“It’s nothing,” Joyce said quickly, fighting a smile. “Let’s get back to it. Daphne, you were saying?”
“Well, I did some checking today, made some calls from my apartment, that kind of thing.” Daphne finished filling her glass almost to the rim, and then set the bottle on the table. “Through the course of a few different investigations, I’ve gotten to know people at city works, and the Recondito Bureau of Transportation, and a few other city agencies. And I wanted to find out if anything about last night had been picked up on automated surveillance systems. Traffic cameras, security feeds, that kind of thing. Because I just couldn’t accept the fact that there hadn’t been anything in the news or online or anywhere today about all of those . . . those people filling the streets last night.”
“And?” Patrick asked.
“Nothing. Not. A. Thing.” Daphne took a sip of wine, and eyes looking out over the top of her glass, added in a mock casual tone, “But I did learn something interesting, though.”
She paused, looking around the room, as if for dramatic effect.
“Just tell us already,” Izzie said, reaching over and kicking Daphne’s foot.
“Okay, okay.” She lowered the glass and held it in both hands in her lap. “One of my contacts with the Bureau of Transportation was complaining about still getting used to this new software that they’d just upgraded on all their computers. And then a guy I know at City Works mentioned that they’d just had to install some new software on their computers, too. I started asking around, and it turns out that it was a city-wide initiative spearheaded by the mayor’s office, supposedly to increase efficiency and eliminate budgetary overruns, by standardizing the computer systems across different departments. So all of the software that controls the traffic cameras, security feeds, alarm monitoring systems, you name it . . . it’s all been upgraded this year. And want to guess what company made all of that new software?”
“Parasol, obviously,” Izzie said.
“Oh.” Daphne deflated, a disappointed expression on her face. “I didn’t think it was obvious.”
“Not when you were doing the investigating, no,” Izzie answered, conciliatory. “But the fact that you’re telling us in this dramatic fashion, like the answer is going to surprise us. . . . With that kind of set up, of course the software that you’ve found out about would turn out to be made by the software company that’s been on all of our minds this whole time.”
“Ignore Izzie,” Patrick said. “Seriously, I work in a city office and had no idea. But the mayor’s office doesn’t have the same degree of oversight and control over the Recondito PD as he does the departments that are run out of city hall, so maybe it just hasn’t hit us yet. But knowing that Parasol wrote the code that controls all of the city’s cameras on the streets . . .”
“My theory was that they might have put in some kind of backdoor,” Daphne went on. “Something that would allow Parasol to get into the system without the city knowing about it, and get rid of any footage that they didn’t want to be recorded.”
Patrick was about to reply when his phone’s alarm went off. It took him a moment to remember why he’d set it in the first place.
“Stew’s almost done,” he said, standing up from the couch, “so I need to go put the rice on the stove.”
He started toward the kitchen.
“You guys just hang out here and I’ll let you know when . . .”
He trailed off, and glanced back over his shoulder, eyes narrowed suspiciously. Sure enough, Izzie and Daphne were already leaning in closer to Joyce, and looked at him with slightly guilty expressions.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to talk about me behind my back when I’m in the other room?”
“Maybe,” Joyce said. “But probably not as much fun.”
CHAPTER NINE
Izzie wasn’t sure whether it was just because she had been so hungry, or was due to the glasses of wine she had while waiting for dinner to be ready, but after the first bite of Patrick’s beef stew she was prepared to state categorically that it was the best thing she had ever tasted. Not that anyone was asking. They were all too busy eating. It was clear that she wasn’t the only one to have skipped a meal that day.
All except Patrick, of course, who seemed never to miss a meal if he could at all help it. While the rest ate, he picked at his plate while summarizing the results of his online investigations into Martin Zotovic’s background, and his theory about the possible effect of a Taser on one of the Ridden. He talked for far too long, hardly touching his food. For a while Izzie wondered if he’d simply lost his appetite. But then while she caught everyone up to speed on what she had pieced together from revisiting Roberto Aguilar’s journals about the history of the Mayan daykeepers, Patrick proceeded to work his way through a second helping. And when Izzie asked whether he would be able to file the necessary paperwork with the Recondito Police Department to back up the “extended stakeout” that she and Daphne were using to justify their absence from the Resident Agency offices, Patrick said that he didn’t think that would present any significant difficulty, all while serving himself a third helping of the beef stew and rice.
Along with what Joyce had told them earlier about the lab results on the Campbell sample, and the information that Daphne had supplied about the city’s new computer systems, it seemed to Izzie as if everyone had been brought up to speed on what the others had learned that day.
The question remained: Where should they go from here?
After helping clear away the dishes and opening another bottle of wine, Izzie led the others back to the living room.
“Okay, let’s see where we stand.” She turned to
