by Kay, Arlene
“Assistant? I thought we’d keep this between the two of us.”
Lucian pinned me with an icy stare. “Do you not trust me yet?”
I returned his glare with interest. “I don’t have much choice, do I?”
We passed my beaming concierge and commandeered the elevator. I positioned myself in one corner where I could study Lucian’s face. If he had a guilty conscience, you would never know it by his placid expression. I reminded myself that sociopaths felt none of the emotions that ruled normal beings. Maybe Lucian was worse, a charming psychopath who could subdue his enemies with a ripple of those spectacular muscles. Psych 101 had been a long time ago. I forgot what the distinction was between the terms, and frankly I didn’t care.
While I fished in my purse for my house keys, Lucian stood guard. It unnerved me, causing me to fumble with the door.
“May I?” he asked. Lucian placed the gold elephant key lock in his palm and stroked it. “Ah,” he said. “Hermes is one of my favorites. It suits you. Looks a bit battered though.”
He swung open the door with one twist of the Medco lock, leaving me to ponder once again how familiar this man seemed. The key lock had belonged to Kai. He had loved elephants. He’d dangled it in front of me as he was leaving that final day.
“They’re admirable creatures, Lizzie Mae, symbols of luck and fidelity.” Kai had winked at me and patted my stomach. “Fertility too.”
This particular elephant hadn’t brought him much luck. The key lock was one of the personal effects they’d found with my husband’s body. Few people would realize that it was from Hermes. Points to Lucian for that.
Della greeted us with her frenzied, scolding bark, letting us know that she’d been neglected. Faithless minx, she ignored me and hurled herself into Lucian’s open arms.
“She’s always preferred men,” I said, “a big daddy’s girl.”
He locked eyes with me. “I love animals. They can sense it, I think. In many ways, they’re far more intelligent than humans.”
That warmth on my cheeks meant only one thing, the redhead’s curse. Someday I might master my emotions. No more blushing, flushing or swooning. Until then I’d have to ignore it and soldier on.
“I’ll get us something to drink. Then we can discuss your experiment.” I busied myself with hostess chores while Lucian examined the marble fireplace surround.
“This is beautiful,” he said. “It is French, no?”
I nodded. “Imported from an old chateau in Avignon. Getting it up here was quite a feat, I can tell you.”
“Your husband was a man of great discernment in furnishings and in women.” Lucian grinned. “I can tell that.”
“Yes, well.” I handed him a tray with three Baccarat wineglasses and a bottle of Château Latour. “Will you do the honors, please? Then as soon as your buddy arrives, we can get down to business.”
“Gladly.” Lucian uncorked the wine and poured both of us a glass. After a perfunctory toast we settled in.
He reached into his attaché case and produced a strange object. “Here it is,” Lucian said. “I got this and a few other components at Radio Shack this morning. If you can wait a minute, it will be worth your while.”
The house phone shrilled, announcing the arrival of a visitor. “Send him up,” I said.
Five minutes later I opened the door to Rand Lindsay.
“Thanks, Miss Elisabeth,” he said as he accepted his wine. “This place is phenomenal. I couldn’t even afford a closet.” He chuckled. “Not that I could ever fit in most closets. Good thing I’m out. That’s a gay joke, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Very droll. Someday, Rand, you’ll own the whole building. By the way, aren’t you taking a big chance coming here?” I recalled Arun’s reaction to Lucian.
He shrugged. “There’s so much chaos at CYBER-MED, they’ll never miss me. I did that press release for Dr. Meg and skedaddled. Everyone was keyed up, even the Tornado.”
Lucian grinned at the nickname. “Rand has a code name for everyone. It’s part of his charm.” He brought out what I assumed was some implantable device and a simple-looking radio. “Ready, Rand? Mrs. Buckley wants a show.”
“On it, Sandman.” He produced a complicated diagram that left me stumped. “A few basics, Miss Elisabeth. I watched that video after you left. Dr. Meg and I reviewed every word Tommy said.” He patted my hand. “Anything’s possible, I know that, but I think this is a software issue.”
“Software? Make it simple, Rand. My interest in science is very limited and my patience even more so.” I drummed my fingers on the table. It was rude, quite unlike the behavior of the refined Mrs. Kai Buckley. It felt good.
I saw that sly smile on Lucian’s face. He sipped his wine and helped out his protégé. “My warnings last year concerned safety issues. Nothing malicious, just the possibility of malfunctions in the software. The hardware, pacemakers and the like, is closely regulated, but there’s a vacuum. No one polices the software until it’s too late.” He raked his impossibly thick hair again.
Does he know how sexy that gesture is? Kai did that same thing until I called him on it.
“This is no malfunction, not if Tommy was right. We’re talking hits, targeted murders for hire.” I still couldn’t believe it. The whole thing was preposterous, Candy and I blundering into a ring of murderers.
“Tell me how they would do it, Lucian. I want to understand.”
He closed his eyes for a second and regrouped. “Rand was correct about the software issues. Much research has been devoted to the devices themselves, safety and such.” He held up an ordinary looking radio. “See this? We did a bench test today using this software radio.”
His frown told me the news was not good. Tommy’s instincts had been right on the mark.
“First, we intercepted data, signals from the device itself. In this case we replicated the cardiac defibrillator that Ian Cotter used. Same make and model.”
“How could you possibly know that you were accessing the right device? After all, thousands of patients in Boston alone must have them.”
Rand jumped in with unseemly zeal. “That’s the cool thing, Mrs. B. Sandman and I got the name, age, medical ID, all that personal stuff, right off the implant. It was easy.”
I’m no scientist, but my training had taught me to analyze problems. “OK, so in a case like Mary Alice Tate, someone could find out blood type, maybe even DNA stuff. That’s bad enough, but it didn’t kill her. How about Cotter and the Judge?”
Lucian sighed. He spoke clinically, very much the cool, dispassionate scientist. “There’s more. We went into attack mode and were able to turn off the therapy settings. In other words, we fried the device.” He entered a special world inhabited by scientists and other techno-freaks like Rand, Arun and the Tornado. The door slammed shut on non-believers like me. Candy wasn’t even in the bleacher seats for this show. I risked a frown. There was more, I could feel it. Something worse than mere privacy issues.
Rand beamed, oblivious to reality. “It’s high-quality, original research. Boy, I wish I could use this on my professors. I’d sail right through my oral exams.”
How the hell had Tommy, the least technical person I knew, stumbled upon this? There had to be a financial link somewhere. If only I could find it.
“Back to Ian Cotter’s case,” Lucian said. “We went further, much further than I’d ever imagined.” A look passed between him and Rand. It was hard to describe: caution, fatalism, maybe even fear. “We delivered a shock that induced ventricular fibrillation — heart attack.”
My throat felt drier than dust. I sipped my wine as if it were salvation itself. “Was it … would it have killed him?”
His voice was flat, matter of fact. “It was lethal. Ian Cotter would have died instantly.”
“And the Judge? Jacob Arthur.” Somehow saying his name made him seem real. I felt a sickening slide in my gut.
“Him too,” Lucian said. “Judge Arthur’s pacemaker would
have attacked the organ it was programmed to save.”
I was speechless, unable to form a coherent thought.
Stop moping. Harness that spectacular mind of yours. It’s a business case. Think like a lawyer, Lizzie Mae.
I heard Kai’s words as clearly as if he were sitting there in that tatty leather chair sipping Château Latour. They strengthened my resolve the way his arms had always fortified my soul.
“OK, bear with me now. Some of my questions may sound elementary.” I checked their faces. Lucian’s was an unreadable mask, Rand’s aglow with scientific endorphins.
“This type of attack would require special expertise, right?” They both nodded. “Surely other scientists could do this, too.” The nerd herd in Boston alone could fill a stadium. Maybe one of them went for the cash and became a killer.
“That is true,” Lucian said. “We are gifted, but so many in the scientific community are also.” He reached for the wine and poured another glass for him and Rand. His movements seemed stiff, mechanical. Was he hiding the truth from me?
I recalled something Tony “Tornado” Torres had mentioned about proximity. “Isn’t there a distance issue? How close would you have to get to do this? The Judge was presiding over the trial when he died. An audience of fifty people saw that.”
Both men relaxed as the conversation switched to pedagogy. That role was as comfortable for them as a pair of well-worn boots. Rand looked to Lucian before answering.
“That’s where it gets really interesting,” he said. “At one time not too long ago, you had to stand close, within three centimeters, to interact with an IMD. Not anymore.” He rubbed his hands together. “These new devices are way cool. You know Latin, Mrs. B., so you’ll get this. It’s called malware. We tried it from several points. One time we were almost a third of a mile away.”
Lucian’s frown subdued Rand’s high spirits. If circumstances were different, that frown would have sent me on an estrogen high. I felt giddy, skating on ice so thin it could crack without warning, plunging me into the icy waters of reality.
My eyes locked on Lucian’s. The scientific sheen had temporarily blinded me to reality. Tommy didn’t pal around with a gang of techno-nerds. He’d been too busy servicing every Boston female with a pulse to do that. My old pal knew the murderer, felt comfortable having a civilized discussion about his or her crimes. I couldn’t exclude my own gender. Anyone can drive a car or program death. Like it or not, it was inescapable: the murderer worked at CYBER-MED.
Twenty
As they headed out the door, Candy called. Her voice cracked; that always happens when she’s verging on hysteria. I signaled to the guys and put her on speaker.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“Arun’s here. I’ll let him tell you.”
Arun cleared his throat. “Mrs. Buckley. Are we disturbing you?”
“Not at all. Dr. Sand is here. Full disclosure policy and all.” Rand exhaled, mouthing a silent thank you when his name wasn’t mentioned.
Arun’s voice deepened. “OK. It doesn’t matter anyway. Nothing does.”
The man was a drama queen. King. Whatever. Either way, he spent far too much time moaning for my taste. Something had gone wrong, that was obvious. If only he would man up and spit it out.
“Tell me about it, Arun,” I said. “After the last year nothing shocks me anymore.”
I’d had my fill of phone calls. Two of them had been death calls, actually. First Tommy phoned me about Kai. I recalled every word he said as if it were yesterday. I had clutched the phone to my chest and fainted on the spot. Later I’d awakened in a hospital bed, bereft of my husband and son.
Tommy‘s death was even more vivid. Painful vignettes flitted through my mind. The theme was always the same: Tommy, Kai, Candy and me. They all melded into one amorphous mass that spelled grief. After that, nothing Arun said would shock me. I was Teflon tough, inured to hurt.
“It happened,” Arun said. “We’re ruined.”
“What are you talking about? I suppressed the urge to slam the phone.
Lucian listened without saying a word. Rand put a hand over his mouth to keep from blurting out a reaction.
“Tommy’s video went viral. It’s all over YouTube and God only knows where else.” His heavy breathing filled the room. I expected him to hyperventilate any second. “The calls started this afternoon from clients, prospective clients and every physician we deal with. They had the same question: what the hell is going on at CYBER-MED?”
“Not a total surprise,” I said. “These days, privacy is an illusion. I’m afraid the cops will swarm all over CYBER-MED. Have many patients switched providers yet?”
“A few,” Arun answered, “but its early days. Worst case, we’ll lose the majority and have to go Chapter 11. Maybe even Chapter 7.”
“Any white knights in the offing?” I asked. “After all, the public’s attention span is short, and no one can prove anything. Yet.”
“Maybe. Meg already got a third-party offer for a majority of our shares. Rock bottom price, though. Ten million bucks. Wouldn’t even cover our outstanding debt.”
I considered that development carefully. What better way to bring CYBER-MED to its knees than by leaking Tommy’s video? I logged on to my computer and typed in YouTube. Thomas Yancey’s last words were prominently displayed, listed under Featured Video. It had already racked up over two million hits.
“Switch on the news,” Lucian said. Rand lumbered over to the flat screen and clicked on the New England News channel. There it was, bigger than life. The station recounted the CYBER-MED controversy, complete with statements by the grieving widows and a taut, coolly professional interview with Dr. Margaret Cahill. The song “Cold as Ice” swept through my mind as I watched her. In a weird way I admired Meg’s inexorable strength. She would be near the top of my heroes list in any crisis. Of course, loyalty was out of the question. Meg would jettison you in a hurry if it suited her.
For a moment I forgot that Arun and Candy were still on speakerphone. “Are you guys there?” I asked.
“Barely,” Candy whined. “What should we do, Betts?”
“Get your bony little ass in gear and meet me at CYBER-MED. We have to strategize.”
I asked Lucian Sand to join us at CYBER-MED. Mentioning Cahill’s name made Rand flee as fast as his bulk allowed. “Meet you at the office,” he panted. “Dr. Meg will be looking for me.” His fear was almost palpable.
It took every ounce of my poise to keep from screaming.
“Is something wrong?” Lucian asked, giving me a gentle squeeze.
“Nope. Everything is hunky dory. My best friend was murdered, and now Candy and I are ensnared by a murderous cabal of cyber-thugs. Nothing’s wrong.”
His response was sharper than a slap. “Believe it or not,” he said calmly, “there’s now a machine algorithm that detects sarcasm. The Israelis developed it. SASI they call it.” His turquoise eyes twinkled. “Computers can do anything, Elisabeth. Almost.” Lucian lifted my chin toward him, kissing my forehead
“I told you before, ma belle. I will never leave your side unless you ask. Count on that.” He thrust a sheet of plain printer paper at me. “Here. I found this taped to your front door when I went back for your gloves. I put it in one of your plastic bags to preserve evidence.”
The message was succinct. In neatly printed letters someone warned: BACK OFF BITCH OR YOU’LL DIE.
Porsche’s have superior heaters, but that didn’t help me. My body shook as if I were stranded in the Arctic. Someone, a murderer perhaps, had breached my supposedly secure building and threatened me. Anyone with sense would have called the cops right away. Not me, the newly galvanized Lizzie Mae. I was consumed by a rage so volcanic I almost swooned.
“That does it,” I growled. “I’ll never back off now. Screw Andrews and all the other cops. I’ll handle this myself.”
“Too late,” Lucian said. “I dialed the Sergeant on my way down. He sa
id he’d meet us at CYBER-MED.”
This time there were no sly jokes or innuendos. Lucian’s handsome features were etched in stone.
“Maybe you should give it up,” he said, “leave everything to the authorities. That’s what Tommy asked you to do.” He slid into his seat and fired up the engine.
A momentary suspicion flashed through me. Could Lucian himself have penned that note? What a perfect way to scare me off without hurting me or Della. It was printed so it was hard to tell who wrote it. I summoned the lawyer’s look: a smooth, impenetrable mask.
“You don’t get it. Nothing scares me anymore. Hasn’t for a long time.”
Lucian paused, warily scanning my face. “Would Kai accept that? Risking your life? I thought he cherished you.”
I hugged Della’s silky fur, pulling her close for a nose kiss. “Don’t act like you knew him. Kai was willing enough to risk his own life and our son’s.” As always whenever I thought of that, renegade tears welled up in my eyes. I swiped at them with my sleeve.
Lucian reached across the gearbox and gathered me in his arms. “You’re very brave. I know that, but you don’t have to do this alone. Let me help you.”
I pulled away, fighting every instinct inside me. “You can help. Just don’t get in my way. This is something I must do for Tommy and for me.”
He gave a brisk nod, shifted the powerful beast and edged into traffic. “D’accord. Next stop, CYBER-MED.”
The two-mile drive was unendurable. Lucian kept his eyes on the road, even while we waited for traffic lights. I barely noticed. Today’s drama engulfed me so much that I felt disembodied. Before long I would face a building full of potential murderers. Virtually everyone at CYBER-MED had the skills and information to mastermind this monstrous crime. I suspected there were at least two conspirators, one to target potential customers and one to effect the crime. I don’t subscribe to Soldier of Fortune Magazine. I have no idea what the fee schedule is for murder. Pretty steep, I bet, especially with the possibility of life without parole staring you in the face. Murder one carries a hefty penalty, even in this bluest of states.
