All Bets Are Off: A Samantha True Novel

by Rose, Kristi

  I said. “Other than the window being broken, nothing else is damaged. Nothing is missing. What if it’s because they didn’t get what they were looking for?”

  “What if it was a junkie and they were looking for things to pawn?” Leo countered.

  “Wouldn’t you expect the junkie to take the snacks?”

  “I would have,” Toby inserted. “Snacks at any time of the day sound good.”

  Leo nodded once and knocked on the door a second time, using more force.

  A young waifish woman with pale skin, straight shiny white teeth, and dreadlocks contained by a light pink Slap cap, answered the door. She sported yoga pants and a tank with no bra. She didn’t have much of a chest but still….

  “Is something amiss?” She smiled at all of us but brightened when she saw Toby.

  Toby said, “Ruby, this is Samantha.” He pointed to me. “She’s Carson’s wife.”

  Leo cleared his throat and shot me quick glance before returning his focus to Ruby. He introduced himself and said, “I have a few questions for you. The office next door was broken into. I’m wondering if you heard anything or if you might have been burglarized as well?”

  “Can we come in?” Not waiting for a response, I stepped into the small foyer, essentially pushing her back.

  Her smile fell, replaced by confusion on her face. “Toby has a key. You can come in whenever. This is a shared space.” She moved to let the men in. “Did you say the place next door was broken into?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Leo said.

  “Oh, my Goddess, that’s scary,” Ruby said, wrapping her arms around her front.

  Leo closed the door behind us then pulled Ruby aside to ask her further questions.

  In the small corridor were two doors. One opened into the studio and the other was labeled supply closet. Toby used a key to open the door to the supply closet.

  “What? No keypad?” My question was heavy with sarcasm.

  “Too suspicious, Carson said,” replied Toby.

  Inside were a row of four metal shelves loaded with paper towels, toilet paper, printer paper, and the other typical overflow items. Toby waved me in and down the row. He pulled the shelf with paper towels away from the wall, and behind it was what looked to be an indentation. Upon closer inspection, it became clear the indentation was really a handle painted to match the wall color. It blended perfectly.

  Toby pulled the handle and tugged the door open, exposing a set of stairs. Toby reached in and hit something on the wall. A light popped on and illuminated the way. A layer of fine dust danced through the air, disrupted by the door’s opening. Another thin layer blanketed the stairs.

  “It looks undisturbed,” I said.

  “It does,” Leo said behind me.

  I faced him. “Where’s the dance lady?”

  “Ruby,” Leo and Toby said in unison.

  Leo continued, “She’s in her studio. She’s spooked by the break-in. She wasn’t here when it happened but she’ll keep her eyes peeled for any strangers coming around.” He gestured for me to go up the stairs.

  The room at the top had a small windowless alcove, furnished with another card table and a folding chair. A light silver box the size of two large shoeboxes sat humming on the table. It looked like five hard drives stacked side by side. Red lights blinked at various intervals and a tiny blue backlit screen sat next to it.

  “What’s all this?” I pointed to the equipment. I’d never seen a setup like this.

  Toby gestured to the small screen. “That’s an LCD.” He put his hand on the silver box. “For you laypeople, this is our cloud.” He did air quotes around the word cloud.

  My brain was on overload. I didn’t even bother to ask to have that explained.

  “I’m going to need a list of your clients,” Leo said to Toby then turned to me. “What was Carson doing that required encryption at this level? No offense, but I wasn’t aware this was some high-end security firm with deep-pocket, high-profile clients. Most people with a business at this level use a file hosting company. Carson didn’t. He kept that in house to the tune of several thousand dollars.” Leo pointed to several of the boxes.

  I shrugged. This was way over my head. “He was in security. Maybe he thought he should practice what he preached.”

  Leo looked skeptical then turned his attention to Toby. “About that client list.”

  Toby hemmed and hawed. “There’s a confidentiality thingy. I’m not sure I can do that. That’s Sam’s call.”

  I recalled what Toby had said, how Carson had been particular about protecting people’s privacy. Part of me wanted to say Leo could have access to everything. I was washing my hands of it. But that didn’t seem fair to the clients. They didn’t know Carson was…less than upstanding.

  The guys waited for me to answer. Toby looked worried, nervous, fidgeting with his vape pen, likely because he was afraid I wouldn’t continue to do things the way Carson had established. Leo looked smug. Like he knew I’d give the list to him.

  I blew out a heavy sigh. What I wanted and the right thing weren’t meshing here.

  “I’m going to need a list of clients, too,” I said to Toby. Before he could protest, I faced Leo and said, “Let me go through the list and see if anything unusual pops up. Because, correct me if I’m wrong, don’t you need a warrant to get my client list?” Carson had gone to great lengths to protect his client list. That much was clear. Those clients didn’t deserve to have their dirty laundry aired because Carson died.

  Leo’s expression hardened. Then he surprised me by not insulting me. “I don’t like this Samantha,” Leo said, looking around. “Parts aren’t adding up here, and you might be smack in the middle of it. I’m concerned for your safety. Hand over your phone. I’m going to put my number in your contacts.” Leo’s uneasiness warmed me, bringing my attention to how cold and numb I was. I rubbed my hands over my arms.

  “Everything will be okay.” I said with false optimism, but gave him my phone anyway. “Things will settle down soon enough.”

  Disoriented was my current state of awareness, like a blind person trying to navigate their way in an unfamiliar land with unknown dangers. Ignoring the state of my life and hoping it would go away wasn’t going to happen. Whether I liked it or not, and I absolutely did not like it, this was my life right now. I hated Carson for thrusting me into this.

  Leo’s expression was skeptical. He surveyed the room, his gaze sweeping over the high-tech computer equipment. He took something from the shelf and handed it to me.

  “This is a stun gun. Charge it and keep it on you at all times. I don’t like that someone has to be close for you to use it, but with the way things are going…”

  “I don’t think I’ll need this,” I said.

  He pointed to a shelf that held two palmed-size light gray cubes. “Those are jammers. They block Wi-Fi or phone signals. They’re illegal. I thought your husband put in security systems? Made people feel safe?”

  I gripped the stun gun. “Me, too. Turns out, right under my nose, he was running a completely different business than I believed.” I left it unsaid that somewhere in a different city he had been also living a different life.

  7

  Saturday

  Toby and I arranged to come by my house to check my firewall, online security, and show me how to access the cloud and the client list. This would all have to happen after his on-demand private driver job and the time he took off to get high responsibly. Apparently, the hours between 12:30 pm and 4:30 pm he went home to chill, smoke weed, binge eat, and binge watch TV.

  “Like clockwork,” Leo had mumbled.

  After dropping Precious off, I drove to Lockett’s office building. I stood in the apex of my open car door, debating if I wanted to go in or not. My gut told me he knew more than he was letting on. He acted as if he was simply the messenger from family number one, but something wasn’t adding up. His warnings to stay away from anything related to Carson, to separate myself as much as possi
ble, bugged me. It wasn’t as if I could erase the memories of anyone who knew I married Carson and forget this ever happened. Lockett even warned me to stay as far away from himself, too. That didn’t make sense. And when Precious arrived, he’d known her nickname. Try as I might, the pieces from yesterday didn’t add up, and I wanted to know why.

  I slammed the door and made my way into the office building. I avoided the elevator because I didn’t want to be around anyone and wasn’t fit for polite company, The elevator had mirrors on all sides of the car to prove it. I climbed the three flights of stairs, then paused at the top landing to catch my breath before I entered the hallway.

  At the far end was Lockett’s office. The floor was quiet, some of the offices empty, something I hadn’t noticed yesterday. The lights were off at Lockett’s. I glanced at my watch. It was the middle of the day. Had he and his secretary gone for a late lunch? Was he closed on Saturdays?

  The door was slightly ajar so I pushed it open to find the office empty. Not only empty of people but empty empty. No computers. No pictures on the walls. No pen and pencil holders or staplers.

  Had I hallucinated yesterday?

  I moved to the secretary’s desk and rubbed my hand over the top. No dust. Which didn’t mean anything because the building might have a cleaning service come in routinely. But it could also mean that yesterday someone sat at this desk and impersonated a secretary. My spidey senses pinged, and my stomach clenched with unease.

  I wasn’t crazy, and the only time in my life I’d ever hallucinated was when Carson and I had hiked twenty miles on the Loowitz Trail on Mt. St. Helen’s and I’d crawled into my sleeping bag ready to pass out. The bursts of flashing light I’d seen hadn’t been a UFO but exhaustion. Yesterday was nothing like that night on the trail. Yesterday was real.

  A bang like the sound of a drawer slamming shut came from Lockett’s office.

  “Hello?” I called and leaned sideways to peek into the dark space.

  Nothing. But the hair on the back of my neck stood, and goosebumps shimmied their way across my arms. I wasn’t alone.

  I narrowed my eyes. It was probably Lockett. He knew it was me and was hiding. Coward.

  Just in case, I tucked my ignition key between my index and middle finger with the metal part sticking out like a dagger. My plan was to jab and run if need be. I cursed myself for leaving the stun gun Leo had forced upon me in LC.

  “I have some questions for you, Lockett,” I said and stepped toward the door.

  A large man rushed out from the room. He was dressed in all black and moved so fast he was a blur. He thrust out one arm and flung me out of his way. I lost my footing and wind-milled my arms in a weak attempt to regain my balance. The keys dropped from my hand. I fell backward into the floor, slamming my left wrist on the secretary’s desk as I went back. Sharp pains shot up my arm. My bag caught on the door handle and ripped the strap as I went down, separating it from the bag. I caught sight of blurry man’s backside as he fled the office. Dark hair, cut close military style. Over six foot. Not Lockett.

  After picking myself up off the floor, I peeked into Lockett’s office. The man who’d run me down had been going through desk drawers and the filing cabinet. But they were empty. This wasn’t Lockett’s office, never had been. It had been a stage. Did that mean Carson wasn’t dead? Was he in on this? I left Lockett’s office in a rush, more confused than ever. Nothing in the last twenty-four hours was adding up or making any sort of sense.

  I sat in my idling Jeep, my torn bag in my lap, and scanned the parking lot. All day I’d had this sense of being watched, but every time I looked around, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Nothing had shown up on the video Precious took while we were at the office either.

  I wondered about the man in Lockett’s pretend office. Had Lockett played him, too? If so, I hoped my unexpected arrival told him he wasn’t alone.

  One thing for sure, I wasn’t getting anywhere by sitting in this parking lot. I needed to tell my parents before word spread. Denial was a beautiful thing, but eventually people would start talking about Carson’s absence. If Carson was alive and these events were some terrible and cruel game, then he could suffer the consequences should he reappear.

  Exasperated, I shook my head. Believing all this took more than I was capable of because to do so meant I had to face some ugly truths.

  My father’s newspaper office sat on the square in downtown Wind River. Many of the town’s citizens were baby boomers who preferred to get their news the old school way so readership wasn’t an issue. The paper itself was divided into three parts: straight up unbiased news including sports (sports was totally biased), a lifestyle section that was equal parts events and town gossip, and the classifieds. The Wind River Gazette was housed in a two-story building on the south side of the main square. The paper itself took up the first floor. The second floor, with its separate entrance from outside, was a small studio apartment where I’d resided until Carson and I’d taken the townhouse.

  My folks listed the apartment on Airbnb and enjoyed renting to out-of-towners, saying they were doing their part to bring in tourism dollars. But Wind River didn’t have a large grocery or fancy restaurant, only a bar and grille and a small market, so people often took their tourism dollars into Vancouver.

  An on-street parking spot a block from the paper was open, forcing me to parallel park. Using the corner of an old hoodie I’d forgotten was in LC and a half-drunk years-old water bottle that had been rolling around on the floor, I cleaned off my face and attempted to smooth down my hair. Looking slightly less disheveled but still with dark bags under my eyes that would require a pound of makeup to cover, I made my way to the newspaper.

  Inside, Stella MacInerney manned the front desk and performed a bajillion other jobs at the paper. The Wind River Gazette was essentially a three-man show, newspaper delivery guys aside. Dad was the reporter for all sections, paying freelancers by the word for human interest and other articles. Dan Dix ran the IT department which included the website and the layout for the paper. The actual printing was outsourced to a larger newspaper printer in Vancouver. Stella ran everything else.

  She was an average-sized, middle-aged woman with long curly brown hair and pale skin. Today she stood staring out the window.

  “Hey, hun, how are you this morning?” She scanned me up and down before her attention returned to something outside the large plate glass window.

  I shrugged. “I’ve been better.”

  “Take Echinacea,” she said distractedly. “Or dot Thieves on your pulse points.”

  If it wasn’t an herb, it was an essential oil that Stella believed to be the cure for any ailment.

  I stepped up next to her. “Stella, is something going on?” I moved to the window but she grabbed my arm and pulled me away toward her crescent-shaped desk.

  “Don’t look,” she said. “I’ve been watching a guy out there for the last thirty minutes.”

  “Is he hot?”

  Stella liked her men. She’d put three in the grave because she liked them older. Said they were more mature. Stella was an outdoor enthusiast and would drag the out of shape, stationary beaus of hers out to hike, paddle, bike, or whatever, trying to get them healthy. Heart attack was the usual cause of death, but Dad said they likely died from exhaustion.

  “He’s creepy,” she said, hurrying behind her desk. “Parallel parked on one try and has been sitting there ever since. He watches everyone on the street, and I’ve seen him look over here a lot. A lot, a lot. Know what I mean?”

  “Yeah,” I said, troubled. “You mean like he’s watching the place.”

  She nodded while searching through her drawer for something. She came out with a small essential oil vial and dumped some onto her hands. After tossing the vial back in the drawer, she rubbed her hands together then stuck her nose into her cupped hands and breathed deeply. Wafts of vanilla filled the air.

  “He’s making you nervous?”

  Stella said
the scent of vanilla was naturally calming. “I have a bad feeling.” She did a few more deep breaths. Like me, Stella liked true crime books and podcasts. “Go get a paper and check him out. Tell me what you think.”

  By the large window were two chairs and a table with the latest edition. I did as she said, and while bending to grab a paper, checked out the guy. He was easy to find as he was the only person sitting in their car.

  Tall, dark, and hard to see through the tinted windows of his dark SUV. Fortunately, rain clouds had moved in and were blocking the sun, so I could make out the basics. He was similar to the guy who’d knocked me down at Lockett’s, but I’d need to see him from behind to be sure. He did sport the same military precision haircut.

  He lowered the window, and his gaze held mine. I forgot to breathe. If this was the same guy from Lockett’s, he was angry if the sharp and menacing look on his buzzard-like features were any indication. I didn’t believe in coincidences, and my gut told me this was the same dude from earlier, but I couldn’t explain why he was sitting outside my dad’s paper.

  “Samantha?” Stella said.

  Instinct kicked in. On autopilot, I swiped my finger across my phone’s screen to activate the camera, then aimed. I put my finger on the button and snapped several shots. He didn’t have to know the glare off the window made his image appear hazy and out of focus.

  He gave me a finger wave and a smile that sent chills down my spine, but not wanting him to know he’d spooked me, I finger-waved back and took another picture. Maybe his image would be a clue for the cops should I unexpectedly turn up dead, too.

  8

  Saturday

  “Sam,” Stella said again.

  I snatched the paper, spun on my heel, and walked shakily to her desk.

  “Do you know him?” She held out her hands for me to take a calming whiff.