by Kristen Lamb
“Why do I think this isn’t going to end well?”
“Kalista Delphinos-Gerald allegedly committed suicide. Returned to the ship after a tour in Jamaica then disappeared, presumed to have jumped overboard. No suicide note, but a lot of depression medication in her suitcase. Witnesses spotted her crying up on the top deck alone.”
“Was Phil with her? Because he totally could have pushed her.”
“No. He was in Chicago.”
I shivered. “Ugh. I was with him. Ew! We spent Christmas in the Presidential Suite of the downtown Chicago Hyatt. Kind of. I ordered a lot of room service and pizza and watched The Muppets Christmas Carol twenty times. Phil locked himself in the office then cut our trip short. Probably was working out his wife’s memorial. Ew.” I buried my face in a nearby pillow. Sawyer stroked my hair. After a minute, I sat up. “All right. I’m cool. Keep going.”
“Phil, being the widower, cleaned out the accounts and liquidated everything else, even though they never found a body. She didn’t pop up on our radar until later because she’d let her life insurance lapse.”
“You think Phil whacked her?”
“Anything’s possible.”
“Maybe he thought he’d married into money. Hit the wife jackpot. Hadn’t counted on all the bad blood and once she was disowned? He’d actually have to work for a living. If she didn’t have any money and he had a wandering eye, then she was no use to him anymore.”
“Viable theory,” he said.
“The hit man who took out all the Verify people seemed to love choking people and throwing them in the water. Just sayin’. Lots of water near cruise ships. Hard to find a body in the open ocean, which is one of the many reasons I totally hate the water. So you know.”
“Got that.” He winked.
“And no body no money, even if she did have life insurance. Wait a minute.” I felt this nagging sensation in my brain. “What was her name? Kalista Del—?”
“Delphinos.” He narrowed his eyes. “I’ve seen that look before. What are you thinking?”
“A hunch.” Write out the name for me, and can I see your laptop?”
He handed me the laptop then hunted for a napkin and pen and wrote out Kalista’s last name. I opened up a browser and ran a search for Halcyon Financial Services. Fancy web site, but no pictures. Then I ran the name through LinkedIn and there was a thumbnail photograph of the CEO. “I think Kalista Delphinos-Gerald is alive and well and helping Phil.”
“Why do you say that? And why are you on LinkedIn?”
“What was her degree from MIT?”
He frowned, trying to remember. “Double major. Project Management and Software Development, I think. She worked for a few computer firms and then left to go into real estate.”
“Let me guess. She suddenly felt the urge to sell condos the year Verify opened.”
“Actually, I think that fits the timeline.” He rifled through a thick stack of papers then nodded.
“Who does that look like?” I showed him a picture on-line.
His eyes widened. “Like you. Not exactly, but close. With dark hair and glasses.”
The petite woman in the image had long brown Texas hair and dark brown eyes, and I would have been insulted that Sawyer said we resembled each other, except the woman was very attractive. “Kalista Delphinos. Daphne Idensloph? Catch it?”
“No.”
I snagged the napkin and pen and scribbled out some letters. Idensloph is—”
“An anagram.” He groaned.
“What was Kalista’s middle name?”
“Daphne.” He looked ill.
“And Daphne Idensloph happens to run the accounting firm that’s doing all the billing for all the businesses and contractors in town? And Kalista Delphinos has a degree in software development from freaking MIT?” I took a screenshot of the LinkedIn image then moved the frame over to the image of Kalista Delphinos.
“Could be sisters,” he said.
“Or the same woman. Long hair, colored contacts, severe glasses.” I chewed on the end of the pen. “If this woman’s as good with software as I think, she’s ghosted any background. Money isn’t the only thing that exists as zeroes and ones these days. People do too. If Daphne Idensloph is really Kalista Delphinos, she’s created an entirely new identity. You can’t check into her.”
“Why? That is the next logical step.”
“Never underestimate your opponent. If she’s working with Phil, odds are she wrote the virus that stole all the money, then used that same type of program to re-appropriate it from the dead partners. She’s probably also responsible for whatever new program is fleecing the business people of Bisby.”
“And likely created the program that stole all the money from Unemployment and the IRS.”
I nodded.
He took the laptop away from me. “Which is why professionals need to investigate. We actually do know what we’re doing. We have computer geeks who do this stuff all day.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Sorry, that sounded bad. I know y’all are sharp, but they’ve been outsmarting all of us, and, if I were her, I’d have alerts all over the place.”
“Like maybe LinkedIn?”
I gave him an annoyed stare. “LinkedIn is a social network. She’s expecting people to see her there. But you dig any deeper? My gut says she’ll disappear taking Phil and the money and we’ll never get them. We can’t risk it.”
His mouth was pressed into a line. “If I withhold this kind of information?”
I cupped his face in my hand. “I never told you to withhold it. Tell your higher-ups. They’ll take you seriously that you were right to follow me to Bisby.”
“You lost me.”
“Get in the mind of your target. What are their critical nodes?”
“What?” He stared at me like I’d sprouted another head.
“Come on, they do teach you profiling at Quantico. Get in their heads. Both Kalista and Phil are insecure and narcissistic. They have something to prove. They also love three things above all else. Status, money, and technology.”
“What are you saying?”
“Pretend inferiority and encourage arrogance. ”
“Now you’re quoting Sun Tzu?”
I wadded a napkin and tossed it at him. “Standard sales training. We need to choose the battlefield, and not the one where they hold the advantage.”
“How?”
“No computers. You go hacking into databases and Kalista will run you through a Wormhole of Distraction and have you chasing your own ass while they go buy a private island.”
He fell back against the headboard. “You’re right.”
“Sometimes you need to go Old School.”
“Old School. Great. I feel much better.”
“One more thing. We might be able to play them against each other.”
“True. He has been going after other women.”
“No.” I rubbed my temples. My head felt like someone had kicked it with a steel-toed boot. “Something tells me she doesn’t care about that. It’s that she likes her name. When they married, she didn’t become Kalista Gerald, she became Kalista Delphinos-Gerald. And Gerald would have made a way better anagram, frankly.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Gladre, Lagred, Gradel all sound more natural as last names, but she chose Idensloph hoping we’d write it off as a seriously bad Danish surname? That’s all ego.”
“You’re rambling.”
“Thing is she is using her name. That says something to me, and that she might have her own agenda. Maybe we can use that. Phil needs her, but right now? He’s a wanted man and a lot of pissed off rich people and every law enforcement agency is hunting for him. The big question is, ‘What does he offer her?’”
“Good question.” He raised his eyebrows.
“Because with what we currently know? Phil’s a liability. I might not be next on that hit list, or even on it at all.”
“You’re righ
t. Given the current theory.” He rubbed his jaw. “The more logical target’s Phil.”
“She keeps the money and her last name, albeit a seriously jacked up version. Technically she’s dead, so she could go live in St. Tropez a rich woman.”
“With the added benefit that no one knows she was the puppet-master behind all the fraud and theft.”
“And the whole dead men don’t talk thing.”
“That too.”
A dark thought tugged at the edges of my mind as I drained the last of the Coke.
“Why are you making that face again?” he asked, frowning.
“What face?” I asked innocently.
“Your thinking face. You’re thinking again, aren’t you?”
“The problem I’m having is that Phil isn’t dead yet .” I worried at some dry skin on the edge of my thumbnail.
“You’ve had that problem for over a year.”
This time, I tossed a cold fry at him. “True. But Phil’s still alive. Why? If I were her, he’d have been first on the hit list, not last.”
“You’re thinking either they really are in love or Phil brings more to the table we don’t yet know about.”
“Yep.” I was missing something huge and probably obvious. A linchpin.
“Do you confuse yourself?” He prodded me.
I sighed dramatically. “You have no idea.”
“Got a plan?” he asked as he bagged up my leftovers and threw them in the trash.
“Me? I’m not the FBI. Why am I doing your job anyway?”
He laughed. “Because you’re better at it.”
I smiled. “No. Perceptual distortion. Happens when we’re too close to a problem. Fresh eyes help.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that you shot down my plan. You have a better idea?”
“I do, but first we need to go somewhere.” I stretched my aching muscles. I’d been in bed too long and needed to move.
“Where?” He raised an eyebrow.
“The old Eisler horse ranch. You’re driving.”
“Huh?”
“I could drive,” I offered. “But I’m technically not supposed to drive or operate heavy equipment. Hey, can I have a chainsaw?” I bounced like a kid.
“What? No. No leaving, no driving, and definitely no chainsaw.”
I gave my best pouty lip. “Chainsaw Nazi.”
“You’re beat to hell. You need rest and sleep.”
“I’m going, with or without you.”
“Why go to the horse ranch? And, again, you aren’t supposed to be driving.”
“Which is why I’m counting on you to save me from my own poor judgment. Duh.”
“You’re impossible.”
“But cute. Trust me. We need to go today.”
“Why?” He rubbed my thigh, but I stopped him afraid I might lose my moral compass.
“Because I had a dream with Indiana Jones.”
“Huh?”
“But nothing happened between us. Totally platonic. Maybe Freudian, though…” I frowned.
“Fine.” He let out a heavy sigh. “One day I’ll learn not to ask.”
Chapter Nineteen
The late afternoon sun was blinding as we headed toward the trailer park. I’d dressed in the jeans, biker boots, and a red T-shirt with a yellow Transformer symbol.
“Why are you wearing a robot shirt?” he asked as we pulled off the farm road and toward the ranch.
I huffed. “It isn’t a robot. It’s a Decepticon.”
“A what?”
“Transformers. More than meets the eye?”
He shook his head. “You’re hopeless.”
“Hey, it was only fifty cents at the thrift shop. I can’t help that I have the chest of a twelve-year-old boy…or that we have the same taste in clothes.”
“First, there is nothing wrong with your chest. Then, after the ranch, we’re taking you shopping,” he said and parked outside a big gate with a neon orange NO TRESSPASSING sign.
“I thought men hated shopping,” I said, trying not to think about his comment regarding my chest.
“That’s a stereotype, but yes I hate shopping. Chalking it up to my duty as an FBI agent. We dig in Dumpsters and shoot people and, when necessary, go shopping.”
“Look at the bright side.” I shrugged. “Less paperwork than shooting people,” I said as I undid my seatbelt and climbed out of the Suburban. I noted my head was throbbing again so I fetched a bottle of water. Probably should have taken two pills instead of only one. I’d have to suck it up. Instincts told me I needed to come look around before the place was flattened.
Sawyer eyed the disintegrated mess at the top of the hill. “Why are we here? Aside from your relationship with Indiana Jones?”
“Platonic relationship.” I massaged my aching muscles and stared at the old ranch. “Just a lot of pieces that my mind senses go together, but I can’t make them fit.”
“That’s all you’re giving me?”
I shrugged. “It’s all I have. What does it cost you? A drive? Gas? Some time?”
“Time I could be wrapped up with you in the hotel.” He squeezed my butt and I swatted him.
“Touché. Shouldn’t take long. Come on.” The rusted cattle gate was chained shut, so Sawyer boosted me over. Afternoon heat beat down on us as we treaded carefully through tall grass that pulsed with rattling insects. “Watch for snakes,” I said absently as I stared at the house and wiped sweat out of my face.
“Great.”
I hiked up the now overgrown path, the familiar smell of bone-dry fields and rotting wood enveloping me. As I stepped up on the old slat porch, a board gave way, but I sidestepped before my leg went through. “That could have been bad,” I said.
“Which is precisely why this is a bad idea.”
I ignored him and peered through the front windows. Vandals had busted out most of the panes. I spied some of the old furniture left to decay with the rest of the place. “We never went near the house as kids. Just played in the barn, and got our asses whipped for it.”
“Why?”
“Daddy was afraid we’d break our necks climbing in the lofts.”
“No, why didn’t you come near the house?”
“Supposedly no one lived here, but we’d see lights. Shadowy figures. We used to make up stories that the place was haunted, that Delroy chopped off his father’s head with an ax and buried him under the house and took the head with him. The shadows were Delroy’s father roaming the house in search of his head.”
“Active, gruesome imaginations.”
“Daddy was too cheap to get cable.” I checked the door and it was unlocked. We stepped into a cauldron of searing stale air. Slanting wedges of sunlight illuminated clouds of dust motes. The walls were spray-painted with satanic symbols, images of demonic faces and gang signs.
“Apparently, you and your sister weren’t the only ones with macabre imaginations. Check out these walls,” he said.
The water-well-turned-coffee-table hunkered low in a corner, coated in an inch of dust and dirt.
Sawyer shone his flashlight around the small living room and searched the rest of the house. A couple minutes later, he returned. “Rooms are all empty. A bunch of trash and more Satanic stuff. Some gates and symbols from the Necronomicon. A few pentagrams. Even a veve of Baron Samedi, oddly enough.”
“Oddly enough?”
“Usually don’t see that in this part of the country.” He shrugged.
“Who?”
“Baron Samedi. Voodoo. Master of the dead and giver of life. Used in hexes and curses.” He shut off the flashlight and stowed it in his back pocket.
“Cool,” I said. “You finally out-geeked me. Proud of yourself?”
“Very.” He smiled. “I didn’t see any fresh footprints. Seems no one’s been here for a while.”
I rolled my eyes. “Headless ghosts don’t leave footprints. Everyone knows that.”
“Wow. How could Quantico not teach this vital infor
mation?”
“They obviously taught you about the Necronomicon. Demon worship and Voodoo are okay, but ghosts are just silly?”
He gave me an annoyed stare. “A lot of drug lords use black magic to guard shipments. Gangs and cults love devil and black magic icons, as you know.”
“Whatever. So do bored teenagers dropping acid and listening to too much Norwegian death metal. Help me with this,” I said as I tried to budge the top off the coffee table. The wood was old and termite-ridden and it didn’t take much to pry it free.
