Phantom Instinct (9780698157132)

by Gardiner, Meg

  “Harper has four minutes left in the hour Travis gave her. We’re booming. Just catch up. If you—”

  The call went dead.

  “Dammit.” She redialed but got a No Service message. “Stinking desert. They’re out of range.”

  She handed Oscar her phone. “Keep trying him.”

  He wiped his nose and pressed REDIAL, then shook his head.

  “Tell me something,” Sorenstam said.

  He looked at her with suspicion.

  “Harper’s employee swipe card. She gave it to me. She suspected that it was used by the shooters to get into Xenon.”

  “Why would she think that?”

  “Why would you think it wasn’t?”

  He gave her a sidelong stare. Shook his head.

  Sorenstam said, “Harper says Zero paid you a visit intending to murder you.”

  “That’s harsh. That word.”

  “Kill you? Eliminate you? Exterminate? Waste you?”

  He raised his hands. “I get the picture. Just don’t make me picture it.”

  She did a double take. Half laughed. “Harper said there’s only one reason Zero would be after you. To shut you up because you forged a copy of her card.”

  “I ain’t saying nothing about that.”

  “Mr. Sierra, I don’t care about your role in the swipe card forgery. I just need some corroborating evidence, so I can know once and for all whether Harper is telling the truth, or trying to mess with me and the department for her own reasons.”

  “Harper has no reason to mess with somebody like you.” He was sunk in the seat, but straightened. “She stopped rolling on my side of the street years ago. She went legit. Hell, she’s the only person I could think to turn to when I needed help today.”

  He nodded and then realized this might not send the message he’d intended. “Wait, that came out wrong. She’s the person I trusted—not because she’s still working for Zero, but because she went straight. I knew Zero wouldn’t expect me to reach out to her.”

  “So what’s up with the swipe card?”

  He went quiet again.

  Irked, she told him to scroll through her recent calls and find the number for Spartan Security Systems. It was past the close of business, but she had him dial Tom White’s direct line. She took the phone and put it to her ear. It rang, then the call was forwarded. When it was finally answered, the connection was fuzzy and intermittent.

  “This is Tom White. Detective, what can I do for you?”

  “Any luck recovering data from that swipe card?”

  “Afraid not. Our data forensics team has come up empty.”

  “Even though you have the employee number?”

  “It’s been a year since the fire. They don’t think there’s any way to match it.”

  “There must be some corresponding data left to compare it to.”

  “Detective, there’s no record of where any swipe cards were used that night. Every device they touched was damaged or destroyed.”

  He sounded more definite now than he had thirty seconds earlier. She wondered if he was trying to let her down easy, or to give up too easy.

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d continue to try.” She ended the call.

  Oscar was drumming his thumbs against his legs. “About that call.”

  “What about it?”

  He continued to drum his thumbs against his thighs. He seemed to be weighing his options.

  “Oscar, I’m your best shot here,” she said. “I’m the only one who might be able to protect you—and I mean from Zero and from prosecution. If you provide me with information, you might be able to leverage that.”

  He squirmed. “Harper’s swipe card. I take it you want to know where and when it was used at Xenon the night of the fire.”

  “Harper suspects it was used to give the gunmen access through a back door.”

  “If it was—and I’m not saying it was her card, but if a card with all the identifying characteristics of hers was used that night—who’s that guy telling you all the data was lost?”

  “You heard that?”

  “A few words. Hey, I’m offering to help you hack this problem. Don’t diss me, man.”

  “All right. The swipe cards are dumb cards, right?” she said. “They contain identifying data that other devices can read. But they don’t build a record of when or where or how they’re used.”

  “That’s correct,” he said. “What are you trying to find out?”

  “Whether Harper’s card—either the real one or the clone—was used on the back door around the time the gunmen entered the club.”

  “You haven’t been able to get that information because . . .”

  “Xenon’s computer systems uploaded all the data only once an hour, to an on-site server. From there, it was sent at the end of each day to a central site owned by the company that handled security for the club.”

  “Company didn’t do such a great job,” he said. “They should have some liability.”

  She gave him an incredulous stare. “Says the man who helped the bad guys get in.”

  “Whoa.” He raised his hands. “Slow down. That’s a harsh suggestion.”

  “You know that’s what this is all about.”

  “I don’t hurt people. Not ever. That’s not my bag. No way.”

  “So what did you expect to happen?” she said.

  “I’m not saying anything was supposed to happen. Nothing. Nada.” His voice rose and he scooted backward. “This is not supposed to be an interrogation.”

  “You’re right. It’s not. Stop trying to screw yourself through the seat and into the floor.”

  They crested the pass and headed into a lightless expanse.

  Sorenstam said, “Let’s back up. I was talking about the security system at Xenon. Let’s stick to technical data.”

  “Good. Yeah.”

  He looked at her with dark hurt in his eyes, as if she’d pulled a chair out from under him. Well, he needed to get real.

  “You answer my nonaccusatory questions about technical stuff, and then we’ll talk about what else you might say and how I can protect you from the people who want you dead.”

  He hunched again. “I’m not a snitch.”

  “Of course not. But I’m just a detective with a degree in political science. I need a lesson in Data for Dummies.” She squinted at the road. “Spartan Security Systems installed the key card system at Xenon. They lost all the data that evening because the fire destroyed the locks, computer chips, and wiring at the club before it could sync with their system.”

  “That’s what they said?” Oscar asked.

  “Their locks were keyed to a central system at the club via Wi-Fi. That was hard-linked in their computer room, and from there to Spartan. We checked. All the video camera footage was destroyed. That’s why nobody knows for sure whether there were two shooters, or three as Harper and Aiden claim. Or four, riding the horses of the apocalypse.”

  Oscar was quiet for a minute. “It doesn’t sound right.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “That all evidence was destroyed. No backup systems? Everything on-site? When they had a hard link to the security company? Come on. Every business that has a burglar and fire alarm is hardwired to send emergency messages straight to a central control room at the company. 24/7.”

  “And that’s the way Xenon worked. Except the employee swipe cards were on a different system,” Sorenstam said. “They weren’t tied into the alarm system. They were designed for inventory control, to prevent petty thievery, and to control access to various entrances in the building.”

  Oscar was sitting taller, tapping his thumbs harder against his knees. “I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “No way. You know your smartphone?”

  “What about it?”r />
  “Earlier, Harper was talking about cloud computing services. They automatically synchronize between devices. You enter a party in your calendar on your phone and it shows up on your computer at home. Your game scores sync up. Your books are on all your devices and when you switch from one to the other, your bookmarks are saved, so it opens to the very same page.”

  “Right.”

  “Spartan Security saves all their data the same way. Has to. It’s all got to be there in the cloud.”

  “But Spartan only synched once every twenty-four hours.”

  “You sure about that?”

  She went quiet, driving through the empty night. She redialed Tom White and put the phone to her ear, struggling to hear him through the poor connection.

  “Got a question,” she said.

  He hesitated. “Shoot.”

  “I know you didn’t originally handle the Xenon account. Could you go back through Spartan’s records and see if there’s a chance that data was uploaded to your cloud services the night of the fire?”

  “All right.” He sounded less enthusiastic than he had earlier. “Detective, I’ll get on it first thing in the morning.”

  “I need it tonight.”

  After a heavy pause, he said, “I’ll call our technician on duty.”

  “I need it in the next fifteen minutes, Mr. White.”

  “Really? This can’t wait?”

  “It’s an emergency. I need an answer now,” she said.

  “Fine. Yes, ma’am. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Now, as in right now.”

  “Got it. I’m at your beck and call. Ticktock.”

  He hung up. Sorenstam kept driving, her hand rigid on the wheel.

  “Oh, my God,” she said.

  The thrum of the engine vibrated through Harper’s hands, into her chest, all the way through her. The headlights swept across the empty road. There was nothing—not even jackrabbits or tumbleweeds. She was overdriving the lights, massively, but didn’t slow down. The clock on the dash showed the time.

  None left.

  Aiden said, “Stop. This is it.”

  She braked hard, the MINI almost sliding to a stop. The scenery seemed to keep rushing past. Her vision was throbbing.

  “I don’t see anything. Where are they?” she said.

  Aiden scrutinized the roadway in the moonlight, the rocky hillside ascending to their right, the drop-off to their left. The road was pocked with potholes, the white lines chipped and faded.

  He nodded ahead. “What’s that?”

  She edged forward. The headlights caught the reflection of metal and glass in the scrub a few yards off the shoulder of the road.

  It was the rusting hulk of an abandoned big rig with a trailer attached. It had run off the asphalt and tipped on its side.

  “Keep your high beams on,” Aiden said.

  “Let them know I’m here, but keep them from seeing into the car?” she said.

  “Exactly.”

  Her new burn phone rang.

  “Answer it,” he said.

  She could hardly see. Forty-five miles in one hour; they’d done it.

  She pushed the button. “I’m here. On time.”

  Travis said, “What do you want, a cookie?”

  “You coming?”

  “Where’s Oscar?”

  She breathed deep to slow her heartbeat. Ahead, past the high beams, the road faded to black. They saw nobody, only the icy splash of the stars and the twinkle of electric lights from the floor of Antelope Valley, ten miles to the north.

  “He’s with me,” she said.

  She had to play this cool, and now came the moment when she realized that improvising at full speed, with a clock counting down, had left no room for maneuvering. She had no time to think of anything clever, no way to find an out. She had to clear her head and play it right. First time or nothing.

  “I’m here. Where are you?” she said.

  Aiden was sitting low in the seat, scanning the road ahead, the hills, the view from the side mirror, hoping not to see Zero rise up from the dirt and descend on them. He held his HK, aimed at the floor.

  Travis said, “Send Oscar out.”

  Lie. Balls to the wall. Drive it like you stole it. “Nope.”

  She opened her door. She got out, walked to the front of the car, and stood in the headlights.

  She held the phone to her ear. “Oscar thinks I’m taking him to meet a friend who’ll drive him across the border into Mexico. He thinks I’m helping him get away from you. If I send him out here into the desert all alone, he’ll know something’s squirrely.” The headlights hit her in the back, just above the knees, and sent her shadow jutting ahead on the asphalt. “So I can’t talk to him about Piper. I can’t make it obvious that there’s going to be an exchange. We need to do this quietly.”

  “Oscar go quietly?” Travis said. “The guy can’t even take a quiet piss.”

  Did he believe her? “After he smoked his second fatty tonight, he stopped talking and started staring at the stars. You have a small window here, Travis. He’s half-baked. But Oscar half-baked is still ten times smarter than most ordinary mortals. Ask Zero how slippery he is and how fast he can run.”

  Travis was silent. She took that as further assent.

  “Show me Piper. Once I see her, I’ll tell Oscar to get out, that she’s his ride.”

  Travis seemed to be considering her proposal.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” he replied, and she knew this was going to screw her. “Let me see that Oscar’s with you. Then I’ll tell you where to go next.”

  “Next? Goddammit, Travis.”

  He didn’t actually laugh, just emitted a harsh heh. But his voice took on a singsong lilt, cheery and soaked in bile.

  “You thought we were going to be waiting for you?” he said. “Aren’t you the naive, eager beaver. I needed to make sure you were on your own, that you weren’t dragging any cops or police helicopters behind you when you came over the pass.”

  “Stop dicking around.”

  “Keep talking like that to me and you’ll regret it,” he said.

  She had to keep talking to him like that. Had to keep strength in her voice, even though her legs felt like yarn, and fear crawled down her arms like a host of spiders.

  “I’m here, Travis. I’m about to screw over Oscar, somebody I’ve known since I was a kid. I’m in a pissy mood. All I want is to see Piper and take her home.”

  “Then walk over to that wrecked truck.”

  She hesitated. The hills swallowed the light, even the moonlight. The wreck was rusted and keeling, full of sharp edges and places where Zero could hide.

  She started walking, the headlights illuminating her path. Her knees felt loose.

  For Piper. For Drew.

  She got ten yards from the wreck and stopped. The spiders seemed to skitter along her arms and down her legs. Where was Travis? Uphill along the top of a ridge, with a pair of high-powered binoculars? Sitting on a boulder beside Zero, holding a night scope on a high-powered rifle? She walked another fifteen feet.

  In her ear, Travis said, “Smile for the camera.”

  It took her a minute to see it: a miniature video camera with a green light pinpointed on the top, facing the road.

  He wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere nearby. And neither was Piper.

  41

  The desert night seemed to fold over on itself and capture Harper, pressing down.

  “Travis . . .” You snake. You heartworm. She forced herself not to scream at him. “You see me. You know I’m here. I have Oscar. Nobody’s following. Let’s get this over with.”

  “I need to ask Oscar some questions first.”

  “Do that and he’ll bolt into the desert before I can blink. I told you, he
thinks I’m taking him to meet a friend—”

  “Who’s going to drive him to Mexico for free surfing and endless fine Cuervo Gold. Have it your way. Look under the camera. There’s a set of zip ties and enough rags to make a blindfold and a gag. Restrain Oscar and then we’ll get going.”

  How the hell was that supposed to work? “Can’t do it.”

  “You’d better.”

  She stepped closer to the camera. On the dirt behind it, she saw a Baggie with the ties and rags.

  “Travis, take a look behind me. I’m driving a MINI. Even if I restrain Oscar, the car’s so small he’d be able to kick me, elbow me, even head-butt me despite a gag and blindfold and makeshift handcuffs.”

  “Cuff him to the door handle or the glove box.”

  “No loops to slide the zip ties through. Listen to me. He’d either run us off the highway into a ravine or get the door open and throw himself out. Do you want him dead? I don’t really think so. He knows too much you want him to tell you before you kill him. You need him alive.”

  There was a pause, and maybe a sigh. “Then we’ll go with Plan Z.”

  On the phone came scuffling sounds. A new voice. “Harper?”

  Her skin abruptly felt so cold it burned. “Piper. Honey, I’m coming.”

  “Hurry. God, please, I am so—”

  That was all she said. Travis came back on.

  “You apparently need motivating, Flynn. So listen to this.”

  Through the phone came sounds of a struggle. Piper cried out. “No. Omigod, what are you . . . oh Jesus stop, stop . . .”

  “Travis!” Harper yelled.

  “Shh,” he said. “Don’t want to spook poor Oscar now.”

  “What are you doing to her?”

  In the background, Piper screamed. It sounded unearthly, riven with shock and fear and some unraveling realization. Harper turned toward the car. The headlights blinded her. Piper’s voice crashed into sobs.

  “What have you done?” Harper said.

  “Given you a choice,” Travis said.

  “What?”

  “To save her life, or not. All up to you.”

  “Travis.”

  Piper’s broken cries filled the phone. She said, “They cut me.”