from my feet, and my ankles, and here'-she touched the inside of her thigh-'and I sat there and I thought I might be dead, but here was this man on his knees cleaning me, cleaning every part of me. And I knew I wasn't dead. I knew I wasn't dead because of him. And that part of him, that part of him he lost somewhere along the way. And I don't want you to kill him for that.'
A nurse went into Sam's room, trailing a fresh saline bag on an IV pole.
Tim shoved down his emotions. He hardened his face. He said, 'I'm gonna get you another phone programmed with that number, and I'm gonna get you a warrant, and you're gonna answer it if it rings. If you don't, you'll be leaving Sam on his own and putting yourself in prison. It's my best offer, and it's good for about thirty seconds.'
'I never had a good choice. Not in any of this.'
He felt a pull in his chest-she was wrong, but only partly. 'You put yourself here, Kaitlin.'
The door swung open as the nurse left, and they could see Sam. An oxygen tube snaked under his nose. He waved, and the door closed.
'Fine.' Tears ran down her cheeks. She looked at her hands. 'I'll do it.'
Tim put his back against the wall, and they sat side by side. He said, 'He showed up at your house. He was controlling, dangerous. He threatened you and Sam if you ratted him out. You were scared. He demanded you show up at the apartment where we found you. You obeyed because you were worried he might hurt you if you didn't.'
She kept her gaze on her lap as he rose. In a quiet voice, she said, 'That's just how he told it.' She fussed with her hands. 'Thank you.'
He paused over her, staring down at the floor, then kept walking.
Thomas got off the phone as he approached. 'What are we doing with the broad?'
'Get her a new cell phone. Get her number transferred. Use Frisk if you have to.'
'You think Walker'll call her?'
'Probably not, but we can't afford not to be set up if he does.'
'You sure you're not just hunting out something for her to cooperate with to buy her lenience when the prosecutors bring the heat?'
'I'm not that bright. More important, I want you to go up live on the hospital line to Sam's room. Walker cares about that kid more than he's let on. He's gonna be in touch with him.'
'Why?'
'Because Sam's gonna die soon. And he saw that in the apartment.'
Thomas's mouth dropped, a rare show of emotion. 'Days?'
'Maybe less.' Tim moistened his lips and tried not to think about the resigned yellow eyes. 'I want you at the switchboard, and I want to be patched in, live, before you put any calls through to Sam's room. And secure the floor in case Walker makes a personal appearance.'
Tim rode down to the basement. He wound through endless white corridors before stepping out into the ambulance bay. Bear's truck was in the far corner; Tim could see the scattering of files across his dash. He headed over, passing parked ambulances, one after another.
An EMT with a shaved head sat on the tailgate, face buried in a newspaper. The headline read FUGITIVE MAKES APPEARANCE AT DEPUTY'S MOORPARK RESIDENCE. Tim cast his mind back through the chronology. Yes, that had been yesterday. This morning had begun, decades ago, with the sniper attempt on Dolan and Dean at the Vector investor meeting.
Without lowering the paper, the EMT called out, 'Want me to take a look at that neck, pal?'
Tim raised his hand to the cut. A dribble of blood. The paramedic at Game had gotten in only three of five stitches before Tim had bolted for his father's. 'No, thanks.'
He got about halfway to Bear's rig when he stopped. Bear looked up through the windshield, puzzled. Tim raised a finger to Bear, turned around, and walked back to the EMT, standing before the wall of newsprint.
Pete Krindon, freelance techie and man of infinite disguises, lowered the paper. His eyes went to Tim's neck, and he frowned. 'Sit down.' He threw a file in Tim's lap and snipped at the old stitches with a tiny pair of scissors. 'Who sutured this? Dr. Frankenstein?'
As Pete pulled the old sutures out, Tim stared down at the top page. A blank e-mail, sent at 12:43 P.M. on June 3, carrying an attachment. Forwarded from tuffnuff@pizzazzu. net to tess_jameson@westindentistry. com. The subject line read, simply, Highly Confidential. Tess must've found it by running a key-word search on Chase's BlackBerry that pulled up something in the attachment's contents.
Pete, who'd started resuturing the wound, said, 'Sit still.'
Tim flipped the page and was hit with a dense spreadsheet filled with abbreviations and numerals. It looked like a lot and not much at the same time. 'Pete-'
'Shaddup for a second. I'm almost done.'
'Wait a minute. What am I doing?' Tim started to pull away, but Pete was midstitch. 'You're not an EMT.'
'No, but I play one on TV.' Pete produced a square mirror and held it up, barbershop style. 'All done.'
The sutures actually looked pretty good, but since Tim didn't want to concede the point, he returned his focus to the report that Pete had recovered from Tess's work computer, where she'd forwarded the e-mail. Charts, graphs, more numbers, nothing clearly labeled. The bottom sheet showed Tess's pizzazzu account access log. Tess had logged on the evening of Thursday, May 31, and then just past midnight on Saturday, June 2. Tim closed his eyes, recalling dates and constructing the likely story.
Monday, May 28, Tess discovers she's pregnant. She buys folic acid tablets and hires an attorney. Wednesday, May 30, she or her attorney alerts Chase that she'll be prosecuting him for rape. Dean calls and asks her to lunch on May 31, where he threatens to pull Sam from the study if she doesn't drop the case. In return for her cooperation, he offers to shepherd her-and Sam-back into Vector's fold. She accepts, planning to use the opportunity to dig for information she'd been pursuing. She discharges her lawyer the next morning, Friday, June 1. That night at The Ivy, Tess manages to switch her valet ticket with Chase's, get into his vehicle, and forward herself the e-mail with its attachment containing damaging information about Vector, perhaps involving covered-up risks of Xedral. She's careful to erase her tracks, deleting the record of her action on the BlackBerry, unaware that Chase's primary computer at work still holds a record of the forwarded attachment. At home she logs on, a little past midnight, reads the attachment, and forwards it to her work e-mail since she doesn't have a printer at home. Monday she goes in to work and prints it.
What she doesn't know is that Chase, back at the office to start the workweek, sees on his computer that the sensitive e-mail was forwarded Friday night. He has Percy do some digging, finds out that the recipient e-mail address belongs to Tess Jameson. Chase talks with Daddy Kagan, and they decide to wait it out and watch her, maybe tap her phone to see how she's going to respond. They know that Tess will likely tip her hand-if she deciphers the report-by dropping Sam from the trial herself.
That day Tess faxes a letter to Vector, withdrawing Sam from the study. Tuesday she contacts Melissa Yueh at KCOM and tells her she wants to see her, that she has something to show her. She's decided to blow the whistle. Kagan amp; Co., alerted that Tess understands the report and is willing to act on the conclusions she's drawn from it, deems her an unacceptable risk and puts out a contract on her life. Percy Keating sets up the deal online with a hit man he believes is the Piper. He has Ted Sands, a former Beacon-Kagan security worker, do the cash drop at Game the next day, Wednesday, June 6. Wes Dieter intercepts the cash and the job. He murders Tess two days later, safely before Yueh's return from Baghdad.
Only one question remained.
Tim tapped the sheaf and said, 'What's hidden in these numbers that's so goddamned dangerous?'
Pete's thin shoulders rose and fell. 'Beats me. Shit like this, it takes some decoding.'
'You think Tess could've figured it out herself?'
'After what she staked to get it? You bet your ass. Remember, this was a research-savvy woman with an accounting degree. And she followed a trail that led her here. To the smoking gun.'
Together they stared at the report.
'Given that she's dead,' Pete asked, 'who are you gonna talk to?'
Tim eyed the Vector logo on the document header. 'Why not go to the source?'
