Come And Find Me Part 26

He laughed. "Let's just say it's been a very long time."

"Whose idea was it for Daniel to fake his own death?"

"I know you want me to say it was my idea. But it wasn't." Jake laughed again in that not-funny way. "I warned him you'd never buy that lame story."

"He knew that I'd want to believe it."

He gave her a pitying smile. "Then I'm sorry to have to tell you this. The accident was Daniel's idea. You were there as a witness, and a means to an end after it."

Even though Diana had figured that out for herself, her heart wrenched when she heard Jake being so brutally and casually dismissive.

Jake went on. "His dream was to disappear, live off the grid, and, like the man said, sow chaos. To do that, he needed to sever his ties. Daniel's great at the vision thing. Not so good at tactics. So the details of the operation-that was more of a joint project."

"So the whole idea was to set me up as a front? Whose idea was it to use the trust I'd earned to hack my client's data?"

"I'm sure you can guess the answer to that. I don't give a s.h.i.+t about their frickin' data."

"Right. All you care about is fleecing them after the hack. That's your department."

"Accounts receivable." Jake brushed his fingers and thumb together. "You'd be surprised how much people are willing to pay to protect their reputations. Fortunately, less than it costs to finance this operation."

Diana said, "More than a million and a half, just to buy this place."

If Jake was surprised that she knew, he didn't show it. "Seemed like a bargain at the time. Still does."

"Must have set you back even more to make it livable."

"Fences. Plumbing. Wiring. Would you believe it costs more to blast potholes than it would have cost to build an access road, brand-new. Though in New Hamps.h.i.+re it's easy to find folks willing to do it off the books."

"Was it too risky to put the property in your own name? Certainly you couldn't put it in Daniel's."

"When people see that much cash, they don't ask questions. Besides, you gave me power of attorney."

"I must have been delusional."

"That and more. For months. Neither of us realized . . . we didn't antic.i.p.ate how incapacitated you'd be." Was that a flicker of contrition? Jake looked away. "Yeah, that took us by surprise. Made things much more complicated than they needed to be."

As Jake glanced back over to where the missing hard disks would have been, his fists clenched. Quickly Diana checked the outside surveillance feeds. Still nothing.

"You're actually a lot like Daniel," Jake went on. "You've got that idealistic, visionary thing going on but you don't want to get your hands dirty making it happen."

"So you got them dirty for me?"

Jake stared back at her. "Filthy. And just try proving that you didn't know what was going on. Your virtual fingerprints are everywhere. I made sure of that." He gave her an affable smile. "By the way, great meeting this afternoon. Excellent presentation. You had them eating out of our hands."

"Glad you enjoyed it. Because that's the last performance I'm going to give. It's over."

He held her gaze. "You think? This is my show, not yours. It goes on with or without Daniel and with or without you."

"But will it go on without you?" she said. Finally Jake blinked. "Because Daniel did one more thing before he ran off. He called the police. You're wanted for kidnapping. a.s.sault. Extortion."

Jake's laugh sounded empty.

"You're lucky you caught an earlier flight," Diana went on. "The police were at the airport, waiting to arrest you when you got off the plane. Daniel didn't know you caught an earlier flight. They're on their way here right now."

"You're making that up." He grabbed Diana by the arm and hauled her over to where he could tab through the surveillance screens.

"You think so? Why don't you just stick around and find out?" She looked past him to the doorway, where the metal door hung from a single hinge.

Jake spun around. The doorway was empty. He squeezed her arm. "What the h.e.l.l are you playing at? I told Daniel to cut his losses. Too bad he didn't-" He froze. Distant scuffling footsteps grew louder, more distinct.

Jake's fingers loosened on her arm as one police officer came into view. There was another one behind him. And another. Ashley brought up the rear.

Diana couldn't help smiling. Ashley was wearing the second outfit-Nadia's leather jacket and jeans. She rushed over to Diana and hugged her. Then she turned and pointed to Jake.

"That's him! That's the man who kidnapped me. He drugged me and held me here for a week. G.o.d knows what he did to me while I was unconscious."

"You crazy b.i.t.c.h," Jake said. "No one did anything to you while you were unconscious. And it wasn't me who kidnapped you."

"There's plenty of evidence," Diana said to the police officer in the lead, "upstairs in the other building. I can show you the place where my sister was held. The drugs she was given. There is surveillance footage that shows this man drugging her. And video that shows him grabbing her at Copley Square."

"I swear to G.o.d," Jake said, holding up his hands and backing away, "none of this was my idea. The man you want is Daniel Schechter." One of the officers grabbed his wrist and cuffed it, then turned him around and cuffed both hands behind his back.

Jake scowled at Diana. "Tell them. Tell them about Daniel. He was here. With us. This whole setup was his idea."

"If he was here, then his fingerprints would be," Diana said. "Go ahead," she said to one of the officers. "Dust the place. You'll find his." She jerked a thumb at Jake. "And you'll find mine. But I'm quite sure you won't find this person Daniel's."

Though she no longer needed a costume or an alternate ident.i.ty to make her feel powerful and resilient, Diana grabbed Nadia's jacket from the floor. She slipped it on. She loved that soft leather, and there was nothing quite like clothing that was custom made.

"Besides, how could Daniel Schechter have had anything to do with this? He's dead. Don't you remember?" she said, her gaze locked on Jake. "And I have his ashes to prove it."

Chapter Thirty-Seven.

As Ashley drove home, Diana kept a tight grip on the door handle. Unnerving as it had been driving a Hummer on I-93 North, riding along I-93 South in the middle of the night in the Mini Cooper felt like zipping along at ground level in a tin can.

She held Daniel's walking stick across her lap. The pine-resiny essence wafted up. He was still out there. Somewhere. She really didn't care where.

By the time they'd left the mill, police officers had impounded all the surveillance and computer equipment, including Diana's laptop. They also seized the black limousine. The Hummer, of course, had vanished along with Daniel.

Diana and Ashley had led the police to the floor where Ashley had been held unconscious. They'd stood by watching as investigators took pictures, lighting up the room in flashes and gathering evidence. Ashley had watched, her arms crossed over her chest, s.h.i.+vering, as investigators collected the IV bag with the tube and needle still attached.

"It feels so weird, standing here. Like an out-of-body experience," Ashley had said. She told Diana how bits and pieces, mostly visuals, were coming back to her. The rough-hewn beamed ceiling. The restraints-thick Velcro cuffs. The tube through which mind-numbing drugs had been forced into her body.

"You were very brave," Diana said, putting an arm around her sister.

"I was unconscious. How can you be brave when you're out cold?"

"Believe me. You were both."

After a pause, Ashley said, "What b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."

"The worst."

Ashley and Diana had gone from the mill to New Hamps.h.i.+re State Police headquarters in Manchester, where they'd been questioned and given their statements. The district attorney a.s.sured them that Jake would be held while the investigation continued. He'd most likely be charged with a.s.sault and kidnapping, and depending on what investigators found, there could be charges of extortion and more.

As Ashley drove home along the nearly deserted stretch of I-93, she asked, "So how do you feel now?"

"I thought I'd feel more, I don't know, elation or something. Paying them back in kind." Diana stared out the window at the blur of trees that lined the road. "Instead, I guess I'm just sad. Disappointed that they weren't who I thought they were. Disappointed in myself that I was so willingly gulled. Disgusted, really." A sign on the side of the road, Ma.s.sACHUSETTS WELCOMES YOU, flew by. "Most of all, ready to move on."

"Sounds good to me," Ashley said, and flashed her a tired smile.

It was near dawn by the time they got back to Ashley's apartment. Ashley called in sick, and both she and Diana slept straight through the morning. That afternoon, Ashley drove Diana home. She parked in front of the little house where they'd grown up.

"We should probably call Mom," she said.

"It's Friday. She'll think something's wrong," Diana said.

"She already knows something's wrong."

Ashley got out of the car. Diana followed her to the front door. All it took was a turn of her house key to get inside. Except for a trail of dirt on the carpet that must have gotten tracked in when Jake and Daniel were moving her things, the living room looked untouched.

She raised the shades, then walked from room to room, letting in light. In her bedroom, she made a mental note-later she'd get out on Craigslist and find herself another bed. She never again wanted to see the one that she and Daniel had shared.

She stood in the doorway of her barren office and looked at the empty tables and shelves. The Peruvian wall hanging seemed like it was trying too hard. Maybe she'd get a Ping-Pong table. Or a cushy leather sectional couch and a mammoth TV screen. Or maybe not. The only thing she knew for sure was that Gamelan was officially out of business.

It seemed oddly comforting when the doorbell rang without the Klaxon going off first, with no monitor to show who was standing on her doorstep.

"I'll get it," Diana called to Ashley.

She returned to the front door and looked out through the peephole. At first, it didn't look as if anyone was there. Then she saw a hand wave, and below that just the top of a head with white-white hair.

"Pam!" Diana pulled open the door and Pam's wheelchair whirred across the threshold.

"Okay, this is going to be a joint project," Pam said. "I brought the booze." She handed Diana a bottle of brandy. "We need three stiff shots."

Diana pa.s.sed the bottle to Ashley. "Can you open this and do the honors?"

Ashley disappeared into the kitchen and came back with three juice gla.s.ses. She set them on the coffee table, pulled the cork from the bottle, and poured a few fingers of brandy into each gla.s.s.

"Too bad this won't fit into the fireplace as is," Diana said as she leaned Daniel's driftwood walking stick at an angle against the wall and brought her foot down. The wood cracked. She came down on it again and it broke into pieces.

Diana handed Pam and Ashley double sheets of newspaper and showed them how to roll it, tie it, and shred the ends. When they'd made a half-dozen newspaper logs and she'd nested them in the bottom of the fireplace, she gathered up the pieces of the walking stick and arranged them on top.

They were ready. Pam held a kitchen match. Ashley stood by the stereo system, waiting. When Diana nodded to her, she turned it on. As the first notes of Pachelbel's Canon filled the room, Pam struck the match on the brick fireplace surround and handed it to Diana. Diana touched the flame to a bit of newspaper fringe.

Ashley pa.s.sed around the drinks, and together they watched the paper burn. It took a few minutes, but finally the dry wood caught. Then the fire burned hot and fast, white smoke curling up the chimney as, in the music, violins circled and soared.

Diana toasted the flames and sniffed her drink, then took a sip. The smoky tang of the brandy worked its way up the back of her throat and filled her head, as she hoped it would, overwhelming any last phantom sensation of pine resin.

Diana felt Ashley's hand on her shoulder. "You okay, hon?" Ashley asked.

"I am now, thanks to both of you."

"You're the one who pulled it off," Ashley said. "We just took orders."

Diana looked at Pam. "You did a great job. I got so caught up that I almost believed it myself when the COO started saying how he'd called the FBI."

"I borrowed my neighbor for that," Pam said. "He's an out-of-work voice-over actor. He doesn't usually get to ad-lib."

"If I weren't retiring, I'd want to hire him as my chief of operations," Diana said. "He did a brilliant job impersonating one."

She stepped to the mantel and took down the bra.s.s urn that supposedly contained Daniel's ashes. Ashley lit another match and held it as Diana rotated the urn so that the wax seal holding the lid in place melted. With a pop, it came free. She opened it and peered inside. The contents looked like nothing more sinister than pebbles and sand.

Diana set the urn on the brick fireplace threshold. With a bra.s.s shovel from her fireplace tool set, she scooped up the still-smoldering ashes from the walking stick and tipped them into the urn. She unfastened the leather cord from around her neck, slipped off one of the gold Ds, and tossed that in too. Then she closed the urn and held it between her hands. She felt the last warmth seeping from the remaining embers but nothing else.

"So, when are we getting tickets?" Ashley asked.

"You taking a trip?" Pam asked.

"I thought we'd fly to Zurich," Ashley said. "What do you think, Di? First cla.s.s? Get to the top the easy way. By train or lift, whatever. Scatter a few ashes?"

"You think they'll let me through airport security with this?" Diana said, indicating the urn. But as she looked down at it, she realized that it held nothing that mattered to her any longer. More than that, she didn't want to squander another ounce of energy looking back.

"Why waste a perfectly good trip to Europe on an a.s.shole?" she said. "I have a much better idea."

She marched through the kitchen, opened the back door of the house, and stepped outside. There, alongside the door, were the dozens and dozens of stones she'd left, lined up like soldiers, each one marking another tentative foray into the outside world. She picked one up and dropped it into a pocket. It would be a keepsake, a reminder of a state of mind she vowed never to find herself in again. With a swing of her booted foot, she sent the rest of the stones flying into the gra.s.s.

She flipped open the lid of the nearby garbage can and dumped in the urn's contents. The urn made a satisfying thud as she tossed it in after.

"Good riddance," she said as she closed the lid.

Acknowledgments.