by Diane Capri
He was probably right. But Jordan wanted to see the contents for herself. Her mom had password protected and encrypted the data. She’d also hidden the hard drive itself so well that Jordan didn’t know it existed until a few weeks ago.
All of that was totally unlike Brenda Fox. She had been one of the most open and honest people on the planet. Jordan couldn’t fathom why Brenda would go to all that trouble to keep the hard drive’s contents private unless the files were important. Somehow.
“Dad, it’s driving me crazy. Don’t you want to know?”
“No. I don’t.” Nelson leaned in and spoke sternly while looking directly into her eyes. “If mom wanted us to know, she’d have told us. She’s entitled to her privacy, Jordan. Just like you are. You wouldn’t want people snooping on your hard drives, would you?”
“That’s different.” Jordan was alive. Brenda had been murdered five years ago. And the murder was unsolved. Everything Brenda did was a potential clue that might help bring her killer to justice. Jordan meant to turn over every rock until she found out who killed her mother.
But she didn’t want to give her dad another stroke, either. Jordan took a deep breath and sipped her coffee. She wouldn’t push him hard. Not yet. Not until he’d made a full recovery.
Trouble was, the line between pushing him too hard and not pushing him hard enough was far from clear.
“Do you remember any phone calls Mom was planning to make around that time?” They never used the words killed or murdered.
While she was in Haiti, Dr. Chelsey Ross said Brenda called mere hours before she was killed, asking to talk about a private health issue.
Nelson scowled and shook his head. “I don’t remember anything like that.”
The stroke had damaged his brain, but his doctors said Nelson’s memory failures were probably psychological, not physical. Remembering his wife was too painful, they said. Jordan understood that only too well.
But Jordan refused to go down that path. She needed to know everything, no matter how minor it might seem.
Something would lead to Brenda’s killer, eventually.
That’s how cold cases worked.
One small thing would pop up. A fact. A witness. A piece of evidence.
Even a memory.
Sometimes years later.
And then the unsolvable crime would unravel.
Jordan simply needed to keep looking, probing, and watching until she found it. Whatever it was.
Nelson was the one who knew Brenda best. Jordan had to keep pushing him. She had no choice.
Nelson should remember his ten-year anniversary trip to New York City with Brenda. The highlight of their trip was aisle seats for the mega-hit Broadway musical, Mamma Mia!
Jordan found the title song from the show on her phone and played it. Softly. She chewed her lip, waiting nervously.
The song played only a few bars before Nelson crumpled his newspaper in both hands and glared. “Turn. That. Off.”
So he remembered. “Sorry.”
Jordan stalked off through the adjacent doorway into her father’s office where his big, wheelchair-accessible computer was set up. She plugged in her mother’s hard drive, once again, to attempt to unlock it.
The software allowed her five attempts per day before locking her out for twenty-four hours. What would she choose today? Jordan tapped her fingers at the keyboard, racking her brain for a special word her mother might have used as a password.
MammaMia? She’d tried it before, but she’d try it again. Nope.
mammamia? No.
mamma.mia? No.
Mamma.Mia? No.
Jordan took a deep breath. Four strikes. One more and she was out for the day.
MammaMia10?
No.
Crap.
Jordan left the office and headed to the shower. She’d try again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. Until she found the password, one way or another.
CHAPTER 15
After her shower, Jordan returned to the kitchen on her way to the car.
Nelson poked a finger at the screen on his electronic tablet. “I swear the doctors put my memory exercises on here because they know it’s a challenge for me just to work the damn thing.” He sighed. “But I can’t go back to work ’til I master it, so I’ll keep on keepin’ on.”
His positive attitude impressed and encouraged her, as it always did.
“Anyway,” He noticed she’d dressed in something other than her pajamas. “You have big plans for the day, Freckles?”
“I’m meeting Amy for lunch at the Cambridge Exchange.” Jordan checked her watch. “Call me if you need me, okay?”
She kissed him on the forehead and caught a whiff of Old Spice aftershave before she dashed out.
Twenty minutes later, Jordan and Amy were seated in the generously sunlit main dining room of her favorite local eatery exchanging small talk. The black and white tile floors, bone china and linen napkins truly made her feel as if she were at high tea in England.
Silverware clinked, punctuating the chatty atmosphere. Servers dressed in black and white floated in and out of the room. A salad topped with bacon vinaigrette and shaved parmesan paraded past them on a silver tray and Jordan’s stomach rumbled.
Jordan ignored pervasive memories of her ex-fiancé Paul. She wouldn’t give up her favorite hangout because of Paul. He’d robbed her of too much already.
By the time Jordan’s Roasted Vegetable Salad and Amy’s Bacon and Cheddar Burger were delivered to the table, they’d covered Nelson’s therapy and Amy had deflected questions about Ruby Quinn’s family since the murder.
Jordan could finally break out the more difficult questions she’d come to ask. Still, she struggled to find the right opening.
“It’s okay, Jordan.” Amy reached across and squeezed Jordan’s arm. “Ask me whatever you want. Take notes. If it helps to put Ruby’s killer in prison forever, I’ll answer your questions all day.”
“Thanks.” Jordan inhaled deeply. She pulled out her notepad and a pen. “If you could just start by reminding me, how old was Aaron Robinson when you first met him?”
“He was finally old enough to drive legally.” Amy folded her hands in her lap, the burger untouched on the plate. “I was doing clinical work as a student, completing my degree and he was still locked up. He was sixteen. And he had a summer birthday. So he turned seventeen while we were working together.”
“So, he’d already been locked up for two years when you met him. Because I know when he was fourteen years old, he was arrested twice. Once for killing four cats and carving them up. Four felony animal cruelty counts. But he wasn’t locked up for that.”
“Unfortunately,” Amy said. “If he’d been locked up then—”
“Right.” Jordan nodded. “And then the big arrest when he was driving the wrong way on the expressway. Cops said he was speeding and under the influence of something. And he hit a car and two kids died.”
“Yeah.” Amy’s gaze darted around the room before she nodded and said quietly, “Drugs.”
“What?”
“He was fourteen. No driver’s license. He killed two kids. And he was high.” Amy’s voice was quiet.
Jordan leaned in to be sure she’d heard correctly. “He only got four years for that?”
“He was a minor. Not much more they were willing to do at that point.” Amy nodded. “Nobody wants to say a fourteen-year-old kid is a lost cause, you know? Especially not Brenda Fox. She wanted to be wrong about him.”
Jordan’s jaw dropped. Her eyes popped wider and her eyebrows jumped up. She sipped water because her mouth was so dry she couldn’t speak.
Amy said, “You didn’t know? That Brenda testified at Aaron Robinson’s trial?”
Jordan shook her head. “The records were sealed.”
“Well, your mom was his middle-school guidance counselor. Of course, they called her to the stand.”
“What did she say?” Jordan’s vocal cords seemed
unresponsive to commands. She barely got the words out.
Amy shrugged. “I don’t know. But he was convicted and they locked him up until he was eighteen. So if she testified favorably for him, it didn’t help him much.”
Their server returned to the table, concerned. “Something wrong with your food? Can I bring you something else?”
Jordan barely heard him. Amy said, “We’re fine. Thanks.”
He walked away and silence captured the table for a good long while.
Amy finally reached over to grasp Jordan’s forearm again. “I need to get back to work soon. Do you have more questions you want to ask me now?”
Jordan blinked. Again. She looked around the Cambridge Exchange as if she didn’t recognize her surroundings.
“Uh.” She looked at her notes and then cleared her throat. “You told me a few weeks ago that you were convinced he was going to murder someone before he hit age twenty. Do you stand by that?”
“No. I can’t testify to that and you can’t quote me.” Amy shook her head. “I thought he was creepy. I was young and inexperienced and he scared me. He seemed like a sociopath. Although not all sociopaths are killers. And, to be clear, the sociopath thing—that’s not a diagnosis, which he was too young for, anyway. But, he lacked any kind of empathy for the kids that died in the car wreck and he was creepy and he freakin’ liked carving cats. And all of that’s way, way, way far off the record.”
“Understood.” Jordan nodded and jotted a couple notes because it kept her focused. Her throat closed up anyway. She took a deep breath and moved to a safer topic than Brenda Fox, which was the one she really wanted to know about.
“So, back to the cats. He was fourteen when he was arrested for killing cats. Would it be typical for someone who kills a cat to start with a series of lesser crimes?”
“Or even non-crimes. General bad behavior.” Amy appreciated the change of topic, too. She picked up her cold burger and took a bite. “Things like skipping school. Starting fires. Bullying. Stealing cars. These all happen to be behaviors that are typical of sociopaths. But again, not saying he’s a sociopath. Not all sociopaths are killers and not all killers are sociopaths. Just saying, probably a kid is gonna show some other deviant behaviors before jumping straight to killing cats.”
“Right.” Jordan jotted down a couple notes, and then their post-lunch macaroons came. One pink and one yellow dessert wafer for each of them. Light and fluffy.
She let the macaroons’ arrival mark the time to lighten things up. “Thank you, Amy. I just want to be armed with whatever knowledge I can as I try to report on Ruby’s case while we wait for it to go to trial, you know? I want to find the truth and prove it as soon as possible.”
“I’m right there with you. Ruby’s husband and children are devastated,” Amy replied.
“Have you been spending a lot of time with them?”
The rest of Amy’s conversation was about kids and domestic life, which Jordan easily tuned out for about thirty minutes before Amy’s time was up.
CHAPTER 16
After lunch with Amy, Jordan needed to pound the pavement. She needed to process what she’d learned and figure out what to do about it all.
Running always made her feel better, think clearer.
Tom Clark’s invitation to run the 5K his brewery was sponsoring loomed, too, but if that’s all she had on her mind, she’d have skipped the run. Not much to think about with Tom. He was pretty simple to figure out. Which was one of the reasons she liked him. No drama.
Jordan changed into running shorts and a light jacket, and drove Hermes to a dirt lot on the west side of Bayshore Boulevard.
The linear park was a multi-lane avenue and featured more than four miles of continuous sidewalk lining the edge of Hillsborough Bay. Some days, when she had knotty problems to solve, she ran the entire distance twice.
Another benefit to working the nightside shift. The sidewalk was practically empty in the middle of the day on Tuesday. Even vehicle traffic was sparse. She’d have the whole beautiful experience for herself.
Jordan’s feet hit the concrete, easily finding her familiar steady rhythm. Step after step, flying head-first into the great unknown, like a dog off its leash.
Several minutes in, a salty mist coated her face. She barely noticed. Her face soaked up the sunlight, and her jacket, light as an onion skin, whistled in the breeze.
When she rounded a curve, the breeze shifted and harbor odor smacked her head-on. Snap! No more runner’s high.
The shallow brackish water had retreated with the tide, leaving every dead thing on the mucky bottom exposed. Dead stuff stinks. A lot.
Another ugly side of Tampa.
Jordan breathed through her mouth to escape the odor and kept on running. Soon, her mind started churning again. She wasn’t ready to think about Brenda, so she steered toward her other big problem.
She’d felt stymied at work following her meeting with the FBI. She’d been stuck in a windowless office effectively being silenced.
Drew? Well, he’d been on a plane headed back from interviewing the governor with Antonio.
Drew was on the fast track to success, with a lot of help from Patricia who was clearly crushing on him.
Meanwhile, Jordan kept getting into trouble. She couldn’t seem to help herself.
Maybe she should give up the internship challenge, let Drew win, and become a bartender at Infidel Brewing. She’d heard they made good tips and she was pretty sure Tom Clark would hire her in a hot New York minute.
The crazy idea tickled her and she laughed loud and long.
Two bike riders headed in the opposite direction stared at her like she’d lost her mind as they zoomed past.
Still smiling, Jordan rounded the curve into the last stretch of sidewalk before the final turn around. She thought about dolphins and puppies and Tom Clark and working as a bartender.
Maybe Claire was right. Maybe all she needed was a lot more fun in her life.
One more block before the turn around at another parking lot. Jordan pulled her attention back to her surroundings. She noticed a white panel van driving slowly along the sidewalk’s edge and slightly behind her.
Jordan twisted her body for a closer look without breaking her stride.
The van moved up to travel beside her. She picked up her pace.
The van accelerated, too.
When she slowed, it slowed. When she picked up again, so did the van.
She gave the van the side eye, and it beeped at her. The passenger window slid down. A deeply tanned guy with a full head of shaggy blonde hair leaned out the window. “Hey, miss?”
Jordan slowed to a jog. Maybe they needed directions. Tourists got lost around here all the time. At the moment, there was no one but Jordan around. Of course, they’d ask her. “Yes?”
The side door of the van slid open.
Jordan’s heart pumped hard. Her breath jerked, ragged.
Her muscles felt frozen, but she checked her legs. She was still running.
A swift confusing whirr of action followed.
A short, stocky man hopped out. Grabbed her under the arms.
She gasped for air. Somehow, her feet weren’t touching the ground anymore.
He hurled her inside the moving vehicle.
She heard her slamming heartbeat in her ears.
Her head banged against the metal floor so hard her ears rang and her vision blurred.
The sliding van door slammed closed. The driver accelerated quickly. The tires squealed.
The van turned sharply and Jordan’s body rolled into the cold side panel. Another sharp turn. Another.
Jordan’s forehead banged against the side panel. A sharp pain pierced through her skull. She felt dazed. Her eyelids drifted down.
She could sleep. No! She forced her eyes open.
Everything she could see was blurry. She blinked rapidly.
Stay conscious. Assess the situation. Remember every detail.
Can
s. Silver and red. Beer cans? Rattling around with every turn.
Look around, Jordan. Focus.
A face. She squinted to clear her sight line. She knew that face.
Her head was pounding. Pain. So much pain.
She closed her eyes to think.
Where had she seen that face?
FBI office. Freeze frame. Track field.
Emilio. The drug trafficker. The El Pulpo cartel member. Hugo’s pal.
Jordan mustered the strength to look around again. The man who’d grabbed her. She saw him through a blurry lens. She pulled her pupils into focus with each other.
This guy’s face was fatter than Emilio’s. Think Gordo. Meant fat in Spanish.
Greasy hair. Greasy face. Familiar? Maybe.
Jordan let her heavy eyelids rest a moment. She’d identified two of them. So far.
How many of them?
Lying on her back on the van’s floor, she felt her eyeballs roll back, and slapped her hand on the metal floor to wake up.
She inhaled deeply. Urine and sweat. Gagging, she clamped her jaw tight. She would not vomit in here.
Another man waited in the far back corner of the van. Jordan squeezed her eyes shut then open quickly and shot her focus at him.
No. Not possible.
She closed her eyes. She was seeing things.
Open up and focus again. Back corner.
Jordan forced her eyes open wide, and saw what she feared. Preppy dude. Strap of hair across his chin. The roofie guy.
Hugo Diaz.
“You.” She raised a heavy arm to point at him. “You killed a Navy pilot…”
“She’s delirious.” The voice came from the driver’s seat.
“Did you slip her a drug?” Hugo’s voice. She knew his steady, even tone.
“Just to knock her out. It’ll wear off soon.” It was Gordo. The fatter guy. The one who grabbed her.
He’d injected her with something, too. Explained a lot.
Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out. Keep talking.
“Hugo, you—you tried to kill that girl in the bar. I mean…you tried…you put in her drink….”
