Clawback

by J. A. Jance

  He paused. “Okay. It’s finally done booting up, and here’s the unnamed drive.” In the background Ali heard the distinctive key clicks of an old-fashioned keyboard.

  “Haley says password protected,” Ali said.

  “It is indeed,” Stuart replied, “but I’m taking a wild guess here. Dan stole the files, he’s dead, and Jason McKinzie is currently on the lam. Let’s try Mr. McKinzie’s one-size-fits-all password, which, thanks to your parents, I happen to have right here.” A second machine gun blast of key clicks came through Ali’s phone, followed by another pause. “Yup,” Stuart said. “There you go. Got it.”

  “Got what?”

  “Abracadabra. The drive opened.”

  Ali could barely contain her excitement. “What’s on it?”

  “I’m looking. A huge database, for one thing—hundreds of names. That one looks like it might be an OFM client list. There are several that appear to be accounting programs. Those are all accessible, by the way. In addition, there are several much smaller files. Those are encrypted.”

  “Is it maybe the same encryption key that unlocked the South African photos?”

  “Nope. All it took to unlock those was McKinzie’s password,” Stuart said. “I just tried that one on these, and it didn’t work.”

  “Keep trying,” Ali said, and then she added, “Okay, I’m here now. I’m just pulling up.”

  “Ali,” Stuart pleaded. “I beg you. Please do not go near that house without backup.”

  “But I do have backup,” she said, “and you’re it. Stay on the line, Stu. There’s a local municipal election coming up—a special election. I just saw a yard sign for someone named Lois Rogers who’s running for city council. I’m going to go up to the door, ring the bell, and pretend I’m one of Lois’s campaign workers. If someone opens the door, I’ll try to peek inside. I may be able to get a glimpse of what’s going on.”

  “What if things go south?” Stu asked.

  “If that happens, it’s your job to run up the flag.”

  57

  Once Cami heard the shower running, she knew this was her moment. If ever she was going to act, it had to happen now, while Jessica was in one room and McKinzie in another; while it would be one-on-one rather than two-on-one. As for which one she should take down first? No question. Jason McKinzie was “it.”

  Jason had made his opinion of Cami Lee blazingly clear. He regarded her as little more than a fly on the wall—a minor irritation. He had no idea Cami posed any threat at all, much less a serious one. Not keeping the gun had been his first mistake. As for mistake number two? That was his complete lack of hesitation in allowing Cami to use the restroom.

  Yes, Cami told herself. She’d take on Jason first. Once he was down, she’d try to make a break for it, out through the back patio and onto the golf course. There would be people out there she could ask for help. And if Jessica happened to finish her shower before Cami had a chance to get away? Well, she’d cross that bridge when she had to.

  On her way to the powder room and still searching for potential weapons, Cami found herself staring at a collection of likely looking prospects. On a glass coffee table set between two large upholstered sofas stood three Kokopelli statues. She hadn’t seen them before because, due to the high backs on the oversized sofas, the statues had previously been out of Cami’s line of sight.

  Like the ones on the wall, these Kokopelli figures, too, were made of thin sheets of hammered copper. Each one was attached to a marble base by a single brass strut. Cami could tell just by looking that the two taller ones would be too large and heavy for her to wield effectively. The smallest one, however, appeared to be a good fit.

  She’d been telling the truth when she’d said she needed to use the bathroom. Once inside, she was happy to relieve herself. Studying her face in the mirror while washing her hands, she recalled a time when she’d lost a student body election by a single vote. She’d done what everyone always said you were supposed to do. She’d been told that she should always “play fair” and “be a good sport” and not put herself first. Abiding by those dictums, she had voted for her opponent rather than for herself. Had the election ended in a tie, the principal would have had to choose between the two candidates. With Cami’s rule-abiding vote for the other girl, Cami had taken the decision out of the principal’s hands and made the choice for him.

  Still standing in front of the mirror, Cami straightened her shoulders. Sitting on the barstool with her feet dangling helplessly in the air, she’d been as much a victim inside the house as she had been in the car with a loaded gun pointed in her direction. That was over. She was no longer helpless. Now she was angry.

  No rules, she vowed to her image in the mirror. Not this time.

  She came out of the powder room fully prepared to do battle with Jason McKinzie, only to find that he wasn’t there. He was no longer seated at the dining room table. He was gone and so was his computer. Thinking he must have joined Jessica in the bedroom, Cami hesitated. If the two of them had hooked up again, her best bet was to make a break for it right now. She should go somewhere and call the cops. After all, she knew in general where Jessica and McKinzie were going. She also knew which vehicles they’d be driving.

  Just then the gauzy sheers over the patio sliders puffed slightly as a hot breeze blew into the room. That was when Cami realized one of the sliders was standing wide open. Looking past the patio and lap pool toward the backyard, she caught a glimpse of McKinzie, computer in hand, ducking through an oleander hedge at the back of the property and then sprinting out across the open fairway.

  Before Cami could make a move to follow, Jessie, clad in a robe and with a towel wrapped around her wet hair, appeared in the near end of the bedroom hallway. She and Cami must have seen the open slider at almost the same instant.

  “What the hell?” Jessica demanded.

  Bathrobe means no holster, Cami told herself. No holster means no gun and no rules.

  Jessica was still staring at the open patio door when Cami launched her attack. Grasping the smallest statue by its supporting rod and holding the base in front of her like a mini battering ram, Cami threw herself toward Jessie, aiming for the throat. Somehow, out of the corner of her eye, Jessie must have seen Cami coming. She spun around and tried to dodge back down the hall, moving fast enough to deflect the incoming blow without avoiding it completely. Rather than hitting Jessie full in the throat, the marble base slammed into the side of her face, slicing open her cheek and sending her reeling.

  Unfortunately, Cami wasn’t exactly left unscathed. Carried forward by her own momentum, she smashed into the wall next to the hallway, knocking the breath out of her lungs and the statue out of her hands. Standing together on the coffee table the statues had seemed substantial enough. In reality they were nothing but cheap knockoffs. Cami’s so-called weapon landed on the tile floor and exploded into pieces. The faux marble base shattered. The rod, separated from the copper figure, rolled in one direction, while the Kokopelli itself slid out of sight under one of the sofas.

  By the time Cami regained her equilibrium, Jessie had done the same. The next time Cami saw her opponent, Jessie was on her feet and stark naked. The robe was gone and so was the towel. She vaulted toward Cami with a length of material stretched between her hands.

  After being momentarily stunned, it took almost too long for Cami’s brain to register the words “bathrobe tie” and to understand the threat. If Jessie’s plan was strangulation, Cami needed a countermeasure, and she needed it now.

  Pivoting away, Cami lunged for the next usable weapon—one of the knives from the block on the kitchen counter. Knowing the larger ones would be unwieldy in close combat, she opted for two small paring knives as she darted past before positioning herself at the far end of the island.

  The two women stood still at opposite ends of the quartz counter, each silently assessing the other. Cami noticed that even though Jessica had deflected Cami’s initial blow, she had nonetheless s
uffered some damage. There was a jagged, bleeding wound on her cheek. A steady stream of the blood ran unchecked down her neck and dribbled off her breast.

  Measuring from the top of the island, Cami estimated Jessie to be at least five six or five seven. She most likely outweighed Cami by a good forty pounds. It looked as though her arms might be long enough to enable her to fend off the short-bladed paring knives in Cami’s hands without much difficulty. And so, Cami decided, if the knives weren’t going to be the final answer, then that’s where Cami needed to keep Jessie’s undivided focus—on those two blades.

  Still at the end of the island, Cami forced herself to take a deep breath. The element of surprise may have been taken from her, but Amir had shown her how to turn an opponent’s supposed advantage in terms of size and weight against them. Cami’s next proposed move was designed to do just that.

  Jessie took a single challenging step toward the counter, one which also carried her a step nearer the knife block.

  “Don’t,” Cami commanded.

  Holding both paring knives in plain sight, she, too, moved out from behind the island and into the small passage between the island and the kitchen countertop. Cami’s and Jessie’s next long stare-down took place with nothing separating them but five feet or so of open space.

  “You’ll never get to the knife block,” Cami warned. “I’ll be all over you before you do.”

  “Why don’t you try it, you little bug?” Jessie sneered, taking another cautious step forward. “I dare you. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

  There was a certain familiarity in all of that, a reminder of Cami’s old kung fu days, only this time the opponents were trading insults rather than formally polite bows. And then, for a second or so, Cami was back on that long-ago school bus with the bully needling her. Which are you, Chinee or Frenchee?

  Taking her own forward step, Cami needled right back. “Darers go first,” she said, with a smile. “The way I always heard it, the bigger they come, the harder they fall.”

  Letting the tie drop from her hands, Jessica sprang forward, and Cami launched her own attack in the same instant. Jessica’s whole focus was on reaching the knife block and grabbing for a handle. Ducking forward with the blades of her own knives nearly touching the floor, Cami darted in well under the taller woman’s outstretched arms and under her radar as well. As they collided full-force, Cami rose to her full height, smashing into the bottom of Jessica’s chin with the top of her head.

  The blow was solid enough that it left Cami still standing but dizzy and seeing stars. Jessie, however, pitched straight backward, falling all the way to the terrazzo-tiled floor. With nothing to break her fall, her head bounced twice on the unyielding surface. After that she lay still.

  Not knowing how long Jessica would be out, Cami didn’t hesitate. Dropping the now unnecessary knives, she used all her strength to roll Jessie’s considerable deadweight over onto her side. Next she grabbed the fallen bathrobe tie and bound Jessica’s hands securely behind her back, finishing by bending Jessica’s knees backward and securing her feet to her hands.

  Cami was standing upright and admiring her hog-tying handiwork when Jessie started coming around. When she moaned, a small trickle of blood dribbled out of the corner of her mouth. Obviously she had bitten her tongue.

  Out of breath with exertion, Cami quickly gathered up all the knives in the room—both the ones she’d dropped as well as the ones in the block. Out of sight behind Jessie’s back, she stuffed all of the knives—block and all—onto the top shelf of the freezer, where they were both out of reach and out of sight. Then Cami went to the bedroom and retrieved Jessie’s handgun. Returning to the kitchen, she dropped the fallen robe over Jessie’s bloodied and naked form.

  The woman’s eyes burned with helpless fury. “You bith!” she muttered, lisping the word past a painfully swollen tongue. “You little bith!”

  “You should actually be saying thank you about now,” Cami told her pleasantly. “When the cops show up here, you’re going to be glad to have that robe.”

  58

  Ali had a bulletproof vest in the Cayenne, but if she was going to make the campaign worker fiction fly, she couldn’t very well show up in a vest. Her silk shantung sheath made no allowance for carrying a Taser, and her very high heels weren’t exactly doorbelling-friendly, either. She ventured up the walkway through a xeriscaped front yard, arriving at the front door with her fight-or-flight mode fully engaged.

  “All right,” she said quietly into the cell phone now stowed strategically in her bra and switched on speaker. “Here goes. Quiet now, everybody. Not a word.”

  She pressed the bell. A two-toned chime sounded inside the house, but that was all. No one came to the door. No one answered. She rang the bell again.

  “I guess nobody’s home,” she said resignedly to Stu. “You’re sure Cami’s car is still here?”

  “I’m not sure of anything at this point,” Stu replied. “The GPS is still there, but the car may not be.”

  “The blinds on the front of the house are all closed,” Ali said. “But there’s a gate on the side of the house. I’m going to go around back and see if I can see anything there.”

  “Don’t,” Stu cautioned. “Please.”

  But Ali’s mind was already made up. “Stay with me,” she told him. “This won’t take long.”

  Walking around the house, she was grateful for the flagstone walkway that led to a side gate. The rough gravel covering the yard would have torn her heels to shreds, and in the scorching late-afternoon heat, walking barefoot wasn’t an option.

  She stopped at the gate and was tall enough to peer over it. The back of the property consisted of a small flagstone-paved patio, a lap pool, and another tiny bit of graveled yard. At the end of the yard was a thick oleander hedge lining what was evidently a golf course fairway. There was a golf cart parked in the center of the fairway with a golfer lining up to take a shot, but closer at hand, Ali saw no signs of life. There was no one swimming in the pool. There was no one seated at the patio table with its obligatory four chairs and brightly colored umbrella. The place seemed empty and deserted.

  “Okay,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Can’t stand here any longer or a neighbor will report me for trespassing. Going in now.”

  Because of the pool, Ali knew there would be a state-mandated pool latch on the inside of the gate. She pulled up on it, cringing at how noisy it sounded in the stillness of that scorching afternoon. Carefully setting one foot in front of the other, she inched onto the patio.

  The first set of patio sliders evidently led to a bedroom. She could see closed blinds and beyond those another covering of some kind, maybe blackout curtains. She stopped there, though. Holding one ear to the glass, she heard nothing—no one talking; no radio playing background music; no TV set droning away on an afternoon news show. Convinced the bedroom was empty, Ali moved on.

  It wasn’t until she reached the patio table that she saw that the door space in the next set of sliders was wide open. Again she paused, listened, and again heard nothing. She pulled the phone out of her bra and held it up to her lips.

  “Something’s haywire here,” she whispered, taking the phone off speaker mode. “Nobody’s here. Door’s open. Going in.”

  The phone went back on speaker and into her bra without Ali bothering to listen to Stu’s latest bark of protest. She edged up to the near end of the wall of windows and peered around the frame. Through a set of sheer curtains she saw a standard modern great-room arrangement—a kitchen with an island that looked out onto a combination living room and dining room. There was a dining table with six chairs; two sofas with matching end tables and lamps; a flat-screen TV set hanging on the wall over a gas log fireplace.

  Then, as her eyes adjusted to the difference between the harsh outside sunlight and the more muted interior, Ali saw something else. Broken pieces of glass—or pottery, maybe?—gleamed on the dark area rug beneath the two sofas.


  Something broken, Ali told herself. Did that mean there had been an altercation of some kind? A struggle? Was Cami hurt? Dead?

  She hesitated for a cautious moment longer. Still there were no signs of movement inside the house and no signs of life, either. In the distant background she heard faint strains of approaching sirens, but she was too worried about Cami to give them much thought. Instead, she eased herself silently into the room and moved quickly to the spot on the carpet where she had seen what she assumed to be broken glassware. She bent down close enough to examine one of the pieces, peering at it closely without actually touching it. A glance was enough to convince her that it was a hunk of something that looked like carved marble. The base of something, perhaps—a lamp, maybe?

  That’s when she spotted blood. There were drops of it on the white-tiled floor and some on one of the broken pieces, too. Suddenly she heard a rustling sound coming from somewhere behind her.

  Goose bumps instantly covered her body. A chill ran up her spine. Standing and spinning, she fully expected to find an armed attacker directly behind her. No one was there, but the sound came again, louder this time. A thrashing, bumping noise that seemed to be coming from somewhere in the kitchen, from the far side of the quartz-topped island.

  Heart in her throat, Ali stepped toward the sound. A moment later she saw a naked woman, tied hand and foot, struggling desperately to free herself. Ali was about to reach out and offer to help her when she heard a fierce pounding on the front door.