Five in a Row

by Jan Coffey

  Ben couldn’t shake off the sound of the phone. He looked inside as Liz reached for it. When he turned around again, Conor was in Emily’s arms.

  “It wasn’t Mrs. Gartner’s fault. She had no control of the car. It was like the way Jake said his dad lost control. Like Ben’s accident.”

  “I know.” Emily, following the medic’s direction, led Conor toward the stretcher. The blood continued to ooze from his head. He wiped it away with his hand. His shirt was soaked.

  They were in the middle of a disaster movie. Ben’s gaze swept over the commotion outside. Crowds of people were already gathering on the street. Plainclothes police and FBI agents were trying to cordon off the accident scene. Three more ambulances and a fire truck arrived on the street. Two helicopters were circling overhead.

  Ben wondered where the son of a bitch was. He wanted to know from what window, what building, which car he’d orchestrated this accident. Anger coursed through his body. He wanted to break the bastard’s neck with his bare hands.

  He looked at Emily. She was bending over the stretcher next to her son. They were strapping Conor down and pressing gauze to his forehead. Ben hoped they would check her soon, too. The blood from a cut on her face was smeared on one cheek. She turned in his direction and called to him that she was going in the ambulance with him to the hospital. He nodded.

  Ben found out which hospital they were being taken to and then waited on the sidewalk until Emily and Conor were inside the vehicle. He watched the ambulance drive away. A brace was being put around Mrs. Gartner’s neck. Another ambulance stood ready to take the mother and daughter away. Ben worked his way back inside, trying to see if he could be of help anywhere.

  Jeremy Simpson was inside, too. He put a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “They have to take a look at you, too. Your back is bleeding.”

  Ben was too numb to feel. “Any fatalities?”

  The detective shook his head. “Everyone is accounted for, so far.”

  “You and I had it easy.” He motioned with his head toward the car.

  “Mine was nothing,” Jeremy said.

  “Conor was in that car,” Ben told him, not sure if he knew or not.

  The detective nodded. He’d seen them outside. He knew.

  “Emily’s right—the bastard is going after everything she cares about.” Ben looked behind the counter. “Where’s Liz?”

  “When I came in, she was on the phone. Then she was whisked inside the office by Hinckey and another FBI agent.”

  They both saw the office door open. Liz looked very pale as she preceded the agents out of the office. She came right to Jeremy, and Ben walked to Hinckey.

  “Where’s Emily?” the SAC asked.

  “On the way to the hospital with her son.”

  “A phone call came into the café a couple of minutes after the accident,” the Special Agent explained. “It was from him. He’s making demands.”

  Forty-Three

  “I can’t do it. My son needs me. I won’t go anywhere near that maniac,” Emily blurted out in a rush. “He’s totally crazy.”

  “No one expects you to go anywhere near him. And yes, he is crazy.” Ben grabbed her hand, stopping her from pacing the room.

  Ben and Hinckey had arrived at the hospital together. He’d called Emily first and had stopped at her house to pick up a few things she’d needed. But Ben hadn’t mentioned the ultimatum her stalker had made. The Special Agent in Charge had conveyed the caller’s brief instructions to her once the three of them were sequestered in a private office at the hospital.

  “The only reason I’m here is to let you know what we’re doing about this,” Hinckey said calmly. “As I said before, we have no intention of really meeting the demands he dictated to your sister on the phone. Just as there’s no way we’re going to transfer a hundred million dollars to an account in Grand Cayman by 6:00 a.m. tomorrow, we don’t have any intention of putting you in any further danger. On the other hand, we are sending an agent in your place on the 6:00 a.m. flight from Hartford to Grand Cayman.”

  “He really bought me a ticket on a flight for tomorrow morning?” she asked, obviously a little calmer.

  Hinckey nodded.

  “Can’t you trace his credit card?” she asked.

  “He used yours,” the agent told her.

  “Cheap bastard.”

  Ben was relieved that Emily still had her sense of humor. “Is there anything you want her to do between now and then?”

  “Yes. Stay invisible. We can help you with that. We’re hoping that our friend is more of the romantic type than the materialistic one,” Hinckey commented. “We’re counting on him giving us a time extension on the money transfer and allowing you—or rather, the agent disguised as you—to contact him. Then we just grab him.”

  Emily sat down on one of the chairs. “It’s too simple. It can’t work.”

  “We’re counting on it working, if only to buy time,” Hinckey said. “Our computer engineers are continuing to work with experts all across the country. We’ve yet to find a single automobile ECM carrying the same codes that you found on the accident vehicles.”

  “The Gartner’s car from this afternoon?” Emily asked.

  “The virus is there,” the SAC admitted.

  “The virus lies hidden until ready to execute.” Emily stood up and started pacing again. “That’s why they call it a trojan. This maniac has an invisible army waiting for his signal.”

  Hinckey unlocked a briefcase he’d brought along and took out an inch-thick manila folder. “I know that with everything going on around you, it’s impossible to focus. But since you were the one who was able to recognize the virus to start with, we’d like to keep you up-to-date with the latest findings from Albany and today’s accident in Wickfield.”

  “None of us have stopped working on this case,” Emily said, taking the file out of his hand and dropping it on top of the laptop that Ben had brought from her house. “I’ll go through it and see if something sticks out.”

  The SAC seemed satisfied with that. “How’s your son?”

  “His head is getting stitched right now. They don’t want me in the examining room with him.”

  “She was a little upset,” Ben said, gently rubbing her back.

  “And after he gets released tonight?”

  “I’m taking both of them to my parents’ house in Westport, for the time being,” Ben answered. This much, he’d gotten Emily to agree to. She hadn’t had a chance to speak to Conor about going to California yet. After what they’d been through today, though, Ben didn’t think she was ready to let her son out of her sight for too long.

  “I’ll arrange for the transportation,” Hinckey told them. “Don’t forget…invisible.”

  Liz was staying with Jeremy Simpson. And to ease Emily’s worries earlier, the FBI had established a watch for her parents in Arizona. Though her parents drove an older car, Em was concerned about how far her fan would go to try to get at her.

  Hinckey went over some of the smaller details with Ben before leaving them alone in the office. Emily was already going through the reports in the manila folder.

  “Other than verbal confirmation of the virus being present, I haven’t seen anything on Jeremy’s truck yet.”

  “Do you think since he aborted the hijacking, something might have been left behind?” Ben asked.

  “It’s possible,” Emily said.

  “I’ll make the arrangements to have you look at the ECM tomorrow morning,” Ben said. “What do they have on the Albany accident?”

  “The same things all over again. The same electronic fingerprints. Identical. This is sickening.” She turned to him. “I haven’t had a chance to even glance at a TV. Are they making any announcements?”

  “Yes, they are. But they’re playing it down, making the whole thing sound like it’s a programming problem with the DBW systems and not a terrorist threat. They’re dealing with it as a major recall.”

  “The car companies are
going along with it?”

  “I don’t think they have a choice, at this point. Each accident is a dozen new lawsuits. This way, no one can accuse them of collusion, considering every company is involved.”

  Emily booted up her computer. “Doing it that way will take forever for the word to get around.”

  “Using the public emergency system won’t work, either. We’re not talking about a single metropolitan center,” he reminded her. “This is too widespread to control. Our only chance is to stop him.”

  She sat down again on the chair. “I sounded like a coward for not wanting to go to the airport and face him.”

  “That was never an option,” Ben told her, sitting next to her and taking her hand. “From the moment the call came, they were planning to use an agent for the job.”

  “I just don’t understand him.” Emily leaned her head against his shoulder. She’d ended up with three stitches on her face from the glass cut, and she looked bruised and vulnerable.

  Ben had escaped with superficial scratches. Everything could have ended up so much worse. He rubbed his cheek on top of her silky hair.

  “And what does he think he’s going to do with me if I were to get on that plane and go to Grand Cayman? Does he think I’ll forget everyone and everything else that matters to me and fall at his feet because he’s got so much money? What kind of sick mind would plan something like this?”

  Ben had no answers. No one did. Emily was at the center of this, and he hated it. And the end wasn’t in sight. Like her, he knew the FBI’s plan of not paying up and sending an agent undercover wouldn’t work. There was something else going on here. Ben wasn’t even sure that the scumbag was after the money and Emily anymore. He had a sick feeling that this creep was going to take the whole world for a ride, knowing that fame was about to be his.

  “I have to go and check on Conor,” Emily told him, glancing at the clock. It was ten after eight.

  “Do you want me to come with you?”

  “He told me no visitors until they’re done with him. You know, the tough guy routine. No one can see him even cringe,” she said. “Why don’t you look over the chat logs I have here. See if there’s anything that jumps out at you. This morning, I downloaded all the e-mail and logs into this laptop. I’ve got everything from July to today.”

  She put the computer on his lap and leaned over and kissed his lips.

  “Thank you,” she said, her dark eyes shimmering with un-shed tears.

  Ben cupped the back of her head and kissed her again.

  “He can’t hide for long,” he said confidently. “He has to have some skeletons in his closet. It’s only a matter of time before they pop up.”

  Forty-Four

  Conor’s request for no visitors obviously didn’t apply to Ashley.

  Emily ran into her in the hallway. She was leaving Conor’s room.

  “Mrs. Doyle…” The teenager broke up immediately. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened with my mom’s car. She swears she had no control. And—”

  “It wasn’t her fault, Ashley,” Emily said firmly, pulling her into her arms. The girl’s head was bandaged, and a dark bruise had already formed under her left eye.

  “But with Conor getting all those stitches…and your restaurant. It’s just so horrible.”

  “Don’t worry about any of that now. The important thing is that everyone was able to walk away from it in one piece. How’s your mom doing?”

  “Good. She has neck pain, but they’re giving her medication for it. My dad is here. We’re taking her home now. I came to say bye to Conor and see how he was making out.” They talked a couple more minutes before Ashley left to catch up with her parents.

  Emily had used the café’s phone to call Diane Gartner and ask her to hold on to Conor this afternoon. She’d been so keyed up on the lack of security on her computer that she hadn’t paid much attention to the possibility that the phone numbers she’d dial would be picked up by anyone spying on her.

  A nurse came out of the room, and Emily recognized her as the one that had kicked her out earlier, thinking she was going to faint on them.

  “He’s as good as new. You can go in now.”

  “How many stitches?”

  “Thirty-seven.”

  Emily shuddered and went in. The doctor who’d been sewing Conor up before was still there chatting with him. The gash on his forehead was right at his hairline and the bandages covered all the damage. Despite everything he’d been through, his face was bright.

  “Ashley was here a minute ago. Did you see her?”

  She now knew why he looked excited. “You have matching hairdos.”

  “She thinks mine is a lot cooler looking.”

  “If only the rest of us were as indestructible,” the doctor put in, giving Emily instructions of what to look for and what to do and when Conor would have to come back for a follow-up visit.

  Emily collected everything. “Does this mean I can take him home?”

  “Sure.”

  Conor waited until the doctor had left the room before voicing his concern. “We can’t go to our house, can we?”

  “No,” Emily said, walking to her son and hugging him.

  “Is there anything left of Aunt Liz’s apartment?”

  “I don’t know, honey. Last time I looked at it, the building looked like a demolition site.” She pulled back, her hands resting on his shoulders. “There are a couple of options, as far as places for you to stay.”

  “I don’t want to go to California,” he said, shaking his head adamantly.

  “What are you doing, reading my mind?”

  “No, Mom. I know you think I’ll be safer with Dad, but I don’t want to go. I want to stay here, go to school, be near you.”

  “Conor—”

  “No. This guy…He thought he was doing his worst. Look at me, I survived it. You can’t send me away. I won’t go.”

  “What happened to my agreeable son?”

  “He’s still here. But I won’t budge on this one.”

  “Well, the only reason I’ll budge is that Ben has offered for you and me to stay at his parents’ house in Westport. He’ll arrange for a driver to take you back and forth to school.”

  He brightened visibly. “What kind of a car?”

  “I don’t know. But I’d put my money on something old.”

  “Bummer.” Conor smiled. “But still, it’s a deal. Is he here?”

  “I’ll take you to him, but you have to change into something not so bloody.”

  Conor jumped down from the bed, pulled the privacy curtain closed, and moved behind it to change. Emily handed him the clean shirt and sweatshirt Ben had picked up from the house and tucked the bloodstained clothes into a plastic bag.

  “Mom, do you think losing control of the radio station you want to listen to could somehow be connected with losing control of the car?”

  “Is this a hypothetical question?”

  “No.”

  Emily paused and looked at the curtain. “What do you mean?”

  Conor pulled the curtain aside and stepped out. “Right before the accident, maybe seconds before, the radio in Mrs. Gartner’s car switched to a hip-hop station. I asked Ashley about it when she came in just now. I wasn’t imagining it. It was the strangest thing. She couldn’t change the station. It was like someone was forcing us to listen to rap.”

  Adrenaline rushed through her body. Emily didn’t care who might be tracing this call. She dialed Jeremy Simpson’s cell phone number. He answered on the first ring.

  “Did you have your radio on, the day you lost control of your truck?” she asked not bothering with any pleasantries.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “What were you listening to?”

  “News. Weather. Why?” he asked.

  “Any rap?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. I mean, I wasn’t listening to it. It just came on. I could have pushed one of the buttons. Why?”

  “Thanks,
Jeremy. I’ll call you back later.”

  She hung up with the detective still talking on the other end.

  “Let’s go see Ben,” she told Conor, feeling a door might have just opened up at the end of a very long tunnel.

  Forty-Five

  Ben reread the e-mail on the screen again to make sure his brain wasn’t playing games with him. It looked genuine. He checked the date and time. It was sent at 10:37 yesterday morning.

  There was a knock on the door, and Emily and Conor walked in. He put the laptop aside and got up. He forced himself to focus on Conor first before sharing what he’d just come across.

  “You look terrible,” he said.

  “You should see the other guy.”

  Ben couldn’t help himself. He pulled the teenager into his arms for a bear hug. He was touched when Conor hugged him back.

  “I think Conor might be on to something,” Emily started.

  “I found this curious e-mail on your laptop,” Ben said at the same time. He could see the excitement in Emily’s face. “You go first.”

  There was another knock on the door and Hinckey and another agent came back in.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Sorry, I had to have him paged before he left the building,” Emily explained to Ben. “This could be big.”

  “I like the sound of that,” Hinckey said enthusiastically.

  “Let me ask you a question first.” She turned to Ben. “Last Sunday, right before your accident, were you listening to the radio?”

  Ben had to think about it. “Yes, I was.”

  “What station?”

  “I was trying to get an AM station. I can’t remember which one.”

  “Did the station change on you at all?”

  “It did. A rap station came on. I was changing it back when everything went crazy.”

  Ben saw Emily turn to her son, and they gave each other a high five.

  “Three. Three of the nine accidents so far agree,” she said excitedly to the group.

  “What’s going on?” Ben asked.

  “We haven’t been able to find any sign of this virus on the ECMs of cars that have not been in an accident. His army, so far, has been invisible. But this control over the stereo equipment tells me that he’s inside the component board, which is wired to the ECM of the car. I think that’s where he’s been hiding the virus.”