Unfinished Business

by J. A. Jance

  “Black is fine,” Mateo said. “Thank you.”

  He was in the truck when Stu placed a call to B. Simpson and Ali Reynolds, bringing them both up to date about what was going on with Cami. Mateo listened in silence to both that phone call and to Stu’s subsequent communication with Frigg.

  “Where do you want me to send the dossiers?” Frigg asked.

  “Send them to my computer at High Noon,” Stu told her. “That’s where I’m headed.”

  “Very well,” Frigg said. “I’ll get right on it.”

  Mateo was astonished by what he’d just heard and by the easy conversational way the AI’s computerized voice spoke. He didn’t say anything about that until Stu ended the call.

  “Frigg almost sounds like a real person,” he ventured.

  Stu nodded. “Yes, she does,” he agreed.

  “So what’s the difference?” Mateo asked after a pause.

  “The difference between what?”

  “You told Frigg Ali wanted two dossiers—one ordinary and one complete. What’s the difference?”

  “Ordinary dossiers are squeaky clean and can be shared with law enforcement. Complete ones may contain pieces of unauthorized information and are for internal use only,” Stu replied.

  “What kind of background check did Frigg do on me?” Mateo asked after another pause.

  “Both,” Stu answered at once.

  “And what did you find out?”

  “You mean other than the fact that you’ve just spent sixteen years in prison for second-degree murder?” Stu asked with a grin. “That appeared in both dossiers,” he added. “In case you’re interested, your mother’s private information including her current address and phone number came from the complete one.”

  Mateo was stunned. Has Stu Ramey just cracked a joke? he wondered. The Stuart he had known in the past never would have. And was that the way things were going to work at High Noon? People were just going to mention Mateo’s time in prison in passing as though it were nothing more than an ordinary piece of someone’s personal history?

  “You make it sound like being in prison is some kind of everyday occurrence,” Mateo said finally, “as though it’s no big deal.”

  “Maybe it isn’t,” Stu replied. “Are you under the impression that you’re the only ex-con in the bunch? You might have a heart-to-heart chat with Lance Tucker one of these days. B. plucked him out of a juvenile detention center in Texas, and he found me holed up in a homeless shelter. What counts with B. Simpson is technical skill, and we’ve all got that in spades—you included.”

  “What about Cami?”

  Stu shrugged. “She’s the exception to the rule—born with a silver spoon in her mouth, got straight As all through school, and has never been in trouble a day in her life. Except for…”

  Except for right now.

  After a lengthy silence, Mateo changed the subject. “So Frigg’s a hacker, then?”

  Stu nodded. “The best one you’ve never met,” he said. “She was created by a brilliant but incredibly misguided computer genius named Owen Hansen. Hansen’s fondest desire was to be a serial killer when he grew up, and he built Frigg to work with him in that regard. She was his strategic planner, playing Bonnie to Hansen’s Clyde.”

  “What happened?” Mateo asked.

  Stu hesitated before he answered. “Hansen killed my best friend,” he said finally. “I went after him for it, and in the end I brought them down.”

  “Them,” Mateo repeated. “You mean you brought down both Hansen and Frigg?”

  “More or less,” Stu said. “Rather than go to jail, Hansen threw himself off a cliff on Mingus Mountain—that peak you see right up there on the far side of Cottonwood,” he added, pointing through the windshield. “I figured once he was gone, so was Frigg, but that assumption turned out to be premature. As Hansen grew more and more unhinged and unpredictable, he quit following Frigg’s strategic advice. Somehow she must have deduced that if he ended up out of the picture, she would be shut down as well, so she took steps to keep that from happening.”

  “That sounds like self-awareness,” a stunned Mateo observed.

  Stu nodded again. “It does indeed.”

  “But is that even possible?”

  “At the time I didn’t think so,” Stu replied, “but she put a number of complex measures in place so that if Hansen disappeared, she was guaranteed to end up in my custody. I guess she decided that if I was smart enough to take Hansen down, I was smart enough to handle her.”

  “Are you?” Mateo asked.

  Stuart Ramey shook his head. “I’m not sure,” he said dubiously, “but so far, so good.”

  |CHAPTER 35|

  On Saturday afternoon Stu had given Mateo a brief tour of the building and equipment, but the tour on Monday morning was far more comprehensive. At this point nothing had been done to set up a workstation for Mateo, something Cami had been expected to handle. With her currently AWOL, Mateo was left as a floater, shadowing Stu as he went from place to place, observing along the way. Things might have gone to hell in a handbasket at the home office here in Cottonwood, but according to the monitors all was well as far as the company’s far-flung customers were concerned.

  When Stu finally took a seat at his workstation, Mateo moved a rolling desk chair next to his. An instant later one of the wall-mounted monitors over Stu’s desk began flashing bright red. Alarmed, Mateo immediately assumed it was an incursion alert of some kind.

  “Not to worry,” Stu explained quickly. “It’s only a Howler from Frigg.” He tapped out several keystrokes that turned on the audio connection.

  “A Howler?” Mateo repeated blankly. “What’s that?”

  “Haven’t you ever read the Harry Potter books?”

  “Of course I’ve read the Harry Potter books,” Frigg interjected. “Is there a particular passage you’d like me to find?”

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” Stu told her. “I was asking Mateo Vega, High Noon’s newest employee. He was hired on Saturday.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Vega,” Frigg said politely. “So happy to meet you. I hope you’re having a pleasant day.”

  Mateo squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. This computer program with a female voice probably knew more about him than he knew himself, but since Frigg was apparently waiting for an answer, he finally managed to utter a reply. “Glad to meet you, too,” he mumbled.

  “So what’s up?” Stu asked.

  “Are you aware that Ms. Lee is using a device called Tru Fit tracker to record her physical activity?”

  “Yes,” Stu said. “It’s the only one that takes all her physical activity into consideration, including her Krav Maga workouts. Why?”

  “Once I located Ms. Lee’s password file, I was able to access her tracker program. Through its GPS system, I’ve now been able to locate Ms. Lee.”

  Frigg’s delivery was calm and businesslike. Stu’s response was not. “You have?” he shouted. “Where is she?”

  “Six and a half miles southwest of a town called Mayer, Arizona, and approximately fifty yards north of Pine Flat Road.”

  Stu was almost rigid with excitement. “Is she alive?” he demanded.

  “Absolutely,” Frigg replied. “When I got that first hit on her location, her heartbeat and respiration indicated she was sleeping. In the last few minutes, her vitals have started indicating that she’s awake now, although her body temperature appears to be much lower than normal.”

  “Send me the exact location, and I’ll get the sheriff’s department to dispatch Search and Rescue.”

  “I’m sending the coordinates now, but I can actually do better than that. The Tru Fit comes complete with a third-person tracking program for situations like this. Where should I send that?”

  “Send it to Ali’s cell along with any activation instructions.”

  “Will do,” Frigg said. “Now, about those McCluskey dossiers,” she added. “Information is starting to come in. Where do you want me to send i
t?”

  “Ordinary to Ali,” Stu said at once, “and complete to me.”

  “On it,” Frigg said, and signed off.

  As Stu dialed another number, an astonished Mateo was left shaking his head. “Frigg can do all that?” he asked under his breath.

  “That and a whole lot more,” Stu confirmed before speaking into his phone. “Ali? Frigg just located Cami. She’s somewhere south of Mayer, about fifty yards north of Pine Flat Road. We’ve got a device-locating app working on her fitness tracker. Frigg is sending that to your phone.”

  “What terrific news!” Ali exclaimed. “I’ll go let Sheriff Holman know.”

  When the call ended, Stu turned to Mateo. “Well,” he said, “what are you staring at?”

  “This is amazing,” Mateo muttered, “absolutely amazing.”

  “It is,” Stu agreed. “Any questions?”

  “Only one,” Mateo said. “What’s a Howler?”

  |CHAPTER 36|

  PRESCOTT NATIONAL FOREST, ARIZONA

  This time as Ali marched through the vehicle cordon, the deputy in charge made no effort to stop her. Even Sheriff Holman seemed glad to see her. “Any news?” he asked.

  Ali paused and held up her phone. “We’ve managed to locate Cami’s fitness tracker,” she told him, keying something into the screen. “I’m sending you the coordinates. What the numbers won’t tell you in plain English is that she’s north of Pine Flat Road, somewhere southwest of Mayer.”

  “Alive or dead?”

  “Definitely alive,” Ali responded. “The tracker records her temperature, respiration, and heart rate. She’s been asleep, but now she’s awake.”

  “I’ll dispatch officers there immediately,” Dave said.

  “Not without me, you won’t,” Ali said. “I’m the one who happens to have the Tru Fit locator system up and running on my phone.”

  “But…” Dave began.

  “As you said earlier, no buts,” Ali countered.

  “What if McCluskey’s still there?” Dave asked. “What if he’s armed?”

  “So am I,” Ali told him. “I have my Glock, and if the guy comes after me, I’m fully prepared to use it.”

  Dave Holman sighed in resignation. “What about a vest?” he asked.

  “Not with me,” she conceded.

  “Will B. be coming along?”

  “Of course,” she said. “We’re a matched set, and Cami works for both of us.”

  “All right, all right,” Dave relented. “I’ve got a couple of spare vests in the back of my Interceptor. I can lend you two of those. Stop by and pick them up on your way past, and let the deputy know I gave you permission. I’ll be right behind you.”

  |CHAPTER 37|

  PRESCOTT NATIONAL FOREST, ARIZONA

  When Cami’s eyes blinked open, she was stiff and sore. Her injured ear throbbed like crazy, and her fractured leg ached from the inside out. She was cold, hungry, and thirsty, and she desperately needed to pee. But she was alive. Harvey McCluskey hadn’t succeeded in finding her, and since she wasn’t dead, she now needed to make her way back to civilization. She had no idea where she was, and neither did anyone else.

  Slowly she wormed her way out from under the manzanita. Once outside the protective covering of the bedroll, she was instantly chilled to the bone, and that made the urge to urinate all the more intense. There was no way she could stand to undress or squat to do the job. Instead she had no choice but to simply let nature take its course. At first the liquid dribbling out between her legs was surprisingly warm on her flesh, but all too soon it turned frigid.

  Once in full daylight and dreading what lay ahead, she examined her lacerated hands. Crawling as she’d done the night before was the only option for getting back to the road and finding help, but her mutilated hands were nowhere near up to the task. Not only that, the material covering her one functional leg was so shredded that the skin underneath the ragged cloth was scraped raw. As Cami examined her daunting injuries, despair flooded through her. Finally, though, she shook it off. Since there was no one there to save her, Cami would have to save herself. If she could crawl, that’s what had to be done.

  But then, in a moment of inspiration, she glanced down at her duct-tape bracelet and realized there might be a solution. Reaching back into the manzanita thicket, she pulled out the bedroll. Dragging it behind her once more, she inched over to a nearby low outcropping of rocks. With some difficulty she raised herself into a sitting position and leaned against them. After extracting Harvey McCluskey’s puny pocketknife from her pants, she went to work on the bedroll. Last night the down-filled canvas-like material had saved her life twice over, not only from the fall but also from the cold. This morning it would protect her hands and knees as she crawled back to the road.

  First she sawed off a large triangular piece and used that to create a long shawl that she threw over her shoulders and fastened around her neck. As soon as that was in place, Cami felt instantly warmer. Next she created a sturdy knee pad for her good knee, securing that with a few more strips of duct tape. The roll was close to empty now, but she was almost done. With the knee pad in place, she tackled two of the corners, cutting them off so she could place her hands inside and on top of both the down filling and the outside casing. She fastened the makeshift mitten on her left hand with no difficulty. Doing the same thing with her already wrapped and less capable left hand was a ten-minute ordeal. By the time the job was done, the cardboard roll of duct tape on her wrist was completely empty. She could have discarded it on the spot, but she didn’t.

  Assuming she survived, in no small way that roll of duct tape had saved her life. Rather than tossing it away, she returned the empty cardboard bracelet to her wrist. Someday, she thought, I’ll have it put in a shadow box and frame it. And then, for good measure, she realized she’d need to put a scrap of the bedroll in that shadow box as well. After all, Harvey McCluskey had used both the bedroll and the tape against her. Now, with their help, she was hoping to turn the tables.

  |CHAPTER 38|

  MAYER, ARIZONA

  Lance had been off talking to Lauren when Ali slipped away to speak to Dave Holman. He returned to where B. and Ali stood, next to the Audi, slipping into borrowed Kevlar vests.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Frigg just used the GPS on Cami’s exercise tracker to locate her,” Ali replied.

  “She’s still alive?”

  Ali nodded.

  “Where is she?”

  “Somewhere off Pine Flat Road south of Mayer,” B. answered. “We’ve got a device-location app running on Ali’s phone. We’re headed there now.”

  “I’m coming, too,” Lance said.

  “No you’re not,” B. said, shaking his head and placing a cautionary palm on Lance’s shoulder. “You’ve already been up all night. We’re going to be shorthanded at work for the next little while, and you’re going to need all the sleep you can get. I want you to go back home and get some rest. We’ll go look for Cami.”

  It looked for a moment as though Lance would object to being sidelined. Instead he nodded. “You’re right,” he agreed finally. “On my way. Let me know how she is, okay?”

  “We will,” Ali said. “We promise.”

  In the car and heading east on Cornville toward I-17, Ali keyed Pine Flat Road into the Audi’s GPS system. Moments later a tinny voice announced that the trip would take fifty-five minutes. A glance at the speedometer told Ali that at their current speed the trip wouldn’t take nearly that long.

  For a time neither of them spoke. B. finally broke the silence. “So what’s up?” he asked. “You’re thinking something. I can smell the smoke from here.”

  “This is all my fault,” Ali said. “If I hadn’t taken Cami with me when I went after Harvey McCluskey, none of this would have happened.”

  “It might not have happened to Cami,” B. conceded, “but it might well have happened to someone else. Because of the surveillance system, we now know who th
e culprit is, and we also know she’s still alive.”

  “So far,” Ali murmured, “but what if she’s hurt?”

  “If she is, we’ll deal with it,” B. said.

  They were merging onto the freeway when Ali’s phone rang. “It’s Stu,” she told B. “You’re on speaker, Stu. What’s up?”

  “We think Cami’s hurt,” he answered.

  “Why?” Ali demanded. “What’s going on?”

  “She’s currently on the move,” Stu said, “but Frigg believes she’s crawling rather than walking.”

  “Are you kidding?” Ali asked.

  “Not kidding,” Stu replied. “Frigg compared Cami’s customary steps per minute to her current movements. She appears to be moving only a few inches at a time.”

  “Let me call you back, Stu,” Ali interjected. “I need to bring Sheriff Holman up to speed.”

  Moments later she had Dave on the phone and reported in.

  “Okay,” he said in response. “I’ll have an ambulance and EMTs dispatched to the scene as well. Where are you right now?”

  “We just turned southbound on I-17.”

  “I’m a couple of miles behind you because I’m just now approaching the intersection. I’m moving full out, complete with lights and siren. Once I pass you, tuck in behind me. I’m pretty sure B.’s Audi will be able to keep up with my Interceptor.”

  B. smiled and nodded. “I’m pretty sure it will,” he agreed.

  A minute or so later, Dave Holman’s vehicle overtook them. Once he flew past, B. sped up until the Audi was directly behind the patrol car.

  As they approached Mayer, Dave slowed to the posted speed limit. When they turned off Highway 89, an ambulance fell in behind the Audi, but with Ali’s eyes focused on the red dot on her cell phone’s screen she barely noticed. She looked up only as they turned onto South Jefferson Street. That’s when Dave Holman pulled over and waved them past, allowing the Audi to assume the lead.