“Bank records?” Kelsey asked next.
“No,” Candice said firmly. There were lines even she didn’t cross.
“Good. I can’t access them without a warrant, but I wanted to make sure you two weren’t skirting the law.”
“We’re not,” I said. It didn’t mean we wouldn’t—it just meant that, so far, we were being perfect little Girl Scouts.
“Okay,” Kelsey said, and I knew she believed us. “Anyway, like I said, Rivera is on the warpath. He’s pissed that you’re still investigating the case when he told you to go home. He’s worried you’ll kick up some dust that’ll come back on him, which is typical. He’s a political animal and he’s always looking to toss one of us under the bus when things go south. So I’m giving you the heads-up that you should expect a call from your director pretty soon. Rivera won’t let this go until you two are back in Austin.”
Candice sipped her martini and adopted a nonchalant expression. “So what?” she said. “We’re not representing ourselves as licensed PIs or linking ourselves with the bureau. We’re just a couple of citizens asking questions.”
“Oh, I get it,” Kelsey said with a bit of a grin. “I figure you have your own reputations to protect, which is why you’re still here, and also why I want to help.”
“You want to help us?” I said, perking up.
“I do,” she said. “After all, you helped me out. Big-time. I think I owe you.”
“I thought this was some other agents’ case?” Candice said.
“It is,” Kelsey admitted. “But I’ve been briefed on it, and know where the investigation is at the moment.”
“Where is it?” I asked.
“Dead in the water,” she said with a wink. “The truth of the matter is that we’ve got no leads and nothing else to follow up on. The case has gone nowhere, and until the robbers strike again or we get lucky, we’re not likely to solve it. I think we need you.”
“Cool,” I said, feeling myself smile. “So, what can you tell us about the case that Perez and Robinson haven’t?”
“What’d they tell you?”
“Nothing other than that there were five robberies in and around the Pasadena/La Cañada Flintridge area all by the same gang.”
Kelsey looked like she was waiting for me to say more, and when I didn’t, she said, “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Did they show you the video?”
“No,” I said, “but Candice found one of the robbery videos online. It might be helpful if we could see the other tapes.”
Kelsey scoffed. “That’s the only video we have.”
“Wait, what?” Candice said. “What do you mean the only video? How could that be?”
Kelsey put her palms up. “The bank had their entire video surveillance system run through a central server off-site at another facility. Apparently, someone hacked into the mainframe, inserted a virus that took all of the video recordings from every branch, and deleted them in real time. Because the cameras were working, no one noticed that the recordings were being erased. For whatever reason, it took them several weeks to get the network of cameras up and recording again, just in time to capture the last robbery.”
“Well, that can’t be a coincidence!” I said. “How long before the first robbery did the camera system go down?”
“Weeks,” Kelsey said. “Perez checked. The two incidents are unrelated.”
“But what was the point?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” Kelsey said.
“What was the point of hacking into the system and inserting that virus if someone wasn’t going to take advantage of it?”
Kelsey shook her head. “The virus came from Russia. We traced it to a known ring of teenage hackers who like to mess around with video surveillance systems. To our knowledge, they have no boots on the ground here.”
“But what if someone knew about the hack and took advantage of it?” Candice asked.
Kelsey nodded. “That’s what we think too, but so far, we’re unable to find proof that anyone here knew about it until after the breach had been detected.”
“Why’d it take so long for the bank to get their surveillance recordings back up and running?”
“I don’t know,” Kelsey said. “Perez was going to track down someone at the corporate office to get that answered, but these guys have been less than forthcoming.”
“What do you mean they’ve been less than forthcoming?” Candice pressed.
“I mean that three of the bank robberies occurred before the corporate office admitted to us that they didn’t have any of the footage. They kept trying to stall—people were out sick, or on vacation, or having trouble with the file—that kind of thing. From what I remember, it got pretty tense for Perez and Robinson, and it took a visit from them to the corporate office to finally get the story about the hack.”
“But why would they want to keep that a secret?” I asked. “I mean, their banks were being systematically robbed. Wouldn’t they want to do whatever they could to cooperate?”
“You’d think they would,” Kelsey said. “But we’re seeing more and more companies try to cover up the fact that they’ve been hacked, due to how the news of it will affect their stock values, not to mention the willingness of the public to abandon institutions they perceive as being unable to protect their money or their personal information.”
I was quiet for a few moments while Candice asked some additional questions about the robberies. My mind was humming with little gossamer-thin tendrils of intuitive information. There was something about the hack that was definitely connected to the robberies. Someone knew about it. Someone who used it to their advantage. It led me to ask my next question.
“Kelsey, is it possible for another hacker to see the work of these hackers?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, if someone got into the bank’s mainframe and started nosing around and saw that the video surveillance equipment wasn’t working, maybe they used that to their advantage. Maybe they organized a small gang and started hitting up the banks.”
Kelsey seemed to consider that for a moment before she shrugged and said, “I suppose it’s possible, but probably unlikely. The second hacker would have to know what they were looking for. This virus was pretty well hidden, from what I understand.”
“Well, someone knew about it,” Candice said.
Kelsey nodded, but I knew she wasn’t convinced.
We ordered and moved on to other topics. As the night wore on, it was nice to see that Candice and Kelsey gradually began to let their guard down. They both relaxed the set of their shoulders and laughed when the other told a joke. What had been a tense first hour talking with each other became a rather fun girls’ night out.
Around ten o’clock I started to yawn and couldn’t stop. “You look bushed,” Kelsey remarked.
“I am.” I then motioned to Candice with my thumb. “This one had me up early for kettlebell swings.”
“Sounds painful,” Kelsey said.
“It was,” Candice teased. “Maybe more for me than for her.”
They both laughed at my expense, but I didn’t mind. Hell, it was probably true, as I’m a world-class complainer, especially during exercise. No matter how out of breath I get, I can usually gasp out one additional whine before collapsing on the floor. Besides being psychic, it’s my best superpower.
After paying the bill, we walked out to the lobby and parted ways with Kelsey. “Call me if you need my help with something you turn up,” she said.
“We will,” I promised. Even though I figured Candice and I would probably end up handling this whole case on our own, it was nice to know that Kelsey was willing to discreetly back us up should we need it.
Fifteen minutes later, I sank down onto the pillow and was asleep within seconds, and I do
n’t remember a thing until bolting upright around two in the morning. I’d come awake from a very vivid dream, which I felt was strongly prophetic.
In it I’d been sitting in a bathtub, feeling the warmth of the water soothe and relax my tense muscles. While I sat there, the faucet on the tub began to sprout a vine that wove its way out of the fixture and climbed up the wall, sprouting leaves made of hundred-dollar bills as it went. When it reached the top of the wall, it clung to the ceiling and spread out there too.
Looking at it, I wasn’t alarmed, just fascinated and curious, but then something bad happened. The bottom of the vine somehow became severed and it began to bleed. Red blood dripped into the tub of water and I shrank back away from the droplets, clambering out of the tub to get away from the scene. It was as I was climbing out that I startled awake, and was left to blink in confusion for a minute until I came fully awake.
The room was dim, but not so dark that I couldn’t see. “Candice?” I whispered. She stirred, but only slightly. “Yoo-hoo,” I called softly. “Caaaaandice.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Oh, you’re awake?”
She sat up and sighed heavily. “I am now. What’s going on, Sundance?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure.”
“No. But I have a gut feeling and I think we need to go.”
“Where?”
“To Edwards’s house.”
Candice nodded and without another word got out of bed to head to the dresser where she’d stored her clothes.
I watched her in mild surprise. “That’s it?” I asked. “You’re not even going to ask me why?”
She didn’t pause as she slipped a sweater over her head. “I’ve known you long enough to know that when your gut tells you to do something, we should do it.”
“Huh,” I said. “Cool.” I got out of bed too and dressed quickly. We were out of the hotel and headed north only five minutes after waking up.
There was relatively little traffic and we arrived at the Edwards home in no time. Candice eased the rental SUV—a totally different color and model from what we’d had before—to the curb across and slightly down from the house.
I was surprised to see so many lights on inside. Glancing at the dashboard clock, I said, “They’re up late. Even for a Friday.”
“They are,” Candice said.
No sooner had she gotten those words out than a car approached. We ducked down as the lights hit us and to both our surprise, the garage door to the Edwards house opened and the car slipped inside.
“That’s Edwards’s car,” I said, peeking over the dash.
“It is,” Candice agreed. “He’s back at an odd hour.”
The car parked and I sat up straighter, leaning forward to squint into the light of the garage. “His car looks dirty. Like he’s been somewhere dusty.”
Candice looked from Edwards’s car to the direction he’d come from. “Looks almost like he spent time in the San Gabriel Mountains,” she said.
The door to the garage was still open as Edwards got out of his car. He looked weary and worried. I knew we were part of the reason why. At that moment a woman opened the door from the house and stepped out to greet him with crossed arms and an angry expression. She pointed a finger at him and said something that looked like an accusation. He hung his head and began to shuffle toward her and the door. She stopped him by shoving him in the shoulders and started yelling—like, yelling.
Candice rolled down the window and we could hear Mrs. Edwards shouting obscenities at her husband, but there wasn’t any real context for the diatribe, other than maybe he’d gotten home at two thirty in the morning.
For his part, Will passed his wife without comment, lifting his eyes only once to push the button for the garage door to close it again. “Well, they seem like a nice couple,” I said when they were blocked from view.
Candice snorted. “Now I know what he sees in Flower.”
“Well, at least we know that he’s definitely a person of interest.”
“Yeah,” she said. “The plot has definitely thickened.”
We continued to watch the house for a bit—I’m not sure why, as I didn’t think either of us expected Edwards to come back out and leave again. I was about to say, “Let’s go,” when I caught movement from our left and turned to see a young man in a hoodie pass very close to our car. I ducked down out of reflex and tugged on Candice’s arm. She followed suit and we waited for the kid in the hoodie to continue on down the street, but he didn’t.
He approached the Edwards house right up to the lawn and paused to stare at the lights on inside. I had a feeling the couple was still arguing, because none of the lights had been turned off even though it was now almost three a.m.
The kid stood there mysteriously for a bit; then he walked toward the driveway. I thought he was going to go inside the garage, but instead he crept around to the back of the house and disappeared.
“Edwards’s son?” I asked.
“Could be,” she said. We continued to watch the house to see if the kid would come around to the front again, but he didn’t. Instead, a light upstairs went on briefly, then winked out. He’d made it inside.
“That is one weird family,” I said.
“Agreed.”
Finally, fifteen minutes later, one by one the lights in the house began to turn off until just two were visible upstairs. As Candice started the car, one of those two even went out, leaving only one light on at the far right end of the house.
I couldn’t say why, but I had the impression that Will Edwards was sitting in that room with the light on. It made me think of him as a sad, lonely character, someone with too many secrets, one of which I was determined to reveal.
* * *
The next day Candice and I slept in. Or tried to. Director Gaston called my cell around eight a.m. I looked at the display, considered letting it go to voice mail, then thought better of it. Gaston wasn’t someone you pushed to voice mail. “Hello, sir,” I said, sitting up to answer the call.
“Good morning,” he said warmly. “You sound like I’ve just woken you up.”
I cleared my throat. My greeting had sounded a little rough. “No, sir. It’s fine. How’re you?”
“I’m well, Abigail,” he said smoothly. “I trust you’re still in L.A.?”
Crap. He’d asked me point-blank, and if there was one person I wasn’t going to lie to, it was Bill Gaston. (Okay, so maybe he was also the only person I would never lie to, but why split hairs over semantics?) “Yes, sir,” I said, hoping that my rather short answer would be enough.
“Taking in the sights?” he asked next.
I gulped. Gaston was never coy. Snide, sardonic, sarcastic, perhaps—but never coy. Still, I thought to counter with, “A few sights, sir.”
“Excellent. Say, if you come across a group of bank robbers, would you call me and let me know the details before you contact any other member of the bureau?”
My jaw dropped. Was Gaston saying what I thought he was saying? Was he actually granting us permission to proceed even though Rivera probably wanted to run us out of town? “Umm . . . sure, sir. Of course.”
“Excellent,” he said smugly. “Have a good time, Abigail. My money’s on you.”
I couldn’t see him, of course, but I swear he probably winked as he added that last line.
After I hung up, Candice stared at me. She’d woken up when I answered the call. “Gaston?” she said.
I nodded.
“He want us to come home?”
“No,” I said, still a little stunned. “He wants us to enjoy ourselves.”
“I don’t get it,” she said.
“Me either.”
Candice stared at me like she was waiting for me to explain, but I could only shrug. “Okay,” she said, getting ou
t of bed to stretch. “If he’s not calling us in, then we should get to work.”
“On what?” I asked. “Candice, we’ve got nothing. If Edwards did hide some evidence last night, which—let’s face it—is highly likely given the late hour of his return and the fact that he gave us the slip at lunch to go God knows where to do God knows what, we’re never going to be able to find it.”
“True,” she said, moving to the dresser to pull out some teeny tiny shorts and a sports bra. “But maybe there’s another angle we can work.”
“What angle?”
“You mentioned it yesterday, don’t you remember?”
“No,” I said, watching her warily and hoping that whatever kind of workout required her to don so little in the way of clothing didn’t also involve me.
“You said that I needed to look into his work history. I was thinking about that last night after we got back from their house. Don’t you think it’s interesting that Edwards works on camera systems for his current employer and the banks all had issues with their video surveillance systems?”
“You think he was the other hacker?” I asked. “The one that saw the virus from the Russian kids and maybe took advantage of it?”
“Maybe,” she said. “But it’s something to go on.”
“Good,” I said, slipping out of bed to edge closer to the bathroom. If I could just keep her talking until I got inside and locked the door, she might go off and do her workout without me. “You should definitely follow up on that, then. I’m gonna take a shower and get—”
“You’re showering before we work out?” she interrupted.
I stopped three feet from the bathroom. Dammit. “I was sorta thinking that you could work out on your own this morning. I mean, I only slow you down, and that’s gotta be a pain for you, right?”
“Wrong,” she said, moving over to loop her arm through mine, twirl me in a circle, and send me spinning back toward the room. “Now go change and meet me down in the gym in ten minutes. For every minute you’re late beyond that, I’m going to make you do an extra quarter mile.”