by Jance, J. A.
“As a matter of fact, I’m not,” she said. “It’s a three-day trip. I flew commercial and decided to do carry-on only. As you know, getting weapons of any kind through TSA these days is a nonstarter.”
“Crap!” B. muttered.
His response was even more unexpected. “Why?” Ali asked. “What’s going on?”
“Frigg just raised your threat level, and I’m afraid she may be right.”
Ali listened in stunned silence while B. recounted the details from Frigg’s earlier briefing. “So Frigg thinks that both Cassie Davis and I might be targets?”
“Yes,” B. replied. “Unfortunately, we can’t take any of this to the cops—”
“Because it all came from Frigg,” Ali finished.
“Yes.”
“And you’re thinking someone might come to the funeral expecting either one or both of us to be there?”
“That, too.”
“You don’t need to worry about Cassie,” Ali said. “I already know she’s not coming.”
“The one I’m really worried about is you,” B. said. “I know I’ve not always approved of your being armed and dangerous, but this doesn’t happen to be one of those times.”
Ali looked around the hotel patio. There was a young family—a couple with three little kids splashing in the shallow end of the pool—while an older man, a single-minded exerciser, swam lap after lap on the far side. There was nothing out of line. Everything seemed perfectly normal. Still, Ali couldn’t help feeling exposed and vulnerable. Despite the warmth of the early-evening air, she felt a flash of gooseflesh run up her legs.
“You think an assassin of some kind might show up at the funeral?” she asked.
“I do.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“That we attempt to turn a soft target into a hard one,” B. said.
“How?”
“I have a friend, retired Secret Service, who runs WWS, a personal-security company in L.A.”
“Wait, you’re proposing I go to the funeral with an armed bodyguard?”
“I am indeed!”
Ali hesitated. On the one hand, this might be an overreaction on B.’s part. On the other hand, with four people already dead maybe he wasn’t wrong, but did she want to show up at her friend’s funeral accompanied by a bunch of tough guys in suits?
“I can tell you’re not thrilled by the idea,” B. said, “but please humor me on this one, Ali. I’ll text you her number.”
“Her number?” Ali echoed.
“Sonja’s number. Sonja Bjornson is the woman who owns WWS. I’ll bet when I said retired Secret Service, you assumed I meant a he.”
“Guilty as charged,” Ali admitted.
“I’ve run into Sonja and some of her operatives at various conferences,” B. continued. “It turns out high-profile women prefer having female security details as opposed to the other kind.”
“That would be my preference, too,” Ali said. “I’ll give her a call. But isn’t today Saturday? Would calling on a Saturday be a problem?”
“I think WWS is pretty much a 24/7 operation. Someone will be on hand to field incoming calls.”
“Even though Cassie’s not coming to the funeral, I’ll give her a call as well,” Ali added, “just to give her a heads-up. If these people were willing to travel as far as Oregon to take out Kaitlyn Holmes, there wouldn’t be anything keeping them from going to Arizona as well.”
“When you talk to her, be sure to mention that there was no sign of forced entry at Alex Munsey’s place in Lake Arrowhead. She obviously opened the door for her attacker, so it was either someone she knew or someone she considered trustworthy.”
“It sounds as though you might have gotten a look at some of those police reports.”
“Yes, we did,” B. admitted.
“Frigg again?”
“Frigg again,” he confirmed.
“I thought Stu had gotten rid of all Frigg’s dubious hacking programs.”
“I think he thought so, too,” B. allowed, “but for right now I’m happy as hell to have Frigg up and running and working and on our side.”
By the time the call ended, the lap swimmer had left the pool and gone inside. As the family with the little kids began gathering up floaties, towels, and gear, Ali decided it was time for her to go inside, too.
If she was walking around with a target painted on her back, sitting alone on a hotel pool deck seemed like a bad idea. Up in her room, she tried dialing Sonja Bjornson’s number, but the call went to voice mail after four rings. It was Saturday evening, after all, so Ali left a message:
“My name is Ali Reynolds. I believe you know my husband, B. Simpson. I’m in town to attend a funeral service tomorrow for Alex Munsey, a friend who was murdered a week or so ago. B.’s worried that whoever went after Alex might also be coming for me. I know it’s late to schedule this kind of thing, but if you had any operative availability tomorrow, I’d like to hire someone.”
She closed by leaving both her e-mail address and her phone number. Next up was Cassie Davis.
“Good to hear your voice again after all this time,” Cassie said, “just not under these particular circumstances. I can’t believe Alex is dead.”
“I can’t believe it either.”
“Are you going to the funeral?”
“Yes, I am,” Ali answered. “I’m delivering a eulogy.”
“Emma’s doing chemo right now,” Cassie said. “It’s just not possible for me to leave her alone.”
Ali felt a tiny lump in her throat. She remembered the scene in the waiting room when, shortly after Rory’s and Evan’s transplant surgeries, Rory’s parents, a long-estranged lesbian couple, had somehow found enough common ground to start making their way back to each other. She was glad to hear that a tiny moment of recovery-room détente had turned into something lasting.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ali said. “Evan had told me Emma was ill, so I knew you weren’t coming, but that’s not why I’m calling. We have some concerns.”
“We? Who’s we?”
“I have a team up in Sedona doing some private investigating into Alex’s murder. We’ve developed information that leads us to suspect that whoever targeted Alex might have killed at least two other people.”
“Which people?”
“Two prosecution witnesses from Edward Gilchrist’s homicide trial—Leo Aurelio and Kaitlyn Todd Holmes.”
“And now Alex, too?”
“And maybe even Jolene Browder. That gives rise to concern that you or I might be targeted as well.”
“Anybody who comes looking for me will have a fight on their hands,” Cassie declared with a laugh. “Arizona is an open-carry state. I have a weapon and, believe me, I don’t leave home without it. As for those supposedly ‘gun-free zones,’ like the ones posted in the hospital? Screw ’em. If the crooks don’t pay any attention to those signs, why the hell should I be a sitting duck?”
Why indeed?
When the call to Cassie ended, Ali went back to working on the eulogy. An hour later Sonja called back. “Sorry it took me so long to return your call,” she said. “There are some big doings in town this weekend, and my team of ladies is stretched pretty thin. Your message made it sound as though you wanted me to field a complete security detail. The problem is, for tomorrow I have only one asset available. Her name is Shaelyn Green. She’s ex-military—young but effective. So bring me up to speed on the nature of your threat, and let’s see if she fits the bill.”
It took another half hour of niggling details, but by the time they hung up, Shay was scheduled to arrive at Ali’s hotel at eleven the next morning to meet up and strategize. Off the phone at last, Ali ordered a room-service dinner and sent B. a text:
Sonja Bjornson lined me up with someone named Shaelyn Green. I’m meeting her at eleven in the morning. Now I’m going to have something to eat and finish writing that eulogy.
Good. I’m relieved. I’m glad you called her. I was
afraid you’d play stubborn and drag your feet.
Nope, when you’re right, you’re right.
I may be right, but I’m also time-zone-challenged. Going to bed now. Talk to you in the AM. Night.
Good night and sweet dreams.
43
Los Angeles, California, June 2017
When Gloria Reece hit the city late in the afternoon, she didn’t head straight to Tank Rowland’s digs in Malibu. Instead she took a detour through Sherman Oaks and scoped out Noble Avenue just off Ventura. There was a coffee shop with outdoor seating directly across the street from the Longmont Funeral Home’s parking lot. That would be a convenient spot from which she could function as a lookout, observing the situation and alerting members of her hit team when the time came for them to spring into action.
She had hoped for a relatively lively neighborhood. Unfortunately, this one was the exact opposite. Getting her team in and out without their being spotted would be a challenge, something she immediately addressed with Tank once she finally arrived at his house. Seated on his patio and drinking vodka tonics, she told him about the difficulties of having hit men escape the crime scene after the fact. Tank, it turned out, wasn’t the least bit worried.
“My guys don’t ‘escape the area,’ ” he told her with a grin. “They simply disappear—poof, like a puff of smoke. For a hit-and-run operation like this, I’ve got an experienced three-man tag team. One guy drives a stolen vehicle, of which I happen to have an unending supply. The next one drives a stolen motorbike, and the third one drives a box truck with stolen license plates.
“Once the crash occurs and before the dust settles, the driver exits the stolen car, hops on the back of a motorbike, and away they go. Within a few blocks and once out of sight, they drive the bike up the loading ramp and into the truck. While everybody’s still focused on the car wreck and frantically dialing 911, the third guy calmly packs up the loading ramp, closes the back gate, and drives away—easy peasy. The truck with only one person apparently on board leaves the scene and melts into traffic. It heads straight back to San Pedro, observing every posted speed limit along the way. Once inside the warehouse, both the truck and the bike get carved up into parts.”
“Sounds as though you’ve done things like this before,” Gloria observed.
Tank grinned and nodded. “I think it’s safe to say that there are any number of unsolved vehicular-homicide cases in and around the Greater Los Angeles Area that might have my name on ’em.”
“For a deal like this, how much are we talking about?” Gloria asked.
“Naturally, since you’re working for Luis, you’ll get the friends-and-family discount,” he said. “You do want this target dead, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“Man or woman?”
“Woman.”
“Armed, do you think? It’s always a good idea to know if you’re messing with someone who might fight back.”
“I doubt it,” Gloria said. “She’s in her eighties.”
“And you’ve got no idea what kind of vehicle she’ll be using?”
“None at all,” Gloria said with a shrug.
“Okay,” Tank said. “The best maneuver here is to T-bone the target vehicle. Side air bags can do a lot to keep people safe, so you have to make sure enough metal penetrates the body of the other car to get the job done. For that I prefer something big. We just got in a Chevrolet Suburban that should fill the bill.”
“But wouldn’t a car like that come equipped with OnStar or some kind of interior GPS locating technology?”
“Honey lamb,” Tank said with a satisfied smile, “when my guys go car shopping these days, they always carry a GPS jammer. Once the car gets to the warehouse, I’ve got a guy who’s a wizard at disabling the damn things. For chop-shop jobs, the GPS is the first thing to go. But my little jammer technology—privately developed, by the way—can be very useful for other kinds of work as well—like when you need to be in one place and make the cops think you’re somewhere else.”
“Sounds handy,” she said.
Tank reached into his back pocket and pulled out a device about the size of a cell phone. “Help yourself,” he said, passing it to her. “It’s on the house. Takes a standard iPad charger, and all you need to do to operate it is switch it on or off.”
“What about the GPS on my Range Rover? Did you mess with that, too?”
“Nope, you don’t need to worry your pretty little head about that,” Tank said. “I bought that one fair and square—maybe not so fair, come to think of it. The guy was in a jam and needed money real bad.”
After a few more drinks, they settled on a price and Gloria counted out the money, paying the whole amount up front and in cash. That wasn’t Gloria’s preferred way of doing business, or Luis’s either, but with someone like Tank exceptions needed to be made. Over the next hour or so, Tank made several calls, verified all necessary details, and sorted out the communications issues. Gloria was impressed by that. When it came to murder-for-hire, Tank Rowland really was a one-stop shop. His housekeeping skills, on the other hand, were far less satisfactory.
From the outside, Tank’s place looked downright palatial—genuine high-end real estate, but the interior was seriously low on upkeep. There was plenty of booze but not much food. While Tank heated up a Papa Murphy’s pizza, Gloria mixed the next set of drinks, generously doubling Tank’s dose and lightening her own. When it was time to go to bed, the sheets weren’t exactly pristine. Despite being more than slightly drunk, he must have noticed her sniff of disapproval.
“Maid quit,” he explained. “I haven’t had time to find a new one.”
Gloria had come to Tank’s house fully expecting to take a hit for the team, but that didn’t include having to sleep on dirty sheets. Leaving him there, she went down the hall. Two doors away she found a bedroom where the now-departed maid had left behind a neatly made bed with freshly laundered sheets. By the time she went back to Tank’s room, she found him passed out cold on the bed.
“Sometimes,” Gloria Reece told herself aloud, “you really do get lucky.”
44
Sedona, Arizona, June 2017
Since B. was adamant about their taking some time off, once the phone call with Ali was over, Stu and Cami began hauling dolly after dolly of computer boxes out of the building and loading them first into Stu’s dual-cab F-150 truck and then into Cami’s Prius. By the time both vehicles were loaded to the max, they’d barely made a dent in the wall of boxes.
“It’s a start,” Cami said, turning away from the ones that were left. “We’ll get the rest of them later.”
On their last trip through the building, they stopped off long enough to pick up CC2. “Okay, Frigg,” Stu said. “Cami and I are about to leave here and head for Sedona. I’m shutting down the living-room monitor.”
“Would you like me to send updates to the Bluetooth while you’re in transit?”
“Nope,” Stu said. “I’m leaving that off, too. It’s too distracting to listen to updates and drive at the same time.”
“Very well, Stuart,” Frigg said. “Drive safely.”
Unsure if he wanted to hear the answer, Stu asked the next question anyway. “Are you making any progress?”
With Ali under threat, they had left Frigg alone to do her thing without any stipulations or caveats about which programs the AI could or could not use. If she came up with something actionable, the folks from High Noon would simply have to find a way to explain to law enforcement how they’d managed to obtain so much information they shouldn’t have had.
“Yes, I am,” Frigg announced confidently. “I believe I have identified the man who is most likely Edward Gilchrist’s closest associate inside Folsom State Prison. His name is Luis Ochoa, and, like Mr. Gilchrist, Mr. Ochoa is also doing life without parole. He was sent to prison thirty-three years ago for the first-degree murder of his wife and her male companion. I’ve obtained details on that trial and am placing those in the dossie
r I’m assembling on Mr. Ochoa.”
“How did you land on Mr. Ochoa?” Stu asked.
“Inmates are allowed out of their cells on a limited basis, and there are only a few places where they are permitted to mingle freely. One of those is in the mess hall, so I’ve studied the surveillance footage from there. Most of the tables seat five or six people at a time. Naturally, people tend to seat themselves in groups. Depending on the space available in the mess hall, those groups move from location to location. There is, however, one notable exception. One table in the far corner of the room and well away from the serving lines often has only two occupants—Mr. Gilchrist and Mr. Ochoa. Occasionally other inmates join them, but generally speaking it is as though the two of them have a private dining arrangement.”
Stuart sighed. Frigg had penetrated yet another surveillance network, but this time he didn’t complain about it. “How did you identify Mr. Ochoa?”
“The California Department of Corrections maintains a statewide database of incarcerated individuals, which includes mug shots that are updated on an annual basis.”
This was another unapproved-of activity on Frigg’s part, but Stuart didn’t quibble about that, either. In order to protect Ali from a credible threat, this was information they needed, regardless of how Frigg had ferreted it out.
“The fact that those two individuals dine together in relative privacy suggests that they must wield a good deal of influence inside the prison,” Frigg continued. “I’m currently researching Mr. Ochoa’s background. By the time you reach Sedona, I hope to have added far more detail to his profile. Are you sure you don’t want me to send updates while you’re in transit?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” he said. “Again, just collect the material into a file. It’ll be easier for me to read it off a monitor later than to listen to it as I drive.”
“Very well, Stuart, have a good trip.”
