'Are you listening to yourself?'
Yeah, she knew it sounded totally crazy, but she couldn't get it out of her head that Dr. Landsman had been lying.
'I know.'
'This is the baby you could not wait to be rid of. Well, now you have your wish. No one is lying to you. No one is experimenting on your baby. It died and you are unencumbered.' He made a shooing motion. 'Go. Georges is waiting for you.'
Unencumbered… that was good, she guessed. She was so not ready for motherhood. But still… that baby had grown and kicked and turned and lived inside her… she'd gone through a lot of pain giving birth to him… perfectly natural to feel connected.
She stepped out into the hall and saw Georges waiting by the elevator. A large suitcase sat at his feet.
She gestured back down the hall toward her room. 'I have a few things left-'
'All here,' he said, pointing to the bag.
'Are you sure?'
'Yes, he is sure,' said Gilda's voice from behind her.
Dawn turned and saw her standing outside the room, grinning.
She must have swept through the room as soon as Dawn stepped into Mr. Osala's office.
She started toward Georges and the elevator. Scary as hell to be on her own, but better than spending another minute under the same roof with that old bitch.
4
Jack jumped at the sound of the buzzer.
He'd been listening to the thumping sounds from the van. A couple of times it rocked on its springs and he thought of the old bumper sticker, When the van is a-rockin', don't come a-knockin', but figured that was the last thing that might be happening. A couple times he'd approached and asked if everything was all right, and Barbara had told him it was.
The buzzer couldn't be Abe. He had a key. A quick peek through the peephole revealed Munir. Jack let him in.
'Is Barbara here?'
'Yeah, she-'
'Oh, no,' he said, squeezing his eyes closed.
Uh-oh.
'You mean you didn't know?'
'Where is she?' he said, starting forward.
Jack pushed him back. 'Wait-wait-wait. What's going on?'
'I told her about your call. She said she needed to stop at the apartment first, that I should wait with Robby until she got back. But she didn't come back and when I called her, her phone was turned off. And then I noticed the paper I'd written this address on was missing.'
Oh, hell. Barbara had given the impression Munir had sent her.
'So you had no idea?'
'None. When I found the address missing, I knew where she was. I can't let her-'
One of the van's rear doors swung open and Barbara eased herself out. She looked pale, shaken. She wore latex gloves-bloody ones.
Munir ran to her and threw his arms around her. 'Barbara! What-?'
'Where's Robby?' she said.
'Sound asleep at the hospital. You know how the painkillers knock him out. Why did you-?'
'I had to, Munir. I had to know. I had to make him tell me-myself.'
Jack peeked in the back and saw the mystery man where he'd left him. No surprise there. He wasn't moving but he was breathing. A bloody mass of gauze swathed his right hand.
'He tell you who he is?'
'He said his name is James Valez.'
Jack closed the door. 'Why'd he do all this?'
She looked at her husband. 'For a piece of computer code.'
Munir looked stunned. 'Code? What code? He never once mentioned anything about-' He stopped and frowned.
'What?'
'The other morning-what is today? I've lost track.'
'Thursday.'
'Then it was Tuesday morning. He made me admit a virus into both my computers. He said it was so he could track my emails, to make sure I wasn't communicating with the police.'
'Did you let him?' Barbara said.
'Of course. I thought it strange at the time that he wanted the key to my encrypted files, but now it makes sense. He was going through all my files looking for this piece of code. But what-?'
Barbara sobbed. 'Tuesday morning? That's when… even though you did what he asked, he still cut off Robby's finger.'
Jack shook his head. 'And told Munir he had to cut off one of his own. Even though he probably already had the code. Sick bastard.'
Munir's expression remained incredulous. 'But what do I have that he wants?'
'Something to do with the online game program you've been working on,' she said.
He pressed his hands against the sides of his head. 'The game? The MMO? What could he possibly-?'
'What's it do?' Jack said.
'It speeds up play. Russ and I-'
'Russ!' Barbara said. 'He mentioned Russ!'
Jack shook his head. 'I can't believe Russ would be involved in anything like this.'
'He's not,' Barbara said. 'But Valez told me that Russ was shooting his mouth off about the wonders of this software.'
'Then why didn't he go to Russ?'
Munir sighed. 'Because I store all the code.'
'But didn't he have a copy?'
Munir shook his head. 'I have-or at least had-the more secure system. Russ calls me 'Mister Encryption.' But still…' He frowned. 'He would have gone to Russ first.'
Jack remembered something. 'Maybe he did. Maybe he got in through the guy next door. Russ gets online by poaching his neighbor's Wi-Fi.'
Munir closed his eyes as if in pain. 'Oh, that makes it so easy. He found out Russ didn't have it, so he came after me.'
'And he couldn't get into your system-'
'Even if he did, I use two-fifty-six-bit AES encryption.'
'So he attacked you through your family and made it look like crazy racism when all he really wanted was a bit of code.'
Munir turned to Barbara. 'Did he say why?'
She shook her head.
'Or who he was working for?' Jack asked.
Another shake. 'It was hard enough extracting what I did. Once I learned that it was neither random nor personal, but just for a chunk of innocent computer code, I… I was so sickened I couldn't bear to be near him anymore.' She closed her eyes and tears squeezed between her lids as she sobbed. 'He cut off my little boy's finger for a string of letters and numbers!'
