Both Ends Burning (Whistleblower Trilogy Book 3)

by Jim Heskett

  I closed my eyes to focus as I crawled on my hands and knees to the door that would lead into the house. The tiles felt good on my hands, probably warmed by some expensive under-the-floor heating system.

  I don’t know why I despised the affluent so much.

  I inched my head up until I could see inside. Through the glass panels in the door, I spied a kitchen, with some running lights above the cabinets, casting the room in a dim amber glow. I pressed my ear against the glass and listened. Couldn’t hear anything.

  I reached up and gripped the knob. It twisted in my hand.

  I let go, realizing that if I turned that knob and was wrong about my alarm guess, the whole mission would end right there. I’d have to run for the fence as a blaring siren pounded in my ears. Or, even worse, Edgar could have a silent alarm on the house.

  But what choice did I have? I was here. I was committed.

  “Okay, Candle,” I whispered. “Time to man up and do this. Pick your balls up off the floor and get inside.”

  I twisted the knob, opened the door, and nothing happened. Just the hum of the fridge broke the silence of the room. My eyes flicked all around the kitchen, looking for blinking lights or the sound of any subtle beeping. Nothing.

  I checked the time on the phone. Gave myself five minutes to allow for the cops to show up if I’d just triggered a silent alarm.

  Taking a breath to steady my nerves, I slipped into the kitchen, full of shimmering granite and stainless steel appliances. Not a single thing out of place. Like Kareem’s house in Boulder, except much larger.

  From the kitchen, I could go two ways. A dining room to my left and a swinging door straight ahead led to something else.

  I crept forward to the swinging door and closed one eye to spy through the crack along the doorjamb. I saw a woman, sitting in a leather chair, who looked about half Edgar’s age. Daughter, maybe, or trophy wife. Tablet computer in one hand, glass of wine in the other. She was wearing a pair of fleece pants and a Michigan State sweatshirt.

  In a few seconds, the sound of footsteps thumped down some nearby stairs.

  The woman turned her head toward the sound. “Everything okay?”

  Edgar sat at a second leather chair, letting out a prolonged grunt as he sank into it. “Yes, he’s fine. He just needed his binky, and I rocked him a little bit. The doctor says we should stop swaddling him. He’s old enough.”

  “Maybe so,” she said, “but let’s hold off on that for a few days. I can’t be up half the night right now. I need my sleep before I go on my trip.”

  “Of course, dear,” Edgar said. “We’ll try it your way, for now.”

  So, trophy wife.

  “Did you set the alarm?” the woman said.

  Bolt of panic. Getting inside without triggering any loud blaring sound had given me the foolish hope that I had beaten the alarm problem. Hadn’t bothered to solve the problem of getting out yet.

  Stupid, so stupid.

  “I forgot,” Edgar said. He stood and walked out of my field of view. I heard the sound of a few beeps, and as Edgar sat back in the chair, the door I’d come in from clicked.

  I was trapped in the house.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I could have berated myself for not properly planning for the alarm, but what was I to do? I hadn’t thought any of this through. Doing anything different would be out of character for Tucker Candle.

  The fact that the doors—and probably windows—were all now set to trigger an alarm if opened didn’t change what I was here to do. I’d have to find the evidence I came for, and then deal with the alarm when it was time to go.

  With Edgar and his wife—or girlfriend, or baby mama—sitting in their reading chairs in the next room, I diverted through the kitchen and into the adjacent dining room, which was out of sight of the two of them.

  The walls of the dining room were covered in a collection of Persian rugs. An odd decorating choice for North Texas, but I assumed Edgar had money to burn. Then, a memory flicked by: standing in Wyatt Green’s IntelliCraft office a month ago, noticing he had the same kind of rug mounted to his wall. I’d thought it weird then. The patterns seemed to match. Maybe Edgar had given Wyatt that one rug as a gift.

  An open archway at the near end of the dining room led to the main hall, which I had to assume would be visible from the living room where they were sitting.

  But another, smaller arch at the far end of the dining room led away from them, so I clung to the wall as I eased down this hallway. Along one wall, cutouts for shelves were decorated with a series of vases, complete with little cards in front of them, like a museum. How rich was this guy?

  I listened for the sound of their conversations as they discussed how best to get the baby to “self-soothe,” and kept pushing down the hallway, one slow step at a time. Bathroom on the right. After that, a laundry room. A basket just inside the door contained a mass of baby clothes.

  Thought about Grace, stuck up there in Keystone, probably feeling our child kicking against her insides right now, shifting and making her have to pee. Soon enough, we’d be having those conversations about self-soothing and binkies and swaddling.

  We would if I found a way to finish what I’d started tonight. Otherwise, neither of us might live to see the birth of our son.

  I ducked into the laundry room to collect myself. Unlike the IntelliCraft building in Denver, I didn’t expect to find a server room with a bundle of cables I could climb like Indiana Jones to enter a secret vault. I only found a washer and dryer and cabinets full of toilet paper and cleaning products.

  But there had to be a second staircase somewhere. “Come on, house,” I whispered, “help me out here. Show me something.”

  I went back out into the darkness and crept further along the hallway, which ended at a door. Opened it. On the other side was a spacious room lined with mirrors all the way around. Exercise equipment spaced out across a foam mat floor. The size of this room was bigger than the entire square footage of the dojo where I practiced judo.

  And, in the back of the room, a set of stairs, lit by a single nightlight plugged into an outlet.

  Jackpot.

  I hustled across the room, foam squishing under my shoes. The stairs led both up and down, and my first impulse sent me up. To where Edgar’s office would probably be, on the second floor.

  At the top of the stairs, I turned left down a long hallway with plush carpet underfoot. Stopped at a plaque honoring Edgar with twenty years of employment with some Californian company I’d never heard of. The end date was only about five years ago. Interesting, because this meant he hadn’t been with IntelliCraft for long.

  At the first door I passed, the tinkling of mechanized lullabies floated out. I peered inside at a crib and the projected image of stars dancing across the ceiling, rotating the same constellations in a sequence. The baby fussed, on the verge of tears. I needed to get away from this room.

  To the next door and peeked inside. Looked like a guest bedroom, with pristine furnishings and a bed with perfectly folded sheets.

  Behind me, the baby started screaming.

  I ducked into the guest bedroom and pushed myself up next to the door, taking long and slow breaths to keep calm. And for some reason, the thought occurred to me that I hadn’t silenced my cell phone before coming in here. I slipped my hand into my pocket.

  It was gone.

  I leaned out into the hallway, but the sound of leather squeaking and then footsteps coming up the stairs made me pull my head back in.

  “We should let him cry,” came the woman’s voice from down the stairs.

  “Not right now,” Edgar said. “I’m coming, baby,” he said, sighing. “Hold on, just a minute, I’ll be right there.”

  What if my cell phone was sitting out in the hallway? What if he was picking it up off the carpet, right now? This was Texas, after all, so what if Edgar had a revolver strapped to his hip?

  I felt an irresistible urge to make a run for it. Jump out into
the hallway and smack Edgar in the throat with an open fist.

  But Edgar didn’t come rushing into the room. Next time I heard his voice, he sounded like he was in the baby’s room.

  “Daddy’s here.”

  I closed my eyes and counted to ten. The baby’s cries became interrupted gurgles, as if Edgar was bouncing him.

  Felt something on the leg of my jeans, and I looked down as a meaty, hairy spider was crawling across my shoe. Wolf spider, maybe, or something more sinister. I hate spiders like bankers hate government regulations.

  I stifled the urge to yelp, and instead just shook the leg of my pants a bit until the thing dropped onto the carpet. I leaned down and flicked it across the room.

  I peered out into the hallway, and the flip-phone was sitting right there, a few feet in front of the guest room. A dark rectangular island in a sea of white carpet. Even with the darkened hallway, it was plainly visible.

  “Hey now, little guy,” Edgar said in a baby-talk voice. “You don’t want to be fussy, now, do you?”

  Had to take my chance. I dropped to my knees and snatched the phone, then fell back into the room. Too much noise. I’d made too much noise.

  I held my breath as I scooted back to my spot next to the door. Edgar stopped talking.

  In a few seconds, the sounds of lullabies resumed, and then his footfalls thumped on the stairs. The spider held firm in his spot across the room.

  I waited a few more seconds, then slipped out of the guest bedroom and continued down the hall. Master bedroom on the left, and office on the right.

  Inside the office, on a grand desk, sat a computer. Couple of file cabinets up against the walls. Outside, the wind picked up, thrashing the branches of trees against the windows. Thwack. Thwack.

  I sat in a high-backed mesh captain’s chair before the computer and tapped at the keyboard. The keys felt strange with a pair of latex gloves on. In a second, the screen came to life, desktop wallpaper showing green rolling hills, with a single text entry field lit up, hovering over a hill.

  Password.

  I considered a few options. Password1. DallasSucks. IntelliCraftisEvil. What was the name of his kid? That’s usually a safe bet. But he and his wife hadn’t mentioned the name.

  Trying random words in the password field was pointless. Besides, he probably had some kind of mechanism that would wipe the hard drive after too many failed attempts. Then in some room somewhere, IntelliCraft employees get a notification of a hacking attempt, and someone calls Edgar. Then game over.

  I spun and opened the file cabinets behind me. Medical forms, tax returns, standard stuff that anyone shoves in a drawer when you don’t know what else to do with official documents.

  “Shit,” I whispered. “Come on, Edgar. Where do you keep the things you don’t want anyone to know you have? What am I looking for?”

  I checked the drawers of the desk, and the first two contained pens and staplers and paper clips. But the third one was locked. That was a good sign.

  I lifted a gold-plated letter opener from the top of the desk and jammed it into the space above the drawer. Pressed hard, using all my leverage.

  It snapped open. Too loud. I crept to the door and peered out, listened to Edgar and the woman chatting about something. Seemed okay.

  Inside the drawer, I found birth certificates, social security cards, and a key.

  A key.

  Etched into the metal: the word SENTRY. This was a safe key. Of course.

  The most logical place for a safe was either in the garage or in the basement. With the enormity of this mansion, I didn’t even know where to find the garage. So I put everything except for the key back where I found it, then returned to the stairs and took them all the way down into the basement.

  On this floor, I found a huge, unfinished room. Pipes and electrical boxes weaving through the wooden frames in front of the exposed concrete walls.

  Also, stacks of children’s toys, a row of file cabinets, and most odd: a metal thing that looked like the frame of a car. Edgar was a hobbyist, apparently, judging by the car parts arranged all around the frame. But how would he get it out of the basement?

  “Focus, Candle, focus.”

  I walked around the room, searching every nook and cranny. No safe. Then, finally, I spotted a half-sized door in one corner of the room. I ducked down and opened the door and found a black box. A safe. Except it didn’t just have a keyhole, it also had a keypad on the front.

  Shit. Same problem as the password on his computer.

  Except, this time, an idea materialized. I crept back upstairs, pausing in the gym to listen. After a full minute of Edgar’s voice staying at the same level, I went back up to his office, then opened the drawers with the birth certificates. I found the social security cards for Edgar, his wife, and his son. Studied the numbers until I was sure I’d had them memorized, then eased my way back into the basement.

  I sat in front of the safe. Inserted the key, and turned it with no problem.

  I started entering Edgar’s social security number, and the safe beeped at me, flashing a red light after I’d entered the first four digits. So, that told me I needed a four-digit code.

  The last four of the social.

  I tried Edgar’s number first. 2879. Red beep. Tried his wife’s next, 4537. Same red beep. Finally, I tried the last four digits of his son’s social security number.

  0478. Blue beep.

  I pressed the bar down to open it, and inside I saw a series of manila envelopes closed with wax seals, stacks of cash, a small leather-bound journal, and a few pieces of jewelry. No piles of cocaine or heroin, which helped nullify the theory that IntelliCraft sold drugs.

  Then the safe beeped again, and an alarm sounded.

  CHAPTER TEN

  As the safe alarm blared all around me, I panicked. Reached inside and snatched the journal and the manila envelopes, then slammed the safe shut. As the metal clicked closed, the alarm continued to bellow.

  Blont blont blont.

  Onto my feet. Jumped over the car frame, sprinted to the stairs, then up into the gym room. Heard voices echoing from all around me. I dashed across the spongy mat floor of the room as bile billowed up into my throat. I reached out to open the door, and a split second before my hand touched it, light from the hallway shone under the door. By the time I’d realized it, though, I’d thrown open the door, and on the other side, Edgar Hartford’s wife stood there, fifty feet away in the dining room. Her hand was still on the light switch.

  Our eyes met. She hesitated, blank-faced. Then her face pulled down as the whites of her eyes grew. She gulped in a breath and screamed.

  “Eddie! He’s right there!”

  Edgar, who was behind her and with his back turned away, turned to face us. I saw it happen in slow-motion, then I planted my foot and jumped left, into the laundry room. Had he seen me? With one look, he’d know who I was. He’d probably know why I was here, too.

  If he saw me, it was all over. Total failure. Death for my family.

  A door on the other side of the laundry room led outside. I raced for the door, hopped over a basket of folded clothes, and threw it open. A second alarm sounded. The two alarms competed with each other, bouncing back and forth. My ears rang and my head throbbed from the barrage of noise.

  I ran past a small concrete patio, then across the tennis court. I nearly ran straight into the net, but spun and changed course at the last second. I set my sights on a row of shrubs at the edge of the tennis court. Lifted my knees and swung my arms to run faster than I’d thought possible.

  As I tumbled over the shrubs, hidden spiked branches tearing my latex gloves to pieces, the laundry room door opened behind me. Heard some garbled yelling, then a gunshot rang out. It echoed through the night air. My foot caught on a low branch, and I landed on my face.

  I got to my feet and ran as fast as I could across the lawn as a few more gunshots added a third noise to compete with the alarms.

  Nestled in the shack
in South Point, huddled next to Omar, Glenning had claimed that Edgar was an idealist. The idealist was shooting at me and screaming bloody murder.

  I hit the edge of the property and spun to make sure he wasn’t directly behind me. Took a half second to catch my breath. I stuffed the loot down the back of my pants and scrambled up the stone pillar to reach the other side.

  I landed in a bed of mulch past the fence. My chest heaved and my hands tingled, like the sensation of sticking them in hot water after spending a long time in the cold.

  I dashed into the street, not bothering to look. I barely heard the sound of screeching tires as something pushed me and I felt my body twist. As I went sailing into the air, I stole a look at a woman behind the wheel of a white BMW, and the expression of horror on her face.

  I landed on my shoulder, the same one still sore from Jed’s blast of shotgun birdshot. I felt myself skidding along the pavement, then rolling over and bumping into the curb. My head throbbed.

  A car door open and shut. “Oh my lord, are you okay? I didn’t see you there. What are you doing running out into the street like that?”

  I looked up at a silver-haired woman with a foofy perm, clutching her purse in her hands. Pushed myself up onto my feet, felt around for broken bones. My shoulder ached, but aside from that, I seemed to be okay. Checked the back of my pants, and the goods were still there.

  I cast one look at the lady and took off in the opposite direction. She called after me, but I kept running.

  A few other houses on the street had turned on their porch lights. I put my head down and commanded my legs to work harder. Sprinted as fast as I could, as far as I could, not bothering to stop or look where I was going or pay any attention to what was behind me.

  ***

  Eventually, I came to a stop. I’d run a mile, maybe more. My pulse thumped against my neck with such a percussive ferocity that I couldn’t hear anything else, and I coughed until I thought I might choke.

  I dropped to my hands and knees and gulped air, then turned to survey the area. Felt cold and damp grass under me. Heard the sounds of cars whooshing by on a major street behind me. I focused until I could see the brakes and headlights of the cars, but no shouts came, no gunmen jumped from those cars with guns pointed at me.