‘What lovely pieces,’ she said.
‘Touch nothing,’ he said, giving Nathan a hard look. Nathan shrugged. They followed him upstairs to Joy’s office.
Miles fired the computer up, opened a browser, hunted in Google for the name Mercury Mountain. No Web site for a hosting service – so not a hosting service that wanted customers, just a name to attach to a server. Miles jumped to a software vendor who sold IP address tracking software, dug out the VISA card he’d opened in his father’s name for emergencies.
‘I used this software when I had to track for the mob who really owned certain porn sites,’ Miles said. ‘It’s gotten a lot harder to find out who has certain Web domains, they could be bought with a stolen credit card or paid for ten years with a money order. But I’d find which of my bosses’ rivals owned porn sites, and my boss hired hackers to bring down the sites, cut into the rivals’ profits.’
‘You knew all the charming people,’ Celeste said.
Miles bought the software, entered in his VISA number, prayed the transaction would go through. Waiting. And then he got a confirmation.
‘Thank God,’ he said. He downloaded and installed the software, entered his license key, and entered in the IP address Celeste had found on her system. A map of the United States displayed, tracking the IP address, and finally pulsed on a location in northern California. Miles clicked: the IP address belonged to a server in Fish Camp, California, owned by an Edward Wallace.
‘Google him,’ Celeste said. Miles did, conscious now that they might only have minutes left. Joy – at DeShawn’s request – could have put an alert on the alarm system to let him know if the gallery was accessed after hours, just in case Miles came back. He hoped not.
Most of the Google results offered links to articles written by Edward Wallace – a few years out of date – mostly on post-traumatic stress disorder, and the gist seemed to be that the government was moving too slowly in addressing the growing problem of traumatic stress, especially among soldiers. He clicked through them; Edward Wallace was a neurobiology researcher in PTSD, affiliated with a university in San Diego. At least he had been four years ago.
‘She sent it to Edward Wallace for analysis, maybe,’ Celeste said.
Miles clicked on the next-to-last link. It summoned a local news story in a small-town paper from Fish Camp, California. An Edward Wallace of Fish Camp had been injured in a hiking accident. He was new to town – recently relocated from Fresno. His wife, Renee, was on an extended teaching fellowship in psychiatry at a medical school in the United Kingdom, so he had been hiking alone when he fell.
‘Odd. They don’t mention the name of the school,’ Celeste said, leaning over his shoulder. ‘Where exactly in California is Fish Camp?’
Miles clicked and searched and found a map. ‘Just a couple of miles south of Yosemite National Park.’
‘We should call him. Say we know Allison and need to know how he’s involved,’ Nathan said.
Miles clicked on the last link, an archived notice from The Fresno Bee.
There was a wedding picture of Edward – bookish and tall – and his bride, Renee, smiling, intelligent, confident, blond hair pulled back in a ponytail.
Renee Wallace was Allison Vance.
THIRTY-SIX
Groote cleaned off the screwdriver under a jet of water.
At his feet, on the kitchen floor, lay DeShawn Pitts. Groote believed a man bent, broken, and without hope was a tragic sight.
Groote ran a finger along the edge of the screwdriver. He’d learned the technique in Laos from a morals-challenged detective when Groote briefly worked with their police force on an exchange program: make a slight cut where the skin lay shallow over the bone, drive the screwdriver’s tip to the bone, twist and shred the flesh, let the subject hear the sound of metal grating against their own skeleton. Keep the subject gagged and you had quiet and a minimum of mess.
‘One last time,’ Groote said. ‘Or we’ll let Mr. Screwdriver explore fresh new territories. Above the eye socket. The pubic bone. Base of the spine.’ He lowered himself down to DeShawn’s eye level. ‘Listen. Why protect this guy? He screwed you over. He ran. Didn’t give a thought to your career, your professional standing.’
‘My job,’ DeShawn managed to say – his voice was barely above a whisper – ‘… to protect him.’
‘I’m not with the piece-of-crap drug dealer you’re hiding him from,’ Groote said. ‘I don’t give a rat’s ass what he did before. I’m a now kind of guy. I need to know how to best bring him to the surface.’
DeShawn closed his eyes.
‘Where’s he from originally?’ He started to undo DeShawn’s pants.
‘No, please. No.’
‘Tell me. This isn’t pleasant for me either.’
‘You’ll kill me.’
‘I have no quarrel with you. My quarrel’s with Michael Raymond, who ran away from you.’
DeShawn closed his eyes. ‘Never.’
‘ Never is such an outdated concept,’ Groote said, reaching for the knife, imagining a blue surgeon’s line in his craftsman’s eye on the tender skin.
It took twenty more minutes, and his answers came in a broken flood as he played the knife’s edge against an open nerve: ‘Miles Kendrick – Miami.’
He knew the name. Jesus. He’d heard the guy’s name before, talking with a couple of other old FBI hounds, talking about the Barradas’ clever spy. He’d never seen a picture but he’d heard the name. No telling how many crime rings that guy put a fucking dent in, man, the Barradas’ own CIA, who ever knew mobsters would get creative and get themselves a spy?
‘Thank you, Mr. Pitts,’ Groote said. ‘Mr. Kendrick hurt a lot of criminal organizations. Do you know if he ever struck at the Duartes in southern California?’
DeShawn nodded. ‘He… helped take… them down…’
Yeah, but not down enough. They’d still had the strength to come after his family, blame the Grootes for their misfortunes. ‘How did he take the Duartes down?’
‘Think he… stole spreadsheets…’
‘When?’ And God help Miles Kendrick, Groote thought, if it was before the attack on his family.
DeShawn didn’t answer, sliding toward unconsciousness. Groote controlled his sudden rage. Focus on what mattered now. ‘What do you know about Frost?’
‘What?’ There was no deception left in DeShawn’s eyes.
‘Where would Miles go? Back to Miami?’
‘No.’
‘How hard is Witness Protection and the Bureau searching for him?’
DeShawn passed out and Groote slapped him awake, repeated the question.
‘Hard,’ DeShawn managed.
‘Now. You’ve been very helpful. I really appreciate it. Thank you. I need to consider my options.’ Deciding about how Pitts made the best bait, alive on the hook or limp in death. No reason for Miles Kendrick to care about this dumb-ass. Groote stood, checked his gun, tucked a plastic trash bag under DeShawn’s head, fired once between the half-open eyes; the head jerked as the bullet funneled through bone and brain.
Groote tried to step into Allison’s head. She planned to run with Frost’s secrets, expose Quantrill and Hurley’s illegal testing. She was going to vanish from her life, and who better to help her than a man who’d already vanished from his own? A man who stole secrets, as she’d stolen Frost. Except the plan went wrong for Allison. You couldn’t tempt a criminal, a mobster, with a drug formula worth millions. Meat before the wolf, and he’d killed Allison for Frost. Groote was sure of it now. He’d thought first it might have been Sorenson, but he believed Sorenson was just a hired muscle for a pharmaceutical, making an attempt to steal the drug. Maybe Nathan, in league with Allison, knew about the deal and Sorenson wanted his tracks cleaned.
The evidence suggested Miles Kendrick had Frost. He was keeping it for his own gain, and he was keeping it from Amanda, and all the other people it could save.
He turned off the water, flicked the last drop free from the flat edge. Now he knew his enemy’s face, his name, and he believed he knew how to defeat him. There was a calmness in the knowledge. He’d thought killing the Duarte accountant was the final step in justice for Cathy and Amanda; but no. Fate and its engine of revenge had brought him full circle, brought him to a man who could mean justice for his lost Cathy and sanctuary for his lost Amanda.