My little bonsai shrubs were still recovering from their winter indoors, but I retrieved the clippers to nip off a few stray growths that didn’t fit with the shape I was cultivating. I took the new greenery as a sign that they were still healthy plants.
The house smelled like bacon, and Mira was cleaning up the breakfast dishes when I came back inside. She paused to catch her breath every few moments, but had that stubborn set to her jaw that said her mind was made up.
“I would have done that, baby.”
She just shrugged, her back to me. “You were busy. I’m fine.”
I snagged a piece of bacon off Anna’s plate, earning the five-year-old’s lecture. “That was mine, Daddy!”
I winked at her but watched concerned as Mira fumbled with the flatware. “You’re not going to the shop today, are you?”
A handful of silverware jangled as it slipped from her hands onto the floor. She sighed, hanging her head in resignation. “No. I will not be heading to the shop today. I will be staying home to watch Anna, while Dee watches the shop for me.”
“I was gonna take Anna with me when I went shopping today. You can get some rest.” I was, really. I even remembered promising to do that.
“No, you’re not. Because Kristyn just called, and she had a no-call, so she needs you to come in.”
My heart sank. “You have got to be kidding. I’ll just tell her no.”
“You can’t do that, Jess. She wouldn’t call if she didn’t need you. You know that.” Mira raked her wet fingers through her hair with a frustrated sigh.
“I’m sorry, baby.” I slipped my arms around her waist. “I’m a screwup.”
“Sometimes.” She sighed and leaned her head against my shoulder.
“I wanna hug, too!” Anna squirmed between us, and there was nothing to do but let her. I gathered my girls close for a group hug.
“I’ll get my mom a present when I’m on break from work today. You and Anna just have a play day together, okay?”
Mira nodded, withdrawing from the embrace to turn back to the dishes. “If it storms like they say, we’ll probably go to Dixie’s.”
“Yay, cookies!” My daughter was off like a shot, no doubt to pack her bags for the big move across the street.
Mira sighed, trying to find the humor in the situation. “Great, she’ll be bouncing off the walls on a sugar high.”
“She’ll sleep well tonight, at least.” I traced her cheek with one finger, marveling at how soft her skin felt against my calloused hands. “I really am sorry, baby.”
“I know. It can’t be helped.” She caught my hand and kissed the scarred knuckles. “You’d better take a shower before you go in to work.”
“Are you saying I stink?”
She smirked at me, a trace of her usual fire underneath all the weariness. “You’ll be lucky if that’s all I say about you. Git.”
I got. Or gat? I don’t know. I’m not a linguist.
On the way to the shower, I made a detour into Mira’s room to fire up the ancient computer. Part of me wished the thing had a couple of Tesla coils and a big rusted power switch so I could cackle and say, “It’s alive!” I’ve always wanted to do that.
Clever me, I muted the speakers before Viljo’s WatchBot could announce to the world that I’d logged on. Ha, take that! I slipped the headphones on as the webcam window popped up.
“That you, Jesse?”
“Who else would it be?”
Viljo chuckled. “I do not know. I have nightmares of your beautiful wife logging on by mistake, and me saying something highly inappropriate to her.”
“I’d kill you, you know.”
“Not if she killed me first.” He stretched in the grainy window and shook his head. “So, I have learned some strangeness, if you are interested.”
“Hit me.” I cringed as windows started appearing on the screen. “Just tell me, okay? I don’t need a full-color presentation.”
Viljo just chuckled. “Ivan pays me to be the best. Enjoy the show.”
More windows popped up on the screen, and the computer took on a labored wheeze. “Hey, Vil? Remind me to have you look at this thing later, okay? It doesn’t sound so good.”
“Shoot it. Bury it. Let me build you a new one. In the meantime, I have messages from Sveta, and Father Gregory, and all is well with them.”
“Father Gregory?”
“The senior member of the Ordo Sancti Silvii. It turns out, he is a very pleasant man, and he said to thank Ivan for the consideration.”
“Well, that’s good.” Yay for diplomacy, I guess?
“And in the bad news, I did confirm that the phone number is a prepaid cell phone. Nothing useful there.”
“Dammit.”
“Indeed.” Windows vanished, others reappeared, and the computer whined plaintively.
“Seriously, Viljo, stop with the windows. I don’t think this thing’s gonna handle it much longer.”
He frowned at the camera. “That bad? Strange…” Still, the windows shut down immediately, and the noise in the tower subsided a bit. “I was very disappointed about the phone, as you may guess, but I have discovered something else that may redeem me.”
The image on the webcam got choppier, and I couldn’t even make his mouth match up with the words I was hearing. I frowned, fiddling with the buttons on the monitor in the vain hope that it would help. It didn’t. “Well, what is it?”
“Miguel’s credit card was used, one week ago, in Del Rio, Texas.”
“Say again?”
“Miguel, or someone with his credit card, used his card in Texas.” Even his voice over the headset was starting to hitch. “They booted me out once. I am still looking for another back door so I can get more specifics.”
“Viljo, man, you sound like a drive-through intercom. What’s up with the connection today?”
He peered into the camera, giving me a close-up of his nose for a second, as if he could see across the distance between KC and Colorado. “Did you get a second computer?”
“No… why?”
His frown was very clear, even in the grainy feed. “Because… there is something…” I could hear his keyboards rat-a-tat-tatting as his fingers flew over them, and Mira’s computer gave a strained whine.
“What are you doing, Viljo?” I’m not even sure he heard me the first time. “Viljo? What’s up, man?”
“Shit!” He vanished from the webcam’s view for a few frames, but I could still hear him. “He’s… in your… -chine!”
Who was what? I watched in fascination as the geek’s choppy image flitted around his little control room frantically. “What the hell is going on?”
“Hack-… in… machine. Catch this… -ther fucker.. .”
Meanwhile, the computer was making a horrible roaring noise, like a jet engine about to take off. I eyed it warily, wondering if something evil was going to jump out of it at me. Stranger things had happened. “What do you need me to do?”
“Nothing… -got it…” There was a pause, and then he added, “I think.”
I could only watch, and I had a crappy view as it was. Viljo seemed to be teleporting around the room, so badly did the image jump. One moment he was at his usual keyboards, the next he was in the back of the room fiddling with something, and then he was front and center again, a snarl on his geeky little face.
Though I had no idea what he was doing, I saw the moment it all went wrong. There was a look of absolute horror on Viljo’s face. “Shit shit shit!” He vanished again; then his silhouette appeared in the rear, yanking cords out of equipment willy-nilly.
I lost the visual feed and the sound at the same moment, Viljo blipping out of existence. Then my monitor went black, and Mira’s computer gave one last ominous pop and was silent. Blue smoke trickled from the tower in a stench of burned electronics. “Oh shit.” What the hell just happened?
The phone’s ringing nearly jarred me out of my seat, and I snatched the cordless before anyone else in the house could get to it. “Hello?”