The Inverted Pyramid (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 2)

by A. C. Fuller

  There is a hatred in me of all that is good. And this hatred, of the fact that you exist, is what drives me now.

  The tension is that being with you showed me the other side. Being with you taught me that the good things can also be experienced directly. The good things can erase history. But now that I've tasted them, I despise them more than ever.

  But, outside your apartment, I realized something. I don't want you gone. The pain of you existing is somehow fueling me now. The hate I have for you is fuel.

  So, I will give you two pieces of advice:

  1. Go live a happy and joyous life. I know now that I never will, and the more you do, the more my hatred of you will drive me to excel.

  2. Get out of New York City, and don't ever come back. I will know where you are and what you're doing—you'll never be free of me. But if I see you, I don't know what I'll do.

  With love,

  Denver Bice

  When he'd finished reading, Alex slowly folded the letter, put it back in the envelope, and handed it to Camila

  She looked concerned. "Alex?"

  He stood, glancing around at the boxes, at Camila, then out the open door.

  After a moment, he dropped to his knees and let out a scream that shook the metal walls of the storage container.

  32

  James shifted in his seat. "What h-happened?"

  "After a few months of dating, she called me one evening and dumped me. Over the phone. Do you want to know what she said?"

  "I d-do."

  "She said, 'Denver, I think you're a brilliant man, but I need to be with someone more spontaneous. Someone whose heart is open.' For the first week or two after that, I assumed it had just been a response to some hippie mumbo jumbo that had made its way south, but soon, I saw her going around with a graduate student—maybe even a young professor, I wasn't sure."

  James felt himself getting wrapped up in the story, but tried to stay alert to his surroundings. "What then?"

  "That's when I burned her apartment building down."

  James smelled the drink again and took a long, slow, sip.

  "Very good, Mr. Stacy. I'm glad to see someone enjoying the Scotch."

  "How does all this involve Alex?" James asked.

  "After the fire, she moved to New York. Of course, she couldn't prove that I'd had anything to do with the fire, but I made sure she knew. You know when you do something bad, and in your head, there's a voice that speaks in your own voice, telling you you're bad?"

  "Yeah, I m-mean, I guess."

  "Everyone has that voice, and for years, tracking her was the only thing that quieted mine. Of course, I couldn't track her the way we can track people now, but I knew what she was up to. I watched her finish her BA. I watched as she got her PhD and began teaching at Barnard." He paused. "And I watched as she married that loser, Allister Vane."

  James stared hard into his drink, trying not to react.

  "That's right," Bice said. "Sip your drink."

  James tipped his head back and shot the rest of the Scotch. His throat burned and he tried to recall how many calories were in a shot of brown alcohol. A hundred, he thought. He felt ridiculous for thinking about the calories.

  Bice retrieved the bottle from the end table and refilled James's glass with eight more ounces of the liquor. "I watched her after she became pregnant," he continued, returning the bottle to the table. "I watched her become Samantha Vane. And I knew when she moved six-month-old Alex across the country. At the time, I thought that would be the end of it. My career was on the upswing. I had new goals, new ambitions."

  "So, Alex is the kid of a woman you once d-dated. But why me, why now?"

  "Everything has been so easy for him. Just like it was for Martha. Wandering from thing to thing, person to person, never giving a thought to anyone else. Never really suffering, never seeing what gifts he's been given, never appreciating those who came before him, never thinking of those who will come after him. He is what's wrong with the world. Walking through it as if it belongs to him, as if you can just do what you want and not be punished. That's not how things work."

  James tried to play along, to draw him out. "Why not just tell me what you want to have h-happen? I might be able to help you make it happen."

  "He's going to have to choose. To actually make a choice, instead of wandering from thing to thing, woman to woman, job to job."

  "What kind of ch-choice?"

  Part 3

  33

  Lou's Diner, Bainbridge Island, Thursday, September 16, 2004

  Alex pushed a sausage around his plate with his fork. "I remember the food being so good here, but now it's like I can't taste it at all." He had fond memories of the diner. It had always been bustling and friendly when his parents brought him for weekend breakfasts as a kid. But on a weekday, late morning, it was mostly empty.

  Camila moved her empty plate to the center of the table, then leaned across and started picking off Alex's home fries one by one. "So, why are we here?"

  "I just couldn't handle Betty this morning. I know I need to tell her about . . ." He paused, stretching his legs out under the table. "But not yet. Plus, I thought it might keep me from going over the edge."

  "Maybe you need to drop off the edge for a while."

  He gulped back half his cup of lukewarm coffee, then slammed it on the table. "Why won't that damn officer call me back?"

  After reading the letter from Bice, Alex had found five more like it, all but one of which was unopened. The one his mother had opened had been sent a few months before the one he'd read, and contained more of the same. Fond memories of their time together, rambling memories of his childhood, and veiled threats.

  Alex's first call after leaving the storage container had been to the Bainbridge Island Police Department, where he'd learned that Officer Endo was still on the force, and was now Detective Endo. The first officer on the scene the night of his parents' crash, Endo had called Alex early the following morning to inform him of their deaths. Alex had only met Endo once, when he'd come to identify the bodies, and had spoken with him only a few times over the following week. But, since the crash hadn't been investigated, the calls had stopped quickly.

  "He'll call," Camila said. "And, from watching television, I know there's no statute of limitations on murder, so—"

  "So, what? It's not like we have any real evidence."

  "Maybe there's something else in that container that will connect him somehow."

  "Maybe." He cut slowly through the sausage and took a small bite. "I wonder if the food was this bad when I was a kid."

  "Alex, what are we going to do?"

  He shrugged. He was trying to come up with a plan, but was having trouble thinking beyond the next step, which was to speak to Endo.

  The night before, he'd fallen asleep staring at his phone, reading the text over and over: Bice has killed again. This time was worse than the last. And the first time was worst of all.

  And the final call from his source two years ago was playing on a loop in his mind.

  He has done more. Terrible things. And he deserves to be punished. You were supposed to catch him, you were supposed to punish him.

  His source had been leading him here all along, and the realization left him somewhere between angry and terrified.

  He looked up at Camila. "I need you to tell me I'm not crazy, okay? Tell me that what I think is happening is actually happening. Denver Bice. My mother. Tulane. She dumped him. He burned down her apartment. She changed her name, moved to New York, met my dad, and had me. Then they moved here, and years later, he killed them?"

  "I've been thinking about the weird dinner after your graduation. Maybe he saw them there, saw them in New York or something."

  Alex didn't want to contemplate it, though he knew she was probably right.

  A gray-haired man came from behind the counter and refilled Alex's coffee. "How's the sausage?" he asked in a gruff voice. Before Alex could respond, the man returned
to the kitchen.

  "We need to get out of here," she said. "I don't feel safe."

  "I want to go back to the container. Read more of what's there."

  "You're going to turn it all over to the police though, right?"

  He nodded. "You know . . . I've been having this memory."

  "Of what?"

  "This random memory from when I was about five, and . . ." He trailed off. "I can't exactly remember it, I was trying to speak and just . . . couldn't. I—"

  His Blackberry buzzed in his pocket and he yanked it out. "It's not Endo," he said, staring at the caller ID. "It's Greta."

  "Aren't you going to get it?"

  He sighed, stood, and pressed the "Talk" button while walking out of the diner. "Hey," he said as he stepped onto the sidewalk.

  "Hey," Greta said.

  The fog had cleared while they'd been inside. He squinted in the late morning sun. "Hey," he said again.

  "I heard you the first time."

  "I mean, hi. I . . . umm . . . I'm happy to hear your voice. How's Lance? I mean, how are you?"

  "Shut up, Alex. Just tell me what's going on there, okay?"

  The line beeped. Call waiting. Alex glanced at it and saw that it was a Bainbridge Island area code. "Greta, I have to go." He clicked over to the other call before she'd had time to respond. "Detective Endo?"

  "Yes, is this Alex Vane?"

  "It is. Thanks for calling me back."

  "What's this regarding?" Endo spoke quickly and efficiently, but he didn't sound impatient. It was more like he just wanted to minimize the time it took to complete a sentence.

  "Do you remember the crash of a blue Camry in 1997? Two deaths."

  "You're their son, right? I remembered the name. I was first on the scene that night."

  "I met you the day after. To identify the bodies."

  "Yes, yes I remember. How are you, Alex?"

  He stopped pacing and stared through the diner's large window at the table where Camila sat looking back at him. "Well, it turns out it wasn't an accident."

  34

  Detective Endo had been skeptical at first, but eventually agreed to meet them at the storage container after his shift that afternoon. Alex figured they could show him the documents and walk him through the story in more detail then. Maybe there were more letters from Bice, or more threats—something specific enough to convince Endo to open a criminal investigation.

  After finishing breakfast, Alex and Camila returned to their room at the inn.

  They booked flights for that evening—Alex to New York and Camila back to Des Moines—then he said, "If we're going to get out of here, let's at least see if we can think of anything else that might help Nors before we leave."

  "Where do we start?"

  "James wasn't a big phone-call guy. He arranged everything by e-mail. I've been thinking, if he did arrange a meeting with Innerva Shah, or this Bhootbhai person—which I still doubt—maybe he forwarded it to me, or mentioned it." He grabbed his Blackberry and, without looking up, he asked, "Do you know anything about these things?"

  She sat next to him on his bed. "I've tried to avoid them."

  He clicked on the e-mail program and began scrolling through messages from the week before the trip. "Why? I mean, why not embrace the future, and all that?"

  "Not that it matters now, given the circumstances, but those things are going to screw us over, big time."

  Alex kept scrolling.

  "What are you looking for?" she asked.

  "Want to see if he said anything in the weeks leading up to the trip that might clue us in. Something I might have missed." He paused while reading an e-mail. "But seriously, why is e-mail going to screw us over. Isn't connection a good thing?"

  "Yeah, but I'm not entirely sure they're connecting us. Look at you, hunched over, squinting down at a tiny screen, shoulders tight. You think you're staring at reality, at 'James.' You're just staring at a little piece of glass with lights and pixels. Of course, they might be useful pixels in finding the real James. But soon people will start forgetting that there are real people, made of meat and bone and spirit, actually living and breathing and dying in the world."

  Setting the phone down on the bed, he said, "Nothing. Nothing about any meeting."

  He swung his legs up to sit cross-legged on the bed. "But I hear what you're saying about these things. Greta calls herself a 'black widow' sometimes—like she's been widowed by the fact that I own a Blackberry. I wish James were here to fight you on this. He loves this stuff."

  "Wait," Camila said, "so you checked all your e-mails from him. Did you check all his e-mails? E-mails to him."

  He tapped at his Blackberry. "I don't think I can do that on this thing."

  She laughed. "You sound like an old man. Even I know that. How did you check e-mail before you got the Blackberry?"

  "Online, usually in Outlook at the office."

  "Did you ever check it from home?"

  "Yeah, from my laptop. James set it up."

  Camila was already walking over to his bag on the desk. She came back with his laptop, opened it, and put it on his lap. "Open the webmail app you used to use."

  "How will this—"

  "Do it."

  "What did Betty say the wireless password was?"

  "Apple pie. All one word, lowercase."

  Alex typed it in and waited, then opened the browser and found the bookmark for the webmail program. "Now what?"

  "Now we need James's username and password."

  "Well, his username will follow the same format as mine. The first part of his e-mail, the part before the 'at'." He typed in j_stacy. "But I have no way of knowing his password."

  She grabbed the laptop and tried a few passwords while he watched over her shoulder.

  1234567

  Abc123

  Password

  "What's his birthday?" she asked.

  "He isn't stupid enough to have used his birthday or something that obvious as a password."

  "Did he ever say anything to you about passwords?"

  "Just not to use your name or anything easy to find out. He said to use something personal, secret."

  "What were his favorite TV shows. Did he have pets?"

  "No pets. Shows . . . ummm . . . sci-fi stuff. I don't know. Star Trek. Battlestar Galactica. The one with the phone booth."

  "Doctor Who?"

  "I think so."

  Camila tried ten more passwords. Every character and planet name she could remember from the shows, plus TARDIS. Nothing.

  She asked, "When did he set up this system? Before or after his diet?"

  "Right after we started News Scoop, so, before. But he probably changed it since then."

  "What were his comfort foods back then?"

  "He ate like a typical twenty-something. Pizza and chips and soda."

  "I remember his desk at The Standard." She set her fingers gently on the keyboard and closed her eyes.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Quiet."

  "Camila?"

  "Quiet, I said."

  "Are you trying to divine his password?"

  She typed again and pressed enter. Then again. And again.

  She thought for a moment, and tried again.

  Joltcola

  She pressed "Enter" and the screen displayed a long list of e-mails.

  "Whoa, nailed it," Alex said with a smile. "That was his drink before the diet. Scroll down."

  She scrolled slowly until he tapped the screen on an e-mail with a subject line that read: Your Order.

  "Open that one," he said.

  She clicked on the e-mail, which turned out to be a well-disguised ad for male enhancement pills.

  She closed it and kept scrolling. "He gets a lot of e-mails, doesn't he?"

  "Try that one. The one with no subject, from yesterday."

  He pointed at the screen and Camila clicked the message:

  To: j_stacy@news-scoop.com

  From: origin
27arq@32781askel.in

  Subject:

  Hello James,

  I enjoyed our time together.

  I was able to gain access to one of Bhootbhai's e-mail accounts. Before his death, he was communicating with a man named Kenny White. A staffer on the Kerry campaign up in Boston.

  I don't have anything more than that, yet. And, so far, I've been unable to get into any of his main hard drives. He had so many layers of encryption on his machines, I don't know if I'll ever get in.

  In hopes that we'll meet again,

  I.S.

  "Innerva Shah," Alex said.

  "So, 'ghost guy' or 'ghost bro' is his nickname, and it sounds like he's a hacker or a computer guy of some sort."

  "I know he would have told me if he'd arranged anything with Innerva, and I was with him nonstop, until he left the bar that night."

  "He must have met with her after leaving the bar, and before going up to Bice's room. When he disappeared into the hallway, like Nors said."

  He grabbed the laptop back from her, and started tapping at the keys.

  "What are you doing?" she asked.

  "Telling her everything."

  She watched over his shoulder as he typed, explaining James's disappearance and the security video Nors had told them about, and concluding with his phone number and a request that she contact them as soon as possible.

  When he pressed "Send," Camila asked, "What now?"

  "I'm going to forward all James's e-mails to Officer Nors."

  As he began, a new e-mail popped up. Alex slumped as he read the message.

  Mail Delivery Subsystem

  Delivery Status Notification (Failure)

  September 15, 2004 11:23 AM

  This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

  Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently: origin27arq@3278askel.in

  Technical details of permanent failure:

  PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 16): 554 Denied (Mode: normal)