash drive, you and David will go to prison for a very long time. Do you understand, Alice?”
“Yes. What do you want me to do with the flash drive?”
“Throw it away. Goodbye, sis.” Vera hung up.
Would she really get Melissa back tomorrow?
Alice told herself not to get her hopes up.
She went to her car, took the flash drive out of the glove compartment, and then tossed it in a Dumpster behind David’s building.
Chapter 49
1
Alice began to scream, and then she awoke. She’d had a bad dream. Vera and Melissa had been in it, and that was all she could remember about it right now.
Alice looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand. 7:24.
David lay beside her, asleep.
Alice closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t. She got out of bed, grabbed her phone and the disposable phone, and went into the kitchen, where she filled the coffeemaker with water and coffee and turned it on.
In the dream, Vera tried to abduct Melissa again. Alice remembered Vera pushing Melissa into a van.
What color was the van? Alice didn’t remember.
She paced the living room for a minute, then sat on the couch for a few minutes, and then poured herself a mug of coffee.
It could happen. Vera could abduct Melissa again.
After checking to make sure the phones weren’t on silent or vibrate, Alice walked to the window and looked out. There was no one in the street.
She should kill Vera, Andrew Walsh, and Kevin Munroe.
Walsh might get a new identity and leave San Jose, so she had to interrogate and kill him as soon as possible.
David woke up at nine o’clock.
“Have you decided when you’ll hold a fake funeral for Vera’s son?” he asked Alice.
“No, I haven’t.”
“You think the police have enough evidence to put Vera in jail?”
Alice shrugged. “I don’t know.”
2
David stood up. “I’m going to fry some eggs. Are you hungry?”
“No.”
Alice glanced at the wall clock. 10:06.
Hurry the fuck up, Vera!
David went into the kitchen.
Vera had said she’d drop Melissa off in the morning, hadn’t she?
Alice picked up the disposable phone and sent Vera a text saying: “Are you close?”
When the eggs began to sizzle in the kitchen, Alice’s cellphone rang. It was Walter.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Hi, Alice. Will you be home at one o’clock?”
“Yes.”
“You still have my gun?”
“Yes, I do. I’m staying at my boyfriend’s.” She told Walter David’s address.
“Can I meet him?”
“Sure.”
She would ask Walter to help her interrogate Walsh.
As David set the table, Alice told him that her father wanted to meet him.
“When?” David asked.
“Today at one o’clock. He’s coming to pick up his gun.”
“I have an idea. Let’s go to a shooting range today.”
“You want to shoot my gun?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
Alice looked out the window. There was a girl standing on the sidewalk, but she was too small to be Melissa.
Spies were very cautious people. Vera would drop Melissa off at a distance from David’s building for fear that the police might be watching the area.
Hurry the fuck up, you bitch!
“The guys at my lab like you,” David said.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
Alice drank the last of her coffee. When she set the mug down, the disposable phone rang. It was an unknown number.
Her heart hammering, Alice accepted the call.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hi. Is this Aunt Alice?” It was Melissa.
“Yes.” Alice got up.
“It’s Melissa. Can you open the door?”
Alice hurried to the front door and opened it. The hallway was empty. “Where are you?”
“I’m downstairs.”
Alice pressed the unlock button on the intercom. “Wait for me in the lobby.”
Trembling with excitement, she ran down the stairs three steps at a time. Melissa was standing by the elevator with a big black suitcase beside her. She had on white shorts and a light blue top.
Alice smiled. “Hi, honey.” She wrapped her arms around the girl, her eyes filling with tears. “Where did Vera drop you off?”