10 Tahoe Trap (17 page)

Although my cabin above Tahoe is lower elevation than Carson pass, the temperature kept dropping with the onset of nighttime. When we parked in my drive, we stepped out into frosty air. Paco hugged himself and looked around at the dark as if something was wrong with a landscape that has never seen a warm evening.

As we walked to the door, a small rabbit ran across our path and dove into a hole that I didn’t know existed. Spot ran after, sniffed the hole for a bit, then rejoined us at the door.

When we were inside my cabin, I said, “Now that you have some clean clothes, you should take another shower and put them on.”

Paco gave me a look of resignation, then picked up the paper bag with his clothes and carried it into the bathroom. When he was finished showering and had changed, he came out of the bathroom. The sunglasses were back on his head.

I said, “I have to make some phone calls. You can sleep in my bed so that I don’t wake you.”

“I don’t want to sleep in your bed,” Paco said. “I’ll sleep with Spot.” He hugged himself and shivered. He seemed eager to get into the sleeping bag and absorb some of the excess warmth from the giant dog next to him.

“Your call,” I said.

Paco pulled his sunglasses off his head, set them on the little table, and wriggled into the sleeping bag which was covering a good portion of Spot’s bed. Spot walked over and stared at Paco. His head was down, jowls drooping, trying to figure out his next move. He finally stepped onto the small portion of his bed that wasn’t covered by Paco and lowered his elbows until they touched the bed. With his butt still in the air, he looked at Paco who was instantly asleep. Then Spot lowered his rear, squatting on his haunches, looked at Paco again, and flopped over sideways, possibly crushing the boy’s side.

Paco yelped, jerked his limbs out from under Spot, and scooted away from him. Paco rubbed his elbow vigorously. His permanent frown was even more pronounced than normal. “He just rolled on me!” Paco smacked Spot hard on his chest with an open palm.

Spot made a big sigh and went to sleep.

Paco jerked on his sleeping bag and turned the other way so that he was back-to-back with Spot. Paco breathed the quick, huffing pants of a snorting animal. After thirty seconds, his breathing calmed. In another half minute, he was out.

I got on the phone and called Diamond and Mallory to ask if either had any news of the missing Cassie or the van or the possible shooter. Diamond wasn’t picking up, so I left a message. Mallory answered, but said that he had no news.

I opened up the sales journal I’d borrowed from Cassie’s desk. She had 31 customers for her Field To Fridge delivery business. She’d written a tiny JM next to 9 of the names. Those must have been the names that the man named John Mitchell had picked, the ones for which he wanted travel information.

There was no evidence that suggested that the people on the list were connected to her disappearance and possible murder. But I knew that graft was involved in John Mitchell’s travel-plans gig. It was a logical place to investigate.

I got out my laptop and began Googling the names, four of which I’d heard of.

I got lots of hits on all of them.

I made notes so that I’d be prepared when I visited them. Three of the names on Cassie’s list were people nearly everyone knew. One was a rock star. One, a late-night talk show host. Another, a famous baseball player. The less familiar names were successful people who were well known within their own circles. One was the CEO of a software powerhouse. One was a CEO of a national restaurant chain. One was a producer of documentaries. There was an owner of a medical stents manufacturer. There was an inventor who’d created several devices for NASA to use in the microgravity of earth orbit. The last person on the list, and the only woman, was a romance novelist.

My phone interrupted my research.

“You rang,” Diamond said.

“I was in Stockton today. So I wanted to check in and ask if you had any news. You find a van or a body? That sort of thing.”

“Nope on the van, nope on the body,” he said.

“Then let me run an idea by you. Today Paco gave me a letter that Cassie had written to me. Turns out she suspected that she was involved in something uncomfortable if not illegal or dangerous.”

I told Diamond about the man who called himself John Mitchell and his payment for travel information on Cassie’s customers. I went down the list of customers.

“Tell me what you think of this,” I said. “I’ve thought about how someone could make money using the travel plans of successful people who worked in disparate industries. The only possibility that comes to mind is playing the stock market. My idea is simple.

“Pretend that one of Cassie’s customers is a major software CEO, and he flies to a medium-smallish city. This John Mitchell guy finds out about it from Cassie. Mitchell does some research and discovers that the smallish city has a fast-growing company that produces software. Further research shows that the small company’s product might be useful to the large company.

“So Mitchell figures that the big company might be looking into buying the small company. Mitchell immediately buys a bunch of the small company’s stock. If Mitchell’s hunch is true, the small company’s stock will soon surge, and Mitchell will make a lot of money. Better yet, no one can accuse Mitchell of insider trading. He knows next to nothing about either company. He is insulated from the executives of both.”

“This woman has a bunch of CEOs among her customers?” Diamond said.

“As far as I can tell, about half of Cassie’s Field To Fridge customers live on the lake. The rest are in expensive neighborhoods like Glenbrook and Incline Village. They are super successful in a wide range of businesses. Simple stock investing based on my scenario might work.”

“Yeah, it might,” Diamond said. “But it might not. John Mitchell could buy and lose big time.”

“Sure. But consider what the averages would be. Most successful people work in successful businesses. Tahoe people are more highly represented in the software business, for example, than in horse buggy manufacturing. Even if you invest blindly in successful fields, you are likely to do better than if you simply invested evenly across the economy. Two of the guys on Cassie’s list are billionaires. Any little thing they do can move the stock price of their companies.”

I paused.

“You done?” Diamond said.

“No. I’m just pausing so the full effect of my brilliance can sink in.”

“Be a little scary,” Diamond said, “investing in something based on your notion. What if your CEO is traveling to this little city not to pick up software business assets but to take a cooking class or buy a new boat or visit his aunt?”

“Then John Mitchell’s investment doesn’t jump, but just rides the market. That’s where Cassie’s range of customers makes the difference and spreads the risk. If John Mitchell is playing the market nine different ways, sure, some of his calls are going to be duds. But some of his investments might benefit. And maybe one goes through the roof. Either way, at the minimum, it would probably beat the averages. And consider what would happen if Mitchell figures out a big corporate acquisition? Mitchell might bet his farm and make a killing.”

 “I get your point,” Diamond said with a tone I’d heard before.

“You sound dismissive.”

“Nah. Just wondering how a romance novelist fits into your scenario.”

“That’s a hard one,” I said. “Unless you’re J.K. Rowling, no publisher’s stock is going to jump on news of signing an author. So maybe this romance novelist owns controlling interest in a company on the side. Maybe she’s an aggressive business woman. Her travel could indicate plans for her own business, plans that would bump its stock price.”

“That sounds better,” Diamond said. “Could be the ball player, the rock star, and the talk show host are business owners, too. “If you look at it with that in mind, maybe your idea makes sense.”

Before we hung up, Diamond asked, “You drop off the boy down in the valley?”

“Couldn’t find anyone to take him.”

“So where is he?”

“Sleeping on Spot’s bed as we speak.”

There was a pause before Diamond spoke. “Where is Spot?” he asked.

“Sleeping next to him.”

Another pause. “Like you’ve suddenly got a regular family almost,” Diamond said.

“I’m hanging up now,” I said and hung up.

I turned off the computer and went to bed.

NINETEEN

I awoke to a noise. I stopped breathing and listened to the night. Spot wasn’t growling out in the living room, so it was probably nothing. But dogs can be in a deep sleep, too. I’d witnessed Spot sleeping through a noise, twitching his ears as he incorporated the sound into his dreams.

I lay motionless and listened. From within the thick log walls of my cabin, my room seemed as devoid of sound as it was of light. I heard the low, dull hum of the fridge in the kitchen nook. Then came the rattle/snore of Spot. The snore trailed off and then restarted. There was nothing else. I kept listening.

The focus of careful listening is fatiguing. I got drowsy. Started to nod off.

Another noise.

I sat up. Turned my head back and forth like a dog.

Nothing. Until I cupped my ears while I was facing the outer wall.

Some creature was crying. It sounded like what I’d expect if a bunny rabbit had been picked up by a Great Horned Owl.

The squeaking sound repeated over and over. As I listened, the sound got louder.

I generally accepted this aspect of the forest. For a small creature, the natural world is a harsh place, and owls, if that’s what it was, are among the most effective predators on the planet. But I’d also seen predators who picked up prey and didn’t show them the mercy of a quick kill. Add to that the fact that I couldn’t sleep while some little animal was being tormented. Maybe I could scare the owl off.

I slipped out from under my covers. Pulled on my jeans and shirt and running shoes.

Spot was now awake as I walked into the living room. He was dimly lit by the light of the readout on the microwave. Paco’s arm was over him as before. Spot was still lying down, reluctant to leave Paco’s embrace, but his head was up listening.

I walked to the front door. Spot jumped up. Paco’s arm fell to the sleeping bag, but Paco didn’t wake.

“No, Spot,” I whispered. “You stay with Paco.”

I put my hand on the doorknob, turned it quietly. As I opened the door, Paco suddenly spoke, his voice groggy.

“Where are you...”

I turned. “I’m just checking a sound,” I said. “Spot will...” But as I began to say that Spot would stay with him, Spot shouldered past me and trotted out the door.

“Stay here. I’ll be right back,” I said.

I flipped on the outdoor flood, shut the door behind me, and took fast steps out into the night.

“Spot, come,” I said. I didn’t want him to mess with any unknown animal. No matter how gentle he was, if he contacted a Great Horned Owl, he would likely hurt it.

I went around the corner of the cabin and saw Spot walking slowly toward an object on the ground. It wasn’t directly lit by the floodlight, but it looked light in color. About the size of a baby bunny rabbit. It squeaked incessantly.

A small noise came from behind me. I spun. A dark shape moved in the night. A popping sound. A stabbing burn on my left kidney.

My left leg collapsed as my entire body lit up with electricity. I went down. Fell to the ground.

Pain shot through me, burning my insides like a fireball. The origin was my back, but the pain was everywhere. I had no control. Every muscle was in spasm. My brain short-circuited. No thoughts but pain. No movement except uncontrolled contraction of every muscle in my body.

At some root level I realized that I’d been punched with a stun gun, with 100,000 volts or more of incapacitating juice. I was more helpless than if I’d been shot with a bullet, and the pain was much greater than that of a mere projectile piercing through flesh.

I struggled to fight it, but I was impotent against the flow of electrons. My entire body was in seizure. I had no control.

After an exhausting interval, unable to even breathe, I became aware that the current was off. I still couldn’t move, but I could begin to think. After many long seconds, I was able to turn my head. Spot was still over where he’d gone to investigate the sound. He was sitting up but his head drooped down. He was moving, but I couldn’t see what was wrong.

I focused on making my paralyzed muscles move. Turn the legs. Push with the arms. Get up onto my hands and knees. Raise one knee. Foot to the ground. I braced my hands on the knee. Push. Straighten. Stand. I was wobbly, but upright.

“GO!” someone shouted from the darkness. A deep, booming voice.

I heard movements, running footsteps, charging close, then receding. I tried to turn on my pins-and-needles legs, lost my balance, fell into the dirt.

I limped over toward Spot.

As I got closer, I could see in the glow from the distant light that he was okay. Trapped by a fishnet of some kind, but okay.

Spot pawed at the net that draped him, getting nowhere.