Mission Canyon

by Meg Gardiner

  ‘‘I don’t think I am.’’

  Her dad the high roller, the trips to Vegas and the track at Del Mar . . .

  ‘‘How did you find out?’’ I said.

  ‘‘When I was in law school she’d call, say she was in L.A., could she stop by. It was never business; it was always days out at Hollywood Park. After a while it became obvious that things were getting out of control.’’

  ‘‘That’s how i-heist got their hooks into her. They found out,’’ I said.

  ‘‘Listen, I broke it off because of this, but I promised not to expose her problem if she got help. She started going to Gamblers Anonymous,’’ he said. ‘‘That’s why she came to rehab, to tell me she was getting straightened out.’’

  ‘‘But she never stopped gambling,’’ I said. ‘‘And i-heist used it against her, to get her to launder money for them.’’ The chill had turned into a fear creeping up my neck. ‘‘So why are they asking you to launder money for them if they’ve got her?’’

  ‘‘Harley’s cracking up, that’s why. She’s going to pieces.’’

  And she was the link to Brand. Somehow it all tied in: the money, her work for Mako and i-heist. . . .

  He said, ‘‘It’s only a matter of time before they decide she’s too much of a liability. Kenny, and i-heist. And when they do—’’

  ‘‘They won’t see any reason to keep her alive.’’ She was in danger.

  ‘‘I’ve been trying to contact her, but she’s out of the office,’’ he said.

  I drew a breath. ‘‘I’ll see if I can find her.’’

  A new Hendrix track came on the stereo—‘‘All Along the Watchtower,’’ Jesse’s favorite. I felt discomfort congealing in the air between us.

  ‘‘Jesse, I know this is a terrible time, but I need to talk about us.’’

  He looked away. ‘‘Harley lied to you about rehab, and you believed it. That just . . .’’

  He meant, Why did I believe her instead of him? Did I have so little faith in him? I felt sick.

  ‘‘And why was it so important for you to be the only one after the crash?’’ He looked at me. ‘‘You are, by the way. There hasn’t been anybody but you since then.’’ He looked reproachful. ‘‘I just can’t get it out of my head that you . . . Does it make you feel big to stick with a crip? Are you glad that things have turned out this way?’’

  ‘‘My God, no. Jesse, don’t think that.’’ I felt a pounding between my eyes, tears starting to form.

  He spread his hands. His eyes were a storm of anger and confusion.

  He said, ‘‘You should probably go. If I say anything else right now, there may be no going back.’’

  I found Harley three hours later. I convinced her secretary to tell me she had driven to a meeting in Santa Ynez. I headed north over the mountains, across the long span of Cold Spring Bridge, past woodlands and wineries and Arabian horse ranches and rolling golden hillsides, to the only place in the Santa Ynez Valley where Harley would, at this stage in her collapsing life, take a meeting: the Chumash Indian casino.

  She was playing video poker, propped on a stool with a bucket of silver dollars on her lap, shoveling coins into the machine. When I walked around to face her, I could see the machine’s display reflecting cards in her eyes.

  Pair of threes, a losing hand. She glanced at me.

  ‘‘Come outside,’’ I said.

  ‘‘The machine’s due.’’ She fed it silver dollars. ‘‘I’m not going to leave and let someone else get my payoff.’’ She scowled and slapped the machine. ‘‘Come on, you bastard.’’

  But it didn’t pay off. She fed in more coins.

  I grabbed the bucket from her lap. ‘‘Come on.’’

  ‘‘Hey.’’ She spun off the stool and followed me outside. ‘‘Damn you, give that to me.’’

  It was hot, the sun unvarnished, a perfect vacation day. The casino parking lot was shiny with tour buses. Harley’s hair looked white under the blue sky.

  I said, ‘‘When did you start laundering money for i-heist? ’’

  ‘‘I don’t know what you mean.’’

  ‘‘What happened, did they find out you were in debt to bookies? Did they offer to pay off your creditors before the cops or the repo men came around?’’

  She stared at the bucket of silver dollars, dazzling in the summer light.

  ‘‘Well.’’ She ran a hand through her hair. ‘‘It turns out Jesse Blackburn doesn’t know how to keep his promises.’’

  ‘‘Jesse ain’t the problem here, kid.’’

  ‘‘There is no problem here. I’m fine. I’m just taking the edge off.’’

  ‘‘Gamblers Anonymous? Do they recommend that you relax by playing the slots?’’

  ‘‘You have no idea.’’

  ‘‘Tell me, then. Explain it to me.’’

  ‘‘My life’s in the crapper. I just need a day to get myself together.’’

  I shook the silver dollars. ‘‘Looks like you have a big bucket of togetherness here.’’

  She snorted. ‘‘That’s not gambling; that’s like a box of candy, or a glass of wine at the end of the day. It’s entertainment. Relaxation.’’

  ‘‘Expensive box of candy.’’

  ‘‘You can’t understand. You’d buy a church raffle ticket and think that’s gambling. What I do is different, it’s professional, it’s analytical. Shit on a biscuit, woman, I had five thousand on War Emblem when he won the Kentucky Derby, a twenty-to-one long shot. I had Goran goddamned Ivanisevic to win Wimbledon at a hundred-twenty -five to one. I earned a quarter of a million dollars thanks to a tennis wager.’’

  ‘‘Oh, my God. Harley.’’

  She mistook my shock for admiration. ‘‘Damn right.’’

  If those were the amounts she was winning, how much was she losing?

  ‘‘How badly are you in debt?’’ I said.

  The light was doing unkind things to her face. Her skin looked papery, the freckles blotchy.

  ‘‘Everything’s under control.’’

  ‘‘No, it’s not. Harley, how much are you into i-heist for?’’

  ‘‘I can cover it. One win and that’ll be it. My old man may have been a prick, but he taught me that. You’re only ever one win away.’’

  ‘‘A million?’’ I said. ‘‘Two?’’

  Her mouth opened, then closed again. She stared at the bucket as if the silver dollars were amphetamines.

  ‘‘Harley, are you skimming from i-heist?’’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘‘Did you use Segue?’’

  ‘‘How do you know about that?’’ She grabbed my arm. ‘‘How much do you know?’’

  ‘‘I know about Mako.’’

  ‘‘Jesus, you can’t tell anybody this. Mako . . . they’ll kill you. Oh, shit, they’ll kill me.’’

  ‘‘Who at Mako—Kenny?’’

  ‘‘Who else? He’s been in on it from the start. Got my firm to buy Mako’s security software. Then his pals hacked our system to find out everything about the firm’s finances, and my own. Figured out a way to screw me. He has a noose around my neck.’’

  ‘‘You have to go to the police.’’

  She laughed. ‘‘And be prosecuted? Disbarred, go to prison? I’d rather die.’’ She put a fist over her lips, gave a bitter laugh. ‘‘Maybe I should.’’

  ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘They’re going to try to get me, you know. And you and Jesse. We’re toast. Maybe I should save them the trouble.’’

  ‘‘What are you talking about?’’

  ‘‘Getting it over with. Drive off the Cold Spring Bridge, maybe. End of story. No more worries, everything off my back. Including you.’’

  She turned away, hugging herself. When I put a hand on her shoulder she shrugged it off. I glanced toward the casino. A bus was parked near the door, partially obscuring the sign on the building. I saw CASI. I had one of those little well, duh, moments.

  I felt my face heating. How
long had Harley been counting on my gullibility?

  I said, ‘‘This is Cassie, isn’t it?’’

  Cassie was her lover, all right: gambling. The one she adored, the one who was always there for her . . . The one Harley could never leave, because i-heist was using her. Forcing her to take cash to casinos and scrub it clean for them.

  ‘‘You need help,’’ I said.

  ‘‘Jesse tried that one on me. GA, it didn’t work. Bunch of blue-haired women who lost their Social Security checks playing bingo and sat around wringing their hands. They didn’t have anything to do with me.’’

  ‘‘This is out of control.’’

  She laughed, loudly, loosely. It was like watching a downhill skier head too fast toward a turn.

  ‘‘Oh,’’ she said. The laugh kept going. ‘‘You are the cat’s meow.’’ She bent over and put her hands on her knees, as though I had told the funniest joke in history.

  I set a hand on her shoulder again. She straightened, shoving it away. Her eyes looked as hard and bright as the silver dollars.

  ‘‘Maybe you should stop meddling in other people’s lives,’’ she said.

  She grabbed the bucket from me. The coins flew, bouncing and ringing on the asphalt. The last I saw she was on her knees, picking them up, one by one.

  I drove toward home, feeling blank. I couldn’t stop Harley from self-destructing. And, as much as she had misled me, the thought that I couldn’t help her—that she refused even the hand I offered—depleted me. I turned the corner onto my street. My cell phone rang.

  ‘‘Evan?’’ It was Taylor. ‘‘Can I stop by? I want to drop off the lingerie you ordered.’’

  Had I actually ordered some? I couldn’t remember. But I couldn’t take Tater tonight, not even a small helping. ‘‘I won’t be home all evening.’’

  ‘‘Not home at all? Are you sure?’’

  ‘‘Positive.’’

  ‘‘Can’t I use the spare key? You keep it in that drainpipe, right?’’

  Had she snooped into every corner of my house? ‘‘Taylor—’’

  The battery on the phone cut out momentarily, breaking off the call. It didn’t matter. I’d rumble with her later.

  Adam Sandoval’s Toyota pickup passed me going the other way. I honked. He U-turned and parked behind me. I was stepping out of the car when he came stalking toward me. He clutched papers in his hands. His face looked rough.

  ‘‘What’s wrong?’’ I said.

  He held out the papers. His voice was a whisper.

  ‘‘They loaded when I went online tonight. And when I tried to delete them, they printed.’’

  I took them and looked. The dizziness was immediate.

  They were photos of Isaac’s autopsy. Adam slumped against my car.

  ‘‘Oh, God,’’ I said. ‘‘Oh, Adam. You should have never had to see this.’’

  He had identified Isaac’s body after the crash, I knew. He saw the brutality done to his brother. But he also took comfort from seeing the embalmer’s reconstruction. He chose the clothes Isaac was buried in. And the night before the funeral he stayed awake next to Isaac’s casket, praying. He ensured that Isaac was put to rest with dignity. It had been a sacred thing.

  Now undone by photographs of Isaac’s corpse lying naked on a steel autopsy table, with the Y incision open on his chest, and his skull half off. This was the final violation, images to destroy Adam: a desecration of Isaac’s memory.

  ‘‘They’re going to publish the photos,’’ he said.

  I shook my head. ‘‘No.’’

  ‘‘On the Net. Pervert sites, for twisted . . .’’ His head dropped, and he fought for control. ‘‘Necrophiliac sites. Holy God, he was my brother. And they’re going to put these up for freaks and monsters to get excited about. Madre de Dios . . .’’

  His words dissolved into a lament. He raked his fingers into his scalp.

  ‘‘Is Brand taunting me? Is this a horrific game?’’

  ‘‘It’s i-heist, this guy Mickey Yago. And it’s no game.’’

  ‘‘Why is he doing this?’’ he said.

  Because he’s a sadistic head case . . .

  ‘‘It’s a tactic. They’re using these photos to get at Jesse,’’ I said.

  He recoiled. ‘‘They’re defiling Isaac’s memory to hurt Jesse Blackburn’s feelings? That’s too much.’’

  ‘‘Listen to me. They want you to lose it, to go to Jesse and—’’

  He held out his hand. ‘‘Give me the photos.’’

  ‘‘No.’’ I shook my head.

  ‘‘I want Jesse to see them. To know what happened to Isaac because these people have an argument with Jesse.’’

  If he confronted Jesse right now, the explosion would be in the megaton range.

  I said, ‘‘Don’t.’’

  ‘‘You’ve been begging me to talk to him. Why are you shielding him now?’’

  ‘‘I’m not. Mickey Yago is using you, trying to drive you over the edge. If you have a knockdown-drag-out with Jesse, you’re playing into Yago’s hands.’’

  ‘‘Too bad. Where is he?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know.’’

  ‘‘I’ll call him. Can I use your cell phone?’’

  Evan would flash on Jesse’s display. ‘‘He wouldn’t answer it.’’

  ‘‘Why not?’’

  My scalp felt tight. ‘‘Things are going badly with us at the moment.’’

  His brow beetled. ‘‘Oh, I’m . . . Damn. I didn’t know.’’

  I leaned against the car next to him, staring at the mountains. They glowed in the sun. It was heading toward six. Happy hour.

  ‘‘Is there anything I can do?’’ he said.

  Even with Adam stressed to the point of fracture it was still there—his innate decency and compassion. I put a hand on his arm, shaking my head.

  He reached for the photos and I let him take them.

  ‘‘I’ll deal with this,’’ he said.

  ‘‘How?’’

  He folded the photos and stuffed them in his back pocket. ‘‘Decisively.’’

  Gravel flew from beneath his tires when he drove away.

  They were closing in.

  To obtain the autopsy photos, i-heist had either broken into the coroner’s files, bought them from a clerk, or breached security and found them online.

  My third phone call, to the hospital IT department, hit pay dirt.

  ‘‘Sandoval, Isaac. Date of death?’’ the woman said.

  I gave it to her. I had already explained that I was Adam Sandoval’s attorney.

  ‘‘I need to know if the autopsy photos are in your computer database.’’

  I heard her hitting keys. ‘‘Yeah. We have them.’’

  ‘‘One more question. Which Mako security software are you running?’’

  ‘‘Just a sec.’’ Quiet on the line. ‘‘Hammerhead, version six.’’

  I thanked her and hung up. I went looking for Kenny Rudenski.

  28

  Almost everybody was gone for the day when I walked through the door at Mako Technologies. Cars were sparse in the big parking lot. The black-and-white photos on the walls hung in shadow, and a janitor was pushing his cart across the lobby. The front desk was unmanned.

  But a second later, Amber Gibbs came bustling out of the women’s room.

  She beamed. ‘‘How’s the lingerie?’’

  ‘‘Scratchy. Yours?’’

  ‘‘I feel like royalty.’’

  She hummed around the desk, looking brisker and more purposeful than I’d ever seen her. Maybe Countess Zara had powers I didn’t appreciate.

  ‘‘I’m looking for Kenny Rudenski,’’ I said.

  ‘‘I don’t know if he’s still here.’’

  ‘‘Could you call and find out?’’

  Her face twitched. ‘‘I’m kind of in a hurry.’’

  ‘‘Please.’’

  ‘‘It’s just . . . Pop Rudenski needs some papers—’’

 
; ‘‘Amber.’’

  ‘‘—and he asked me to bring them to his office before he leaves.’’

  ‘‘Come on, I’ll walk back with you,’’ I said.

  She looked flustered. ‘‘Okay.’’

  Grabbing a folder, she unlocked the keypad on the security door and we headed down the corridor. A security guard stood at the vending machine, dropping coins in. He nodded to us.

  Outside Kenny’s office, his secretary’s desk was unoccupied. How lucky would I be if Kenny was gone as well? I stopped and Amber kept hustling down the hall.

  I knocked and opened the door. The lights were off. I went in and shut the door behind me. I looked around. The office smelled like aftershave and tennis balls. The computer monitor was dark. I sat down at the desk.

  Okay, now what? I opened a few drawers. Pencils, rubber bands, a bottle of rum. This was fruitless.

  There was a jangle of keys outside the door, and I jumped. The door handle turned. It was the security guard.

  ‘‘What are you doing in here?’’

  My pulse was knocking against my temples. Attitude, Delaney.

  ‘‘I’m trying to find a piece of paper so I can write Kenny a note.’’

  I rustled through his desk and, behold, found a notepad. I took a pencil from a holder on the desk. The guard watched, not moving. Shoot.

  Behind him in the hall, Amber came bustling back. He turned. She smiled at him, and his posture straightened. He hitched up his belt.

  She glanced over his shoulder at me. ‘‘Oh, Junior’s not in?’’

  ‘‘I’m just writing him a note.’’ Lie, rinse, repeat.

  ‘‘Okay.’’ She looked at the guard. ‘‘Len, help me get some stuff in my car?’’

  He said, ‘‘You bet.’’

  They walked off, leaving the door open. Their voices receded. Len’s keys jingled down the hall.

  How long before he came back? Forget the desk. Whatever I wanted would be on Kenny’s computer. I tapped the keyboard and the screen bloomed awake.

  Enter password. Damn. The cursor blinked ha, ha.

  I stared, thinking that Kenny wasn’t stupid, but he was arrogant. I picked up the keyboard and looked underneath, hoping he had taped the password there. Nothing.

  If I wanted to access Kenny’s files, I was going to have to guess his password. Fortunately, I knew from writing about cybersecurity, password guessing is likely to succeed. Passwords usually have six to eight characters, and people tend to pick bad passwords—children’s names, pets, hobbies—because they can remember them.