Love on the Edge: Nine Shades of Romantic Suspense, page 53
“Like death and taxes, networks go down. All the web’s surfers gotta have alternate access.” Sebastian, a spare cartoon with a standup shock of red hair, sat tonelessly in his beat-up, government-issue chair as he tried to explain the unexplainable. A genius with computers, he’d started hacking as a teen on a Commodore 64, been caught where he wasn’t supposed to be, then recruited by the Marshals Service, since it takes a hacker to find one. So far he had not disappointed.
Access costs money, so Matt directed Henry to sniff out her money trail and then turned back to Sebastian for some more bad news. There might not be a money trail. There were a lot of ways to get free, anonymous access to the Internet. Matt heard a “but” in Sebastian’s voice and straddled a chair across from him. “So?”
“There’s more than one way to search the Internet for information and people. I know this guy, Boomer Edison, a real character. Looks like a football player, thinks he’s a cowboy, is a computer genius with a nifty little program that searches for online identities.”
“Identities?” Matt knew what the Internet was not—a person, place, or thing. He had a vague idea of what it was—the name given the monstrous cyberspace frontier of computers, networked worldwide into a faster-than-the-speed-of-light information exchange. What did identities have to do with that?
Sebastian leaned back in his chair, his hands with their extra-long fingers moving in a version of sign language. “A lot of surfers like the Net because it’s a place where there are none of the usual visual cues that people use to pigeon-hole each other. No one is fat or thin, short or tall, young or old, you don’t even have to be male or female. There’s only your handle—the nickname you choose—and your words to define who and what you are. Some people create different handles and identities for different gathering places on the Net. It’s not as strange as you might think. We’re all different things to different people. Net surfers just admit it.”
“Okay.” Matt could understand the concept. His ex-wife had been a lot of things to a lot of men during the decline of their marriage. Matt rubbed the bridge of his nose. “And this Boomer’s program does—what?”
Sebastian spun to face him. “It takes a known identity, analyzes written posts associated with it, then searches for similarities in writing style, content, word usage to produce a list of possible matches. All we need to give him is a good representative sample of Gwynne’s style—which we have right here in her computer’s output file.”
It sounded like a real long, long shot, but Matt gave him the go-ahead. Anything to add a new strand to the net he was trying to throw around Dani Gwynne and, by extension, Jonathan Hayes.
Hours later with nothing new on the horizon, Matt silently admitted to rising concern. He shoved aside the last of the reports and stood up, stretching his aching back and cramped muscles before turning to the window. With his hands in his pockets, he stared down at a city laid out in lights. The dark sky was moon-less, the stars hidden by a drifting cloud cover.
Tomorrow would be a good day for climbing if the cloud cover held. Keep the temperature down, long as it didn’t rain. He wished he were up at the cabin, waiting with his brothers for first light. Attacking a rock face, feeling for cracks and fissures, fighting granite and gravity. In motion. Anything but standing still and wondering what to do next. Wondering what the romance writer would do next. Wondering, most of all, what Hayes would do next.
He heard the low hum from the air conditioning, felt the rising chill now that there was only his body heat against a thermostat set to cool a crowd. The place even smelled deserted. Old sweat. Stale coffee. Staler perfume.
He didn’t mind being alone, had made it a personal choice. After his divorce, an almost female-free life had seemed a blessing. When had it become a habit? Something he had stopped thinking about?
He hadn’t stopped looking. He wasn’t dead, just unwilling to climb the slippery slopes and look inside a woman’s head. When they asked and he was around, he went. Which wasn’t often. The job was a parasite eating away at his free time. He had done nothing to cut it back. Why go home, when the apartment he shared with his brother was usually empty? More entertaining to be out kicking bad guys’ butts.
He felt Dani’s eyes boring into his mind, digging up his secrets. Would her real eyes be as penetrating? He gave in to her insistence and turned to face her. In the safe house her eyes had entreated him. Now they mocked him. How could a pair of photographic eyes make him wonder if he had been missing something? He had been happy before he met her, would be happy again when she testified and was back in New Orleans. She was a romance writer, so of course she wanted a girl for every guy.
The mockery in her eyes seemed to deepen. With a muttered curse, he turned back to his desk. He was too tired. That’s all. The day had started too early and gone on way too long. Now it was too late to go home. Probably meet himself coming back. He rubbed the back of his neck. He could stretch out on the couch in the employee’s lounge long enough to take the edge off tired.
He should have gone to sleep the minute he lay down. Usually he could sleep anywhere, even on a couch that was too short and as comfortable as a slab of cement. This night he stared at the ceiling with sleep gritty eyes while bits of Dani’s online posts played in his head.
…Men think we can’t live without them, but it’s chocolate we can’t live without…
…I think GHOST was a hit because we all want to believe evil will be punished in the end—though it’s hard to believe good will triumph when you’re sitting in the dark and out of M&M’s…
What was she doing, what was she thinking? He had gone over every detail in her file, got a glimpse inside her head through her online posts that Sebastian had printed out for him. What did it mean? There was no logic in them that a guy could hang his thoughts on. They were all awash in feelings, in emotions. Emotions didn’t put away bad guys. Emotions left big gaping holes in your flanks and got your friends killed because you weren’t paying attention.
He sat up, then stood up, found himself looking out the window without a conscious decision. She had guts, he’d give her that. What was it she’d written to one friend?
Like the willow tree, I bend, not break, though sometimes I wish it were the other way around.
Was that the easy answer to the romance writer with a purple boa, who surfed the Internet under the noses of her protectors, left Sebastian eating her cyber-dust, and vanished into the city night lights like a seasoned pro? She bent, but didn’t break?
A fire engine siren wailed in the distance. He could see the flicker of its red lights heading east. He leaned his forehead against the cold glass and wondered which light shining out of the dark was the one she was standing in.
*
Dani would be the first to admit that going to a country western bar probably wasn’t the best decision in her present circumstances. Wasn’t the worst either. Getting blind, stinking drunk would be the worst choice. No matter how appealing insensibility was, it was not an option.
The soda, sadly not her usual, cradled between her hands lacked the ability to blunt the feel of Dark Lord hunting her. Thank goodness the honky tonk country band was playing loud enough to ease the sensation. With a killer and the Feds on her heels, she’d wondered about the wisdom of going out with Carolyn Ryan and her writer’s group, who were now out on the floor pushing their tushes with a carefree confidence that Dani could only pretend to feel.
She would envy them if they weren’t such a friendly bunch. There was no room for envy in the midst of their kindness. No room for anything but the need to hold it all together. It helped that there were different stages to trauma, just like there were differences in an ocean when you’re drowning. Dani had seen all those stages when Meggie died, knew each one intimately.
That first, knock-you-overboard, white-edged wave was followed by a shell-shocked disbelief at finding yourself in deep water. Then there was a period of helpless floundering. Luckily the shock sets in fast, providing a measure of protection as the body accustoms itself to this new order of existence. This semi-numbed period was sometimes marked by an efficient coping that lulls you into thinking rock bottom could be avoided, or at least well managed.
Unfortunately, there was not a dignified or graceful way to drown. In the end, grief fills you up, weighs you down without mercy. The collision with rock-bottom was so overwhelming, you almost don’t notice that there was no way left to go but up. When you do, the decompressing trip to the surface was a dreary, endless exercise without shock’s buffer to blunt the pain.
After Meggie’s death, Dani had made it back to the surface of her life. Instead of landfall, she had found herself bobbing in a world forever changed. One where grief was an ocean surf that sometimes knocked her down with its wildness. At other times it seemed content to lap a melancholy reminder that memory was all she had left of her little girl.
Dani knew the drill. Knew where she was in the process. She didn’t know how long she would be there. Only time would tell that, time that was friend and enemy. She couldn’t speed it up or slow it down, couldn’t control what others would do with their allotment. So she sat in the honky tonk, inhaling the scent of booze, sweat and tobacco. Exhaling the stench of blood, fire and flesh. Letting the pounding music fill her up. Using the chattering crowd as a buoy to stay afloat.
A cowboy at the other end of the bar lifted his beer can in her direction. After a slight hesitation, Dani mirrored the move. She’d played this part on the community theater stage back home, knew just how wide to force her plastic smile when the cowboy, a cop—she was very familiar with the breed by now—exchanged his bar stool for the one next to hers.
“So, little darlin’, would you like to take a turn around the floor?” He leaned close, his breath puffing warm and beery into her face.
“I don’t really know the steps.” Dani spared a brief, longing look at the milling dancers, the brisk music promising an appealingly, thoughtless motion. “Is that a problem?”
“Not to me, darlin’. I’m a good teacher and you look like a fast learner.” He held out his hand with a wide, good ol’ boy grin.
Dani set her drink down, let him lead her onto the sawdust strewn floor. His arm hooked strongly around her waist, pulling her against a chest that was country hard and scented with Zest soap and Brut after shave. She had forgotten how nice it felt to be held by a man.
“Just follow my lead,” he said.
She nodded, hoping he was right about her being a fast learner. She needed light feet for more than pushing her tush if she was going to dodge the Marshals Service and Dark Lord until she got her day in court.
Step…kick…step…days…cross and kick…nights…step and push that tush.
One step at a time, it would eventually be over. No problem, she told herself sturdily, then stepped on her partner’s toes.
*
Matt had so much coffee in him, he was surprised he wasn’t buzzing the room. He had finally managed to catch a few Zs, all of them taken in his chair. He tossed back a couple of ibuprofen to take the edge off his stiff neck, chased it down his throat with more coffee, and turned his restless impatience back to his study of Gwynne’s paper trail.
According to Sebastian’s report, Gwynne had been in touch with her agent about some chapters she still owed on her book. The contact had occurred during her stay in the hotel, so it didn’t mean she was still alive. If she was, they might be able to trace her when she sent the chapters over the Internet.
His headache tightened its grip on the sides of his head. He gritted his teeth and kept reading.
It was progress of a sort, but Matt didn’t want to know where she’d been. He needed to know where Dani Gwynne was right now. If she was still alive. He was halfway down the stack of morning reports when Riggs slouched in.
A yawn that looked like a leftover from yesterday twisted his face. He held a fist full of papers as if they were a security blanket he wanted to curl around. When he had assumed his usual slouch in the chair in front of Matt’s desk, he deposited the papers, then helped himself to some of Matt’s coffee.
“I should have been a romance writer.”
Matt blinked. “What?”
“You wanted to know how much walking around money she has?” He looked at a computer sheet with a look as close to awe as he could get from his hang dog face. “How about fifteen thousand?”
It wasn’t an easy figure to bend his tired brain around. Matt dug his thumbs into a knotted pain spot. “Dollars?”
“She ain’t toting pennies.”
Matt considered some more. “How come we didn’t know about it before now?”
Riggs shrugged. “Seems Neuman didn’t know. The agent slipped it to her a couple of months ago, layered in some galleys for her new book that Gwynne had to proof. Asked her why Gwynne asked for the moolah, but she didn’t know.”
“You believe her?” Riggs shrugged and Matt frowned. What had prompted her to ask for money? Had she been planning to bolt before Hayes struck? “What’s she going to do with it? Where’s she going?”
“I don’t know where she’s going.” Alice had approached unnoticed. “But I know where she’s been.”
“So?” Matt asked, impatient when she didn’t continue. “Where’s she been?”
“You aren’t going to like it.” Alice propped a hip on the edge of her desk and crossed her arms, her Cheshire cat grin back in place.
Matt scowled. “I don’t like much anyway. What you got?”
“A cop saw our BOLO this morning. Swears he was with our girl last night at a country dance club on the south side. Seems he taught her to tush push.”
Riggs choked. Matt didn’t blame him. Alice wasn’t trying near hard enough not to control her grin. Matt didn’t give her the satisfaction of hearing him choke, too, but it wasn’t easy.
“Dancing?”
“That’s right.”
“The tush push?”
“So he says.”
Matt rubbed his forehead. It didn’t help. “I’ll never understand women.”
“Good.” Alice’s grin broke free of minor restraint.
“Don’t—just enlighten me. What is she doing?”
Alice sighed. “If she’d gotten drunk, would you be surprised?”
“No.” Matt looked at Riggs. He shrugged, shook his head. “So what? This is the female equivalent of a bender?”
“Sort of. Though the parallel is weak because women don’t consider insensibility a viable route to problem solving.”
Matt stared at her from under lowered brows. “I have so much to thank affirmative action for. Just think what I would’ve missed if I’d never met you.”
“Don’t.” Alice gave a mock shudder. “It doesn’t bear thinking about.”
“Then don’t think. Find out who she went to that club with.”
“Already on it.” She dropped behind her desk. “My guy at the PD thinks he’s knows someone who knows one of the women she was with, so it shouldn’t take long. He’s gonna call me back.”
“Good.” The back of his neck prickled. He felt like a hound dog picking up the scent. Too bad Dani was acting like a fox. He wasn’t the enemy. He wished he could tell her a few home truths— “Son of a bitch!”
He could tell her anything he wanted to.
Riggs lifted his head from his chest. Alice looked at him in surprise. “What?”
Matt grinned. “Email. Instant communication.”
Alice got it before Riggs, but then Riggs hadn’t finished Matt’s coffee yet. She smiled. “Tell her how much I liked her book.”
*
Dani slept restlessly, woke early with tears on her cheeks, the grim remains of yet another nightmare digging into her emotional reserves. The tears were easy to brush away. Exhaustion dug in its heels, refusing to be dislodged by mere will power. What had possessed her to think she could take on the forces of law and disorder for who knew how long? Rosebud had asked the same question quite forcefully last night when her gentle question had loosed the brakes on Dani’s tongue. It had helped to talk about it and Rosebud did have a point. But Rosebud hadn’t stared into Peg’s dead eyes, hadn’t fled a burning house that was supposed to be safe. She hadn’t seen a killer at work on a friend that was supposed to be her—
If Dani went back, she would be back to square one, wondering where and when Dark Lord would strike.
And who would lead him to her.
Dani rubbed her face. “I need my soda.” It wasn’t a cure, but it was better than nothing.
She carried the cold can into the bathroom to get the morning washed away. It took her half way through a second soda before the caffeine level in her blood got high enough to fuel something besides an inclination to whine. She sat down at the kitchen table with a pencil and her trusty idea notebook. She flipped through the pages, looking for a blank one. A couple of sentences on one page caught her eye.
A wish before—
Dani remembered the night she had made it. A dark one. Heavily laced with foreboding. She bit her lip, then with conscious intent, filled in the blank.
A wish before dying.
There, she had faced it. Honesty was always the best policy. She couldn’t compute the odds of surviving, not while she was sleep deprived. She did know they weren’t good—though still better than the odds of getting her wish. She looked at the wish, her mouth twisting in a bitter smile.
Fall in love again.
The romance writer dreaming of romance. She had a better chance of being taken hostage by terrorists and not just because she was over thirty. She tore the sheet out and deposited it in Rosebud’s circular file. Thoughts were not so easily tossed away. A romance writer with no hero was not grounds for expulsion from the league of romance writers.
It was a pity.
With a sigh, she connected her computer to Caro’s telephone line and logged onto the Net as an anonymous user. Once inside, she began threading her call across the worldwide network as carefully she had once placed stitches in a baby quilt.
