* * *
A classic chicken-and-egg situation. That’s what Caroline faced. She needed help deciphering the files on Anna’s flash drive, but she wasn’t sure who to ask when she still didn’t understand the foundation of Anna’s concern. Yet she couldn’t understand what she had without someone to interpret the files. She couldn’t get one without the other unless she could find someone who could help.
Was Brian Silver the right person to trust? He hadn’t told her the whole story about Genetics for You. But Anna had mentioned him.
Maybe Justin. She might ask him as well.
Asking either man felt like a long shot but was better than flailing in the dark on her own.
She shifted to the small round table set in a corner of her office. Meeting here would feel more collaborative than him sitting in a chair in front of her desk. Caroline moved her monitor so they could sit at the small table and examine the flash drive’s content side by side.
Brian rapped at her door. His long red hair was pulled back, and he adjusted his glasses as he came in. With his starched white lab coat he looked like he was playing a role on Grey’s Anatomy rather than using his PhD in biochemistry to fill a scientific research role of importance.
“What do you need, Caroline?” He settled in the chair next to hers. “I have five minutes.”
“Anna Johnson sent me a flash drive that looks to have information on it related to Praecursoria and specific trials.”
“Why would she have that?”
“She’s the doctor overseeing part of the trial. Why wouldn’t she have it? She mentions you in her notes, and I need help deciphering what’s on the drive. It might as well be gibberish.” She cringed inside as she said that.
“That’s understandable. We’re working on cutting-edge therapies that involve layers of innovation that can intimidate those of us who’ve been here from the beginning.” His smile was kind even as he leaned toward the monitor and pointed at the screen. “Is this one of the files?”
She shook her head as she used the mouse to navigate to the directory. “How much time do you have?”
“Right now? About one more minute.”
She clicked open a spreadsheet, and he scanned it.
“This is going to take more than a quick glance to interpret.”
“I expected you to say that.”
“Can I take the drive with me?”
She hesitated. “How about I email the files to you? I haven’t made a copy yet.”
“Sure.” He stood. “Time’s up.”
After Brian left, Caroline called Justin and sent the files to him as well.
* * *
Wednesday, June 2
When Brandon left his apartment Wednesday morning, the school-age kids had met the school buses that transported them to the appropriate Centreville schools. The preschool kids were at their activities. Since it was Wednesday, a traveling gymnastics bus would come to them in about an hour. It was worth the expense to wear the kids’ little legs out until they had lunch and naps in their respective cottages. Then Alaina and Roselyn, another one of the house moms, would hold a story time in the lodge. His team had quickly learned routine was the key to a smoothly running home. The kids knew what to expect, while the adults made the schedule flexible enough to innovate and experiment.
He ran a quick few miles, then hustled back to his apartment.
He needed to be ready for the follow-up meeting with the house parents when the gymnastics bus arrived. That was their window to meet as a team, and for him to learn the couples’ final verdicts. He’d been surprised that no one had given him a firm answer one way or the other, but today he’d finally learn each couple’s status.
After cleaning up he headed to the main part of the lodge and paused in the main room near a table covered in puzzle pieces. It would be a good idea to get some new games and puzzles. He pulled out his phone and made a note to order a few from an online store.
He grabbed a fresh mug of black coffee in the kitchen, then walked into his smallish office and settled in the secondhand leather chair behind his desk, which consisted of a door placed on top of two battered, locked cabinets. He shifted aside the stack of birthday cards ready to go to his former foster kids who had June birthdays. His chair was better than the two folding chairs in front of his desk, but not by much. It barely fit his frame. It was a spartan setting, but he’d chosen to spend money on the spaces the kids utilized. He’d had it all during his pro career and didn’t need that now, not when the kids needed things more than he did.
Fifteen minutes.
That was all the time he had to pray and then outline any last arguments.
As he prayed, a peace settled on him. He’d said all he could. Now was the time to let the house parents speak. His proposal would upend the business model and change their worlds even more than his. He still owned the land. He could still foster kids, just on a smaller scale, if they decided to take different paths.
When he left his office a few minutes before ten, four of the couples were seated on couches and chairs around the lodge’s fireplace. Alaina had brought cookies, and Roselyn was filling the Keurig with water. When Tina and Tom walked in, Brandon called the meeting to order, then prayed for them.
“Lord, guide our conversation and give us wisdom as we seek what’s best for these kids. Almost Home is Yours, and so are we.”
There was a chorus of amens, and he looked at the people who served with him. “Regardless of what you have decided, I want you each to know how much I value you and the time you have invested in my vision and these kids. Do you have any questions for me?”
Tim kicked it off. “How quickly would the transition occur?”
Brandon liked the direction that question indicated. “A few of you are already licensed. Those who aren’t will be restricted by getting that taken care of. The leases and contracts shouldn’t take long. I’ve got the outline ready for an operating agreement.”
“So end of summer?”
“Probably. Since that’s when the latest version of regulations is supposed to be finalized, we should be ready in plenty of time.”
Roselyn raised her hand, then blushed when Alaina teasingly elbowed her. “You mentioned we would have responsibilities at Almost Home. How will that work when we’re no longer working for you?”
“Part of the rent would include helping with activities and rotating time off. I’m cautiously optimistic we’ll get some help from the church that was here on Monday, but we’ve heard that before without great follow-through. I don’t want to rely on external help when our best help might continue to be from each other. If we plan right, we might be able to get each couple a weekend off every five weeks.”
Roselyn looked from her husband to Brandon. “So we’d be responsible for our own respite care?”
“My goal would be to provide that for you. Part of the package to help you succeed.”
Tom frowned. “A goal is great, but you’re saying we could lose even the support that we have now? It’s not much, and we frankly need more for fostering to be sustainable. Several of us already work second jobs.”
“I’m working on a solution.”
“We can’t commit until it’s more than a goal.”
A murmur of agreement followed Roselyn’s words, and Brandon felt the weight shift back onto his shoulders.
Jeff sighed. “Look, we want to stay, but Roselyn and Tom make good points. We have to have the respite in place first.”
Chapter 26
A stack of files waited on Caroline’s office chair when she arrived at work Wednesday. She was exhausted from a night of tossing and turning without deep sleep. Her dreams had been restless, filled with images of Anna being hit, her body battered into critical condition inside her car.
She woke braced to hear the worst about Anna, but nothing so far.
Then her thoughts had turned to the flash drive. She needed help getting everything she could off the drive and making sure it was
backed up. Asking too many at Praecursoria for help seemed ill advised, so maybe she should involve a professor who’d served as a forensic expert for one of Emilie’s trials. Dr. Elizabeth Ivy had explained the most complicated computer-science technical jargon and processes in a way that made sense to a layperson. Maybe she could tell Caroline what the numbers correlating with each file meant. It might be a vain hope, but it was the best Caroline had at the moment.
She inserted the drive into her work computer, then stared in horror at the file list.
Where yesterday there had been multiple folders, today the flash drive was empty.
Caroline ejected and reinserted the drive.
There had to be a mistake.
When she’d left the office the previous night, the drive had overflowed with data and bits and bytes, 1s and 0s. She might not have understood them, but they were there teasing her to unlock their meaning.
She went to the cloud where she’d copied the files. She tipped her head and propped her chin on one hand while she scrolled down the lists of files and folders. While someone might have gotten to the flash drive—somehow—there was no way they should have gotten to her cloud drive. It was private and password protected.
Then she groaned and collapsed against the chair back when the files didn’t appear there either.
She’d accessed it from her work computer. That meant the company could have done anything with it because she’d used its equipment and network to access her files.
She knew better.
She was an attorney.
She knew privacy was dead. That anything she did at work on work equipment was essentially accessible. She’d told friends not to fall for the belief that their privacy was protected at their jobs, and she’d done exactly what she counseled against.
Nothing else was gone from her cloud drive, not even moved. It was all where it should be except that set of backed-up files. She called and left a message for Dr. Ivy. Maybe the woman could work a miracle and recover what had been on the flash drive. Hadn’t she heard that data never really disappeared?
Wait, she had a copy in her email. The message she’d sent to Brian with the spreadsheet would be in her sent mail folder. Only when she opened it, the folder was clean. Completely wiped.
She groaned and set her head on her forearms on the surface of her desk.
A knock on her door had her jumping out of her skin. She cleared her throat and straightened. “Yes?”
The door opened, and Justin Grant stepped inside. “Have a quick minute?”
At her nod, he eased the door closed. “You know that thing you asked me to check on?”
“Yes.” How could she forget asking him to look at a couple of the files? “Yes! Do you still have those?”
“I do. Well, I did.” He glanced over his shoulder even though the door was shut. “Last night my desk was rifled through. The only thing taken was my paper copies of the files.”
“You’re sure?” It was an open-concept lab after all.
“I have a precise way I leave it at the end of the day.” He ran a hand over his smooth head. “Someone was looking for something.”
“You think it was the files.”
“They’re all that was missing.” He looked flummoxed as his hands now slid into the pockets of his lab coat and he shifted his weight. “I’ve never had this happen before.”
“Ever?” She raised an eyebrow as she watched him carefully. “You work in an open space with others.”
“Sure, but we respect each other’s space. That’s the only way to make it work.”
“What about the email? Do you still have it? We can just reprint the data.”
“It’s gone. Like you never sent it.”
Caroline leaned back. “The same thing happened to me. There must be something important about the files.”
He paused, opened his mouth, shut it, then reached for the door. “You need coffee? I need coffee.”
Then he walked into the hall, and Caroline launched to her feet and grabbed her phone and keys before following him. She locked the door, though it was unlikely that would do anything to prevent another invasion of her office or computer. As an afterthought, she grabbed the flash drive just in case Dr. Ivy returned her call.
He marched to the back door and then outside.
Caroline double-timed as she followed him. “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere we can talk without being overheard.”
She stopped at the edge of the parking lot. “This is crazy.”
“Not based on what I saw before the files disappeared.”
“What is it?”
“I’m not telling you while we’re here.” He glanced around and then took a step closer before lowering his voice. “I’ve got what I learned safely stored, but you need me to decipher it.”
“That’s why I gave you the files.”
“Without any idea what’s on them, or you would have gone to someone bigger.”
“What does that even mean?” She didn’t bother mentioning she’d also emailed them to Brian Silver.
“Not now.” He lowered his head and started walking toward an older-model Buick sedan. She two-stepped to keep up. Something in her stomach knotted as she tried to decipher his cryptic words. She wanted to tell him he was acting delusional, but she knew what had happened to the flash drive and her private cloud storage files.
She tugged her keys from her pocket before following him. “I’ll drive myself.”
“Meet me at the Starbucks in the mall.”
“Sure.” That seemed farther than they needed to go, especially with the Sheepdog within walking distance, but she’d play along. “Can you be gone that long?”
“Early lunch.” Then he slid his key into the driver’s side door. His Buick was nothing snazzy, but it suited him. “I have a quick stop but will meet you there.”
“All right.” That would give her time to swing by the closer Genetics for You address since it was near the mall and she hadn’t done it last night. “See you in a few minutes.”
Justin nodded and closed his door.
Her phone rang as she climbed in her car. She took the call as she noted Brian Silver leaving the building.
“Caroline, this is Dr. Elizabeth Ivy returning your call.”
“Thanks. I have a flash drive that’s been wiped clean. Can you pull the data back up?”
“Sure. That’s usually pretty simple. Is this for a case?”
“I’m not sure, since it got wiped before I could analyze what’s on it. I could bring it to you later this morning or early afternoon.”
“Early afternoon is best. I’m headed into a class.” She rattled off her office number at the Fairfax campus. “Text when you’re headed my way.”
“Thank you so much.” Caroline ended the call then double-checked that the flash drive was in her purse. In a few minutes she merged with traffic onto Highway 123 and headed east toward the mall. The mall was past the Leesburg Pike overpass, but she detoured onto Highway 7 to drive by the address for Genetics for You. A few minutes later when she pulled up, she saw it was an abandoned strip mall. She sat in her car and stared, then parked and climbed out. The slot that should have been Genetics for You had faded signage for a Burrito Don’s restaurant. Based on the notices taped to the door, it had been closed for at least a year.
Had Genetics for You ever rented space here?
Staring at the building wouldn’t answer that question. She backtracked to 123 and to the mall until she turned onto International Drive and then Tysons One Place. From there it was just a minute to reach the parking garage by Macy’s. She’d double-time it through the store to the Starbucks. Afterward she’d slip into Disney and see about a stuffed animal of some sort for Ellie, Jeff and Alaina Stone’s baby girl. As much time as she spent at Almost Home, it would be a good excuse to walk through the Disney things.
She was pulling into a slot on the third level when she heard and felt a horrible impact. She glan
ced in her rearview mirror to make sure she hadn’t been rammed, but her car hadn’t moved. Instead, it felt like the garage had shifted.
She took a deep breath.
Should she stay in her car or get out of the garage?
If it was an impact or accident, someone might need help, and that meant she should get her phone ready to dial 911. She wouldn’t sit in her car if she could help.
She locked her car and hurried to the edge of the garage and looked over the side. A small sedan sat crushed against a pillar on the sidewalk while a larger white SUV backed up. She fumbled with her phone trying to get it turned on. She flipped to the camera and took a few photos as the vehicle roared away. From what she could see it looked like the license was covered with mud or dirt. It was unreadable, and her fingers trembled as she switched to place the 911 call.
She kept her gaze fixed on the car as she told the operator where she was and what she’d seen. Then the phone slipped from her grasp as she recognized the vehicle.
Chapter 27
Justin didn’t move.
Caroline wheezed as she looked at his broken body splayed across the sidewalk. The car had tossed him as if he’d unhooked his seat belt to get a ticket for the garage. She ran her hands along his wrists looking for a pulse but wasn’t sure how to do it. Her fingers brushed against something hard.
A phone lay on the ground.
She slipped it in her pocket as a man hurried to her, phone pressed to his ear. “I called 911. Can I help?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what to do.”
The humidity pressed against her. So heavy. Yet she couldn’t get warm.
She turned again, but the man had disappeared into the crowd. Her free hand reached into her pocket for her phone. Only it wasn’t. This was Justin’s, so where was hers? She found it in her other pocket and looked at both. She couldn’t turn over his phone, not when it might have something that would explain why he wanted to meet her off-site. She tried to open Justin’s, but it was face recognition enabled. No way for her to open it. She felt faint as she slipped hers back into her pocket.
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