Code Conspiracy, page 10
“Why? You didn’t know her. You’d never even seen her before tonight.”
“Because she’s Dreadworm. Olaf vetted us all thoroughly.”
“Even the great Olaf can make mistakes.” Gray rolled his eyes.
“I suppose, but that puts him in danger, too.”
“The next question is, who outed Kiera?” Gray steepled his fingers and peered at her over the apex. “Where did it all start? If Kiera had to tell them about you and Amit, who told them about her? Who’s her coworker? Cedar?”
“Yeah, Cedar.”
Gray raised his eyebrows and his lips quirked into a grin.
“Cedar grew up on a commune. You don’t want to know his brothers’ names.”
“You’re right. I don’t.” Gray traced the edge of his water glass. “You seem to know more about him than Kiera.”
“About the same. Kiera’s father was one of the founding members of the Black Panthers. She has a son who attends Columbia.” She sniffled and swirled the ice in her glass before taking a sip. “I know a few salient facts about them.”
“The facts that make them ripe for working at Dreadworm.”
“I suppose you could say that. What’s your point?”
“My point is that Olaf chose wisely. He must’ve recruited most of you. It’s not like you went on an internet job board.”
“Food’s here.” She wanted to cut off this conversation about Olaf and how she knew him. She poked at her burger. “Mustard, please.”
The waiter answered, “Absolutely. Anything else?”
“Actually, I’d like a beer. Jerrica? I think we both could use one.”
“Sure. Make it two, and I’ll have whatever he’s having.”
Gray made a selection from the beer menu and then doused his fries with ketchup. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to drink to the point where I can’t get us back to your place safely.”
“I know that.” She held her hand out over the table and it was mostly steady. “I’m almost calm.”
“How do we reach Cedar?”
“Ugh, I knew that was going to be your next question.” She thanked the waiter for the mustard and squirted some on her bun. “We have our own message board with another TV show.”
“Then it’s time we either warn him or kill him.”
Jerrica flicked a napkin in his face.
“I’m just kidding—sort of. For all we know, he could be dead already.”
“Okay, just stop.” She pointed a knife at him. “I sent out the SOS to Cedar, too, but he didn’t respond.”
“Even if he does, you’re not going to any more secret meetings. Communicate with him via the message board, and that’s it.” He picked up a fry and waved it at her. “I’m not allowing you to be an easy target again.”
“Once Cedar sees the news and learns Kiera is dead, he’s either going to contact me or he’s going to run.”
The waiter placed their beers in front of them. Gray finished chewing his french fry and then took a long pull from his mug.
“I needed that.” He clinked his glass with hers. “Here’s to finding out who’s exposing Dreadworm...and why.”
“And why.” Jerrica took a sip of beer through the thick head of foam and closed her eyes as the alcohol sent warm, soothing waves to her frazzled nerve endings.
Gray interrupted her happy place. “I think we know the why. They know Dreadworm has compromised their clandestine database, and they want to keep you out before you can discover anything of substance...or turn it over to someone who can.”
“I know.” Jerrica opened her eyes and nibbled at the edge of her veggie burger, her appetite still lying in the dirt with Kiera’s body. “But that’s Amit and I. Kiera and Cedar have no knowledge of this database. Why go after them?”
“To get to you. If Amit didn’t rat you out, and it doesn’t sound like he did, and you didn’t give him up, how did these people know where to find the two of you? How’d they know to pick up Amit’s trail at that party? How’d they find out where you live? Kiera led one of them straight to you. They got to her somehow, turned her somehow—and killed her when she’d served her purpose.”
Jerrica dropped her burger. “This time he was willing to kill me. What changed? The first attempt on Amit and me was abduction. That guy with the gun in the park looked intent on murder...not kidnapping.”
“We don’t know what he would’ve done. Maybe he squeezed off the shot to wound you and would’ve taken you captive after that. Kiera he had no use for.”
“If Amit and I are dead, our programs die with us and we won’t have the opportunity to send anything to Olaf.”
Gray glanced up sharply from his plate. “Is that what you intend to do? Send this info to Olaf?”
“W-we always do.”
“Have you told him about this, yet?”
“How could we?” Jerrica wrapped her hands around the mug, sweating beads of moisture. “We didn’t really know what we had until you showed up with the code.”
“You knew you had a black ops database inside the government.”
“I knew that, and I communicated it to Olaf. Whether or not Amit did the same, I’m not sure.”
Gray swiped a napkin across the lower half of his face. “Dreadworm really is a case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing.”
“Olaf designed it that way. It cuts down on the type of situation we find ourselves in now. I was surprised that Olaf even told us about each other and that Amit and I work in the same office.” Jerrica traced a finger around the base of her mug. “Look at us now.”
“Strange.”
“We have to get back to Amit. I have to tell him what happened. If he’s watching TV or going through news sites online, he may already know. He’s going to be worried.”
“You barely touched your dinner.”
She poked at her burger on the plate. “I suppose I can take it home, and Amit can have the uneaten half.”
“Get the waiter over here while I finish my food—and my beer.” Gray dug into his burger while she waved at the server.
“Can I get this to go, please, and the check?”
“Sure. Anything else?”
Jerrica shook her head. “Not unless you have an armored car.”
“Excuse me?”
“Just the check, thanks.”
Gray studied her over his mug. “Let’s take a taxi back. We can get dropped off around the corner and come through the other building.”
“I guess we can do that. It’ll be safer.”
Gray polished off the last of his fries by dragging them through the puddle of ketchup on his plate and popping them in his mouth. “With your money, you could hire a car and a bodyguard.”
“I could hire a car and a driver, but I already have my bodyguard.” She grabbed his wrist. “I never said thank you for saving my life.”
“I didn’t do much. I was too slow. I should’ve shot him.”
“For all my security measures and heightened senses, I didn’t even notice the guy coming at me. I didn’t see the gun until you yelled—saving my life.” She squeezed his arm. “Can you imagine the mess if you’d shot him? The police? The questions?”
“I would’ve been within my rights. He had a gun out.” Gray crumpled his napkin and tossed it onto the table. “I could’ve taken out the bastard. Sent a message.”
“It didn’t work out that way, but we’re both safe.” She put her hands together as if in prayer and pressed the tips of her fingers against her lips to stifle the sob bubbling from her throat. “Kiera. Her son.”
“These people are out of control, Jerrica. Scares the hell out of me. They’re desperate.”
“And that’s just how we want them. They know we’re in the database. Imagine how they’d react if they knew we had the first part of the code to decipher their gibberish.”
He hunched his shoulders. “I hope they never find that out. As long as they think you’re scrabbling around with meaningless words, maybe this group, whatever and whoever it is, won’t bring their full forces down on you—because those forces must be awful if they can set up a man like Denver and keep dismissing all evidence that would exonerate him.”
“Okay, now you’ve really ruined my evening. Let’s head back to my place and check on Amit.”
After settling the check, they stepped onto the street and walked a half a block before grabbing a taxi. Gray sat sideways the entire ride back to her neighborhood to keep an eye out the rear window. Occasionally, he’d tell the puzzled driver to take a quick right or left.
When the taxi pulled up to the curb around the block from her apartment building, Gray leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Didn’t notice anyone following us.”
He paid the driver, and they turned down the alley that led to the building next to hers.
By default, Jerrica stuck close to the wall and the shadows, and Gray gravitated toward her, matching her step for stealthy step. Even with Gray’s solid presence beside her, the cold that had seeped under her skin, and had receded only with the beer and the company, crept back, needling her flesh.
Gray curled an arm around her waist, fitting her against his body, as if sensing her unease. Or maybe he felt it, too.
“Do we need a key for this door?”
“Not this one. Remember, it leads to the stairwell and the two doors—one leading to each building.” She dragged her keychain from her pocket. “I do have a key for that door.”
Gray reached around her and pushed down on the handle. The squeak it made had her grinding her back teeth. He eased open the door wide enough to accommodate his bulky frame but no more.
She tripped in ahead of him, pinching the key in her fingers. She waited until Gray pulled the door closed behind them, then pivoted to the door that led to her building’s basement.
The yellow light from the bare bulb above them cast a weak glow over the metal door. Suddenly Jerrica gasped and threw out her hands in front of her. The icy prickles she’d felt in the alley stabbed the back of her neck as she stretched out her fingers to trace over the chalk letters scribbled on the door to her building.
In a voice that quavered just a little, she read aloud, “It’s Olaf.”
Chapter Nine
Gray caught Jerrica around the shoulders as she listed to one side. He narrowed his eyes as he read the message on the door. “What the hell does that mean? What’s Olaf?”
“Cedar wrote this.”
“Cedar?” He asked as if he knew more than one Cedar. “How do you know that?”
She leveled a finger at a drawing of a tree near the corner of the message. “That’s his signature. Cedar, tree. Get it?”
“Okay, but why did he leave this message and what does it mean? What’s he trying to say about Olaf?”
“I’m not sure, but I don’t want to stand here all night while we figure it out.” She shoved the key in the lock and pushed on the door.
“Wait.” Gray grabbed the edge of the door. “Let’s get rid of it. I’m pretty sure he meant that for your eyes only.”
“If you’re getting rid of it, I want proof that it existed.” She dug her phone from her pocket and took a picture of the words. “It’s all yours.”
Gray erased the chalk with the sleeve of his jacket, and prodded her through the open door. “I just hope nobody else saw it.”
“Who would see it? Nobody knows about this entrance into my building, except the residents, and I’m not even sure some of them know you can go from one building to the other.”
Gray covered his nose and mouth with his hand as they made their way through the foul-smelling basement. “How did Cedar know about the connected buildings?”
“He dropped something off for me one night, and I told him about it because I didn’t want him coming to my front door. I guess he remembered, and realized now is the time to lay low.”
They maneuvered their way back to Jerrica’s place, and Gray tensed his muscles while she released the locks. He didn’t know what to expect on the other side.
Jerrica swung open the door and sang out. “It’s just us.”
Amit met them from the other side of a gun. “What the hell happened out there?”
“Put the gun down, Amit.” Gray raised his hands. “We’re the good guys, remember?”
“Just taking precautions after what happened in Washington Square Park.” He placed the weapon on the coffee table, and then collapsed on the sofa as if the effort of raising and pointing that gun had been too much for him. “That was you, right? The shooting? The dead body? That was Kiera, wasn’t it? I read a report online.”
Jerrica sat beside him and put a hand on his bouncing knee. “It was. Our meeting was blown. Some guy with a gun, dressed as a transient, crashed our party.”
“Oh, God.” Amit pressed his palm against his forehead. “Was it like last time? Did he try to abduct you...or did he want to kill you this time?”
“We’re not sure.” Gray scooped up the gun from the table. “He was there panhandling when we got to the park. Kiera walked up, spotted Jerrica and made her move, but she looked scared. It raised my hackles—even more than they already were. That’s when I noticed the homeless guy walking in a trajectory toward Jerrica.”
“I was so focused on Kiera, I didn’t even notice him. Gray shouted out a warning when he saw the guy’s gun, and I dove under the bench.”
“How did Kiera end up getting shot?” Amit’s dark skin had a decidedly pale cast to it.
“When Gray foiled the gunman’s attack on him, the guy grabbed a child as a shield and then shot Kiera on his way out of the park.”
“The kid?” Amit’s eyes bugged out like a cartoon character’s.
Gray answered, “The boy’s fine. You didn’t read about anyone else getting hurt, did you?”
“No.” Amit wiped his brow with the back of his hand and repeated his question. “Was the man going to shoot Jerrica or abduct her at gunpoint?”
“We’re not sure.” Gray snatched the cap from Jerrica’s head and kissed her messy hair. “I wasn’t gonna wait to find out.”
“How was the meeting compromised? Do you think Kiera ratted you out, Jerrica?”
“You’re asking all the same questions we did. You know about as much as we do now about what happened in the park, but there’s more.” She slid a quick glance at Gray, and he nodded.
Amit was in the thick of it as much as they were.
Jerrica licked her lips as she pulled out her phone. “When we got back here, Cedar had left a message in chalk on the door to the building’s basement.”
Amit dragged a pillow into his lap as if for security and hugged it against his bruised ribs. “A message? Cedar?”
Jerrica tapped her phone and brought up the photo she’d taken of the words on the door. She zoomed in. “Look.”
“There’s his stupid tree. It had to be him, right? Unless someone knows how he signs off.” Amit dug his fingers into the pillow in his lap. “How’d he know where you live, and how’d he know about the alley entrance?”
“He came through my building that way once when he delivered something to me—that was even before I was really being followed.”
“What is Cedar talking about? Olaf? What about Olaf? What does Cedar mean that Olaf is it?”
“Slow down.” Jerrica grabbed her bag of food from the table. “Have you eaten anything? I brought you my leftover veggie burger.”
Amit downed half the sandwich before he came up for air. “Cedar must be communicating with you with chalk messages because he’s afraid to use the message board. You used the message board with Kiera and look what happened.”
Gray sat on the edge of the chair across from Amit and Jerrica. “Is there any way someone could’ve found out or figured out the message board thing on his own?”
Both Amit and Jerrica shook their heads in unison.
Jerrica said, “There’s no way. There’s no rhyme or reason to the message board or our user names. It’s not something someone could figure out. Someone might guess the fan boards as a mode of secret communication—I’m sure it’s done all the time—but there are hundreds of these boards, hundreds of shows, thousands of users with all kinds of screen monikers.”
Gray rubbed his chin. “Could someone have broken into—or whatever you call that—Kiera’s computer? You’re sure nobody got into yours?”
“We sweep our computers daily for threats. I’m sure Cedar and Kiera do the same—it’s part of our training.” Jerrica stuffed the empty foam container into the bag and pushed up from the sofa. On her way to the kitchen, she called over her shoulder. “And after the break-in, I did a thorough scan. Nobody was in my computer.”
Amit put a hand to the back of his head and toyed with the bandage. “If nobody compromised the computers, and I believe Jerrica’s right about that, then somebody compromised Kiera. You said she looked nervous. She knew someone would be there. She knew what was going down, but she probably hadn’t counted on getting killed herself.”
“And if they got to Kiera, who’s to say they haven’t gotten to Cedar, too?” Jerrica returned to the living room and hovered behind Amit.
He turned and stared at her. “Are you questioning me now? You searched me when I collapsed on your doorstep, barely able to take a breath, and didn’t find any bugs on me. Is that what you think?”
“Why would you come here?” Jerrica folded her arms. “We’re not besties or anything.”
“Excuse me for thinking you might have a heart beneath the computer chips.” Amit tried to rise in a huff but only made it halfway before falling back against the cushion.
“Hang on.” Gray sliced a hand through the air. “Don’t start cannibalizing each other.”
Jerrica dropped her hands to Amit’s shoulders and he flinched beneath her touch. “I’m sorry, Amit. I don’t think for a minute you’re the Dreadworm mole. I’m just jumpy. Can you blame me? I just saw a woman die in front of me, a child grabbed as a hostage.”
