Ted ran his hand through his hair. "No, but that doesn’t mean Farmer didn’t follow — just that he wasn’t seen. And if we were going to hide 'evidence' the obvious place would be here. Farmer could've figured that out without having to follow at all."
I pulled Ted's tracker out of my pocket and tossed it from hand to hand, like a baseball. "Where'd you get this thing?"
He shrugged. "An online security company. So?"
"Pretty easy to get, right? Actually, there's a spy shop near George's lawyer's office. They have all kinds of spy toys; nanny cams, night vision goggles, long-range cameras, trackers, bugs, parabolic mikes..." Ted reared back his head in surprise. I jabbed a finger at him. "That's right! I researched this. The point is, that spy gadgets aren't hard to get, right? You don't need a license to buy them?"
"Uh-huh."
"Listening devices would be as easy to come by, wouldn't they?"
He gaped. "Are you kidding me? You didn’t check for bugs after the break-in?”
Suddenly I didn’t feel so clever anymore and stammered. "No."
Ted threw up his arms and groaned. "No wonder they knew your every move." He scoffed. "Right?"
Panic clawed at my insides and I jumped to my feet. "What if he wired my place too? Those three days when I was gone, Boomer was with me. All he'd have to do is climb over the wall and walk through the front door after Zelda had gone."
Dumbfounded, Ted stared at me. "You don't lock your doors?" He smacked his forehead. "Scotti!"
I made a face at him. "Yes, I lock the doors. But Zelda barely remembers to close the door, much less lock it."
Ted grabbed his phone. "We’ve got to put a plug in this thing."
After a quick texting session with Joe and Zelda, it was decided that a couple of Ted's guys would do a sweep of Joe's office, my place, Ted's place, and our vehicles that evening.
With time to kill, I went home and tore apart the house for some early spring cleaning —secretly hoping I might find a bug. Joe and Zelda helped and complained the whole time. But what else could we do? As a reward, I baked cookies and made soup.
As promised, Ted's guys showed up to do the sweep, which took about ten minutes. After all the locations were swept, we found that the only location compromised was Joe’s. They found several bugs — in the phone, in Joe’s desk lamp, on the underside of Eric's desk and two outside on the patio. Not a full-on assault, but enough for the listeners to get an earful. We considered leaving the bugs in place so we could intentionally misdirect our listeners. But aside from getting a little self-satisfying revenge, there was no point in playing games with these people.
When the devices were removed, our listeners would realize they'd been caught and likely come up with a contingency plan. But we were in the same position because up to that point, they knew everything — our theories, our strategy, and our evidence.
We huddled at the butcher-block over coffee. "Realistically, what could they do to us?"
Zelda sighed. "I don't know. Put you in jail again? Put all of us in jail?"
Joe shook his head. "Nah, that was a one-time ploy. If I was them, I'd hightail it out of town. Cut my losses and make myself scarcer than hen's teeth."
I shook my head. "Lily's worked hard to get her hands on George's money. She's close, if she hasn't succeeded already. She won't walk away from that. Farmer might. We don't know who he is, but I doubt he's as invested as Lily. Jake has the two million from the insurance settlement so he could go anywhere he wanted." I raised my eyebrows at them. "Would they split up?" I sighed. "We don't know if they're working together — but if they are — would they?"
Zelda twisted her lips. "We might be screwed. They have everything we had. Plus if they got an earful at our last meeting they know about you and Ted breaking into Lily's place." She threw up her hands. "What we need to know is who was listening."
Joe slurped his coffee and reached for a cookie. "Ain't no way to know that, Miss Zelda. We gotta assume it was all three." He happily munched his cookie. "Or four, could be Maggie's part of the pack too."
Zelda slouched down on the counter. "Then we're screwed. Royally, totally screwed."
Joe slapped his hands together to knock off the cookie crumbs and said, "Either of you ladies know how to use a firearm?"
"What?" I squeaked. "You think they'd try to kill us?"
"Not if you're armed."
I shook my head, rejecting the idea. "No. No."
Joe lean across the counter and tapped my hand with a finger. "We may not know who, but one of them killed George. You want to leave that to chance?"
I refilled our coffee cups. "Yeah, with a brownie, not a bullet." I put the coffee pot back on the burner and slumped in my stool. "And you're right Joe, we don't know who did it. Jake? Maggie? Lily? This Farmer guy?"
"All the more reason to have the extra protection."
Chapter Fifty-Eight
All the hand-wringing about contingency plans and repercussions turned out to be unnecessary. Because everything got very quiet. We knew Lily was on to us when her tracking went offline. After that, she gave our surveillance guys the slip and disappeared. I hoped she’d left town — forever.
An out of the blue, panicked call from Manny seemed to confirm that perhaps Lily had done just that. "Where's your friend Lily?" he demanded.
I snickered. "My friend. Ah, no. She's your partner, or buyer or whatever, it's not my problem you lost track of her."
Manny whined over the phone line. "Scotti don't be that way."
"I'm sure she'll show up eventually." Actually I wasn’t sure at all and hoped she didn’t. "What are you so freaked about anyway?"
Zelda came out of the kitchen to listen my side of the conversation.
"Check, she's no good," Manny muttered.
I fought the urge to hoot and jump in the air. "Sounds like a problem."
"Hey Scotti, what about this? What about we do our deal like we never met that Lily?"
"No can do."
"How come? It's a good deal for you and me, chica."
"I bet if you thought really hard, you'd be able to figure it out, Manny. Well, good luck. Gotta go." I ended the call and grinned at Zelda. "I guess there is justice in the world after all."
Zelda made a face. "What did el jerko want?"
I started to laugh. "Lily's check bounced and he can't find her."
We both screamed like little girls and had a good laugh at Manny's expense. Then half-heartedly debated going to the diner to gloat, but I was over that particular drama, and we decided to leave Manny to flail on his own.
A couple of days later, Jake Kannanack lost the Trumball case, and the press crucified him. Maybe like Ted, he'd learn how it felt to lose big clients and a lot of money. Although Ted didn't have a two million dollar insurance check like Jake had — but hope springs eternal. Rumor had it that Jake had even hired a security team — whether to keep us at arm's length or protect himself from the media, I didn't know. But it was gratifying to see the big bully being bullied.
Nick Farmer also disappeared. We assumed he left with Lily or was hiding out with her. But the truth was, Nick Farmer was a still total mystery. Without questioning him, we'd never know how he fit into the puzzle. So all the players were in the wind and we were stuck in neutral.
I walked into the kitchen where all the copies of our evidence sat stacked on the butcher-block. I'd read it so many times that I dreamed about it. Without new leads our investigation was over. I scowled at Zelda. "Any news from Eric?" She shook her head and shrugged. I didn't say anything to Zee, but my confidence in Eric's hacker skills waned. Wasn't breaking codes what hackers did best? I threw up my hands and pushed the stack of papers aside. "I give up."
Zelda stuck her nose in the fridge. "Yeah, let's take a break. Do we have any of that soup left over from last night?"
"I don't need a break. I need to stop!"
Zelda's head came out of the fridge. "Chill out. Things will pick up again."
I hopped off my stool and closed the fridge door. "That's not what I'm saying, Zee. We need to start thinking about normal life again. Like getting jobs for example. I can't finance us with my savings forever. That money is supposed to be for the future, not groceries and rent. I'll be damned if I'm going to fritter it away chasing my tail."
Zelda nudged me aside with her hip and opened the fridge door again. "Okay, we'll find jobs. Once Eric cracks that code..."
I groaned and stomped out of the kitchen. If I heard that phrase one more time, I'd put my head in the oven. I stormed into the bedroom and pulled George's briefcase out of the closet, then brought it back to the kitchen.
Zelda hunched at the counter eating the leftover chicken I was saving for Boomer. I rolled my eyes and slammed the case down on the counter.
Zelda jumped. "Are you trying to make me choke?"
I opened the lid and threw everything into the case without caring how it landed. When I was done, I slammed it shut. "No! I'm trying to make you listen. It's over, Zee. O. V. E. R. Over. Time to forget all this bullshit and move on."
Zelda gnawed on her chicken leg but said nothing which only frustrated me more. I grabbed the handle and swept the case off the counter top. Since I forgot to button the latches, the case opened and all the papers flew into the air, landing willy-nilly on the floor. Grumbling, I got down on all fours to pick up the papers.
Zelda finished her chicken and got down on the floor to help me. "Everything will be okay, you'll see."
I sat back on my haunches and stared at her. "Really? Since when did you become an optimist?"
Zelda crawled around the kitchen on all fours, retrieving papers. "Change is good. You should try it." She reached under the lip of the cabinet and tugged out an envelope. Holding up the envelope she said, "Remember this?"
I crawled across the floor to Zelda and grabbed the envelope. "George's weird letter? I'd forgotten about it." I frowned at the letter. "Never did figure out what it meant." Leaving
the rest of the papers on the floor, I got to my feet and carried the letter back to the butcher-block. "Probably nothing, like everything else."
Zelda followed me back to the butcher-block and pulled up a stool. "Read it."
I looked up from the envelope and made a face. "Why?"
Zelda shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe it will make more sense now. A lot has happened since the last time you read it."
I sighed and pulled the letter out of the envelope. "Fine." I read the letter aloud:
"Dear Scotti,
If you're reading this then chances are, you've opened the briefcase because I'm no longer here.
Due to certain confidences, I can't explain many things to you that I wish I could share. The items in this case may help you to put the pieces together. I hope so, because I won't be there to do it myself. So now, unfortunately it falls to you.
You're an exceptionally bright woman and I'm confident that your sharp intuitive mind will lead you to the right conclusions.
I'm sorry that our plans never came to fruition — I was looking forward to becoming a born again foodie and helping you realize your goals. No matter where I am, please know that I always believed in you, and don't give up.
Keep your chin up and look to the silver lining when all else fails.
Your friend,
George"
Zelda smirked and threw up her hands. "Nope, still doesn't make sense."
I stared at the letter and reread it several times, then wiggled my fingers at Zelda. "Give me the briefcase."
"Why?"
I wiggled my fingers again. "Just bring it."
Zelda bent, scooped up the case and put it on the butcher-block. "Scotti..."
I shushed her and stared at the case. George gave me the case for a reason. The contents weren't random pieces of paper or objects, they were pieces of a puzzle. He was concerned about betraying confidences, but whose? Perhaps Eric's skills weren't
lacking — George had intentionally made it difficult to get into those files. Because of the confidences? Was he protecting someone? Who? Peggy said she knew of no reason for George to go back to the office the night he died. Had he gone there to meet someone? To discuss the things he couldn't share with me?
I drummed my fingers on the counter top. "Call Eric."
Zelda pulled out her phone and dialed. "Why?"
I held out my hand for the phone. "Eric, it's Scotti. Listen, is there a program or software or other computer thing called silver lining? Or silver something? Or lining something?"
Eric hummed while he thought. Computer keys clacked from his end. He mumbled to somebody in the room with him, but I couldn't hear the conversation. "Nope. Never heard of it. Why?"
"Something George said to me." And what Ted said the other night about the phone. "Do you have the phone with you? Right there?"
Eric grunted like I was annoying him. "Yeah, I’ve got it."
"I don’t remember what it looks like. Is it silver? Or is there anything on it that’s silver?"
Eric paused. "Yeah, the back is silver."
My heart started revving. "Anything on the back? Numbers or anything like that?"
I heard Eric fumbling with phone and the chink of plastic pieces. "I’ll be damned."
Chapter Fifty-Nine
At two o'clock the next day, Zelda, Joe, Ted, Eric and I huddled in Room 317 of a Travel Lodge in Sun Valley. Drapes drawn and the door locked, we paced with anticipation. George had been very clever. The silver lining turned out to be the battery in the phone — underneath which lay a piece of paper with the codes we’d needed for the flash-drive. It was so obvious, yet none of us ever thought to open the phone.
With the flash drive accessed, we had only to look inside to see the last breadcrumbs George had scattered behind him. And it was the end — no matter what we found. Either George's pieces would fit together and provide the answers, or we'd have to accept defeat and walk away.
Finally, Eric said, "We're in!"
The files were numbered, one, two and three.
The first file was Cavender's final report on Lily. The long and detailed document included Lily's background, day-to-day movements, her credit standing and every detail that Cavender could unearth about her. The summary provided the important details:
Lily was born in 1992, making it impossible for her to have been George's biological daughter. Cavender believed the samples given for testing came from Lauren. Lily could've easily obtained a sample of Lauren's hair from a brush or comb, passed it off as hers and given it to the lab for testing.
Lily had bad credit and a history of writing bad checks, yet six weeks before arriving in California, her debts were paid in full.
Lily's mother, Laura Carson, was verified as the same Laura Carson George had known in his youth. Laura was diagnosed with stage four lymphoma and died less than a year after the diagnosis. Because her prognosis was grim, Laura was released from the hospital and received hospice care in her home during her final days. But the care only
consisted of pain management and patient comfort. Aside from a part-time hospice nurse, Lily was the main caretaker and had trained for the basic care her mother required. She knew how to put in an IV, change IV bags, assist her mother with showering and bed pans, and administering injections. Lily was also certified in CPR.
Laura died in her sleep due to cardiac arrest. Her doctor was surprised by her sudden death because a new medication had shown promise. But no evidence of foul play was discovered.
Included with the report were surveillance photographs. I found the photo of Lily sporting spiky blue and platinum hair, heavy black eye make-up and a nose ring, the most interesting. Her makeover must've taken a lot time and money. Laura's life insurance policy named Lily as the sole beneficiary and the $50,000 settlement explained the debt pay off and the new wardrobe and makeover.
Despite Cavender's duty to maintain George’s confidentiality, I was appalled that he'd kept the information to himsel
f. Lily had clearly committed fraud. Even after George's death, she continued the charade — surely he could've gone to the police. On the bright
side, I'd be happy to hand over the file to the cops because I had no duty to keep any of it to myself. And if nothing else, I'm sure Maggie would ensure Lily served time for that.
The second file was a single document with two items: an email address and a password. The email address was for a website that offered free email accounts. Eric pulled up the account, typed in the password and the email account opened. There was only one email in the in-box with the subject line: New videos have been uploaded to your account.
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