Exposure (34 page)

Ben started talking about Wando High. I countered with news of Bolton. Before long, we’d exchanged our stories, catching up on the last five months in each other’s lives.

I hadn’t realized how much I missed Ben. How badly I wanted him back at Bolton.

“Think there’s any chance they let you back in?” I asked hopefully.

“Headmaster Paugh?” Ben laughed. “Don’t bet on it. That’s okay anyway. For all I bitch, Wando’s a pretty nice school. I’ll be cool there. I really don’t skip much, FYI. I’m not sure what I was thinking that morning. I barely know those guys.”

“The Rhodes scholars I met in the parking lot? They aren’t both Harvard bound?”

“Ease off, Brennan.” Spoken with a smile. “Not everyone is born a genius. The world needs us ditchdiggers, too.”

“You’re not a ditchdigger.”

“Hey, I
like
digging holes. Don’t try to change me.”

Several minutes passed quietly as the sun slowly dropped toward the horizon.

Ben broke the silence. “Why do you think our flares have gone crazy?”

“Wish I knew.” I tossed an oyster shell into the water. “Maybe our powers are still evolving. We don’t really understand the extent of our mutations.”

“Maybe the wolf is tired of hiding,” Ben said quietly. “Maybe he wants a permanent seat at the table.”

My head shook on its own volition. “I feel like it has to do with
us,
though. Like, maybe our pack is screwing things up somehow. Not connecting right. It’s hard to explain.”

Ben nodded. “I’ve never understood what you do. Honestly, it freaks me out.”

I snorted. “You don’t say.”

“Oh, come on. How would you like it if I read your thoughts? If you couldn’t keep a single secret.”

“I
don’t
keep secrets from you.”

“Everyone has secrets.” Ben’s voice was suddenly serious. “Even you.”

My back stiffened. Ben had repeated Chance’s words nearly verbatim, and it jarred me.

He was right, of course. I was keeping several secrets from Ben.

Like how comfortable it felt to be alone with him. How much I’d missed his reassuring presence. His quiet strength.

Why keep that a secret?

Ben changed the subject. “What should we do about Chance?”

“Another crap sandwich.” I made sure to catch his eye. “We’re
not
going to hurt him, or anything like that. That isn’t on the table.”

He waved my words away. “I know that. Heat of the moment. Forget it.”

“We’ve dealt with Chance before. Usually, he can be reasoned with. We just have to find out what he wants.”

We avoided talking about Ella. At this point, what more was there to say?

Ben removed his shoes, plunged both feet into the lapping saltwater. Then he leaned back against a post, sighing contentedly.

The little-boy maneuver brought a smile to my face.

I reflected on how often I misjudged Ben. How often he came through when it mattered.

My breath suddenly caught. Were my feelings toward him changing?

Did I just miss my good friend, or was this something more?

I didn’t know. Wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.

Ben and I were
pack.
Nothing could be closer than that. Could it?

That dangerous train of thought was broken by a buzzing in my pocket.

Incoming text. I unlocked my iPhone and read.

“Who’s that?” Ben asked absently. “Did Hi finally figure out how to take screen shots?”

“It’s Jason,” I answered without thinking. “There’s a party in Old Town, though he’s selling the thing like it’s some kind of prayer vigil.”

Water splashed.

I looked up.

Ben was retying his shoes, a closed-off look on his face.

“Have fun.” He rose quickly. “We can talk more tomorrow.”

“Ben, wait!” Popping up as he strode by me. “I’m not going!”

Ben waved without turning, heading for his father’s door. I watched him disappear inside.

Ugh. Never forget how moody that boy is. Always a live wire.

Then I laughed without humor.

My best girlfriend was missing. No ransom tape had appeared. I had no idea how to help.

Boy problems were less than meaningless.

Determined to accomplish
something
for Ella’s sake, I hurried for my own home.

I
stared at online pictures of the zodiac cards.

The paper’s website had posted full-color shots, much more detailed than the photocopy we’d stolen from the DA’s office. Both Ophiuchus and Cetus were shown in vibrant clarity.

Not that it mattered—the images told me nothing about the kidnappings.

I slumped back in my desk chair, wondered again who was passing this stuff to the press. The leak obviously had access to the evidence.

Rex Gable might fit that bill.

But the pieces had yet to make sense.

Why antique zodiac cards? What did they mean to the criminal? What message were they intended to convey?

Clara Gordon’s words ran through my mind.

Cetus often represented unrelenting evil. Is
that
what we were facing?

A chilling thought struck me. Ella had been snatched outside the Flying Tomato, not at home. Which meant this lunatic had broken into her bedroom and left the card there.

Why take the risk? Such brazen disregard for danger was unnerving.

Suddenly curious, I searched the Internet for the location where Lucy and Peter were kidnapped. Found nothing. Score
one
for police secrecy, at least.

I tapped my lip, thinking. Had the twins also been abducted away from home?

If so, the criminal had separately planted the Ophiuchus card as well.

I shivered, recalling the shadowy form that had watched us rifle the Gables’ basement.

Had that been the kidnapper?

Another thought. How had the criminal taken
both
twins at once? The Gables weren’t exactly athletes, but they were healthy teenagers. How could one individual overcome both kids at the same time? Or were they grabbed separately?

I need more details about the Gables.

Idly, I spun in my chair. Coop’s head rose from his paws. Noting my attention was elsewhere, the wolfdog settled back down to nap.

Something else was bothering me.

Why was Ella abducted at all? It didn’t seem to jibe with the first crime.

The twins were taken for money. That was crystal clear—there was a ransom tape and a demand for five million dollars. Uncharitably, I wondered if Rex Gable had made any effort to gather those funds.

Would he actually pay? My gut said no.

Of course, my gut also suspected him of committing the crime in the first place.

Which, admittedly, didn’t make a ton of sense. At least, not if money was the motive.

But there’s been no ransom tape for Ella.

No million-dollar demand, at least not yet. And, based on what I’d seen of Ella’s parents, they would
definitely
pay. Anything. Gladly. Whatever it took to get their daughter back safely.

So why nothing from Ella’s captor?

If it wasn’t for the zodiac cards, the kidnappings wouldn’t seem connected at all.

The phosphate nodule was more important than I’d thought—it was tangible evidence of an assault, assuring that Ella’s case was treated as a crime from the beginning.

Take away the cards, and I’m not sure the police would’ve linked the disappearances.

Three Bolton Prep kids missing, in the same week?

Okay. The cops would’ve investigated any possible connection. But that didn’t change the fact that Ella’s disappearance seemed entirely different from that of the twins.

There was still too much I didn’t know.

Had the police responded to the ransom demand? Contacted the twins’ kidnapper? Was there a way to do so?

When was the payoff required? Where? Who was supposed to make the drop?

I slapped my leg in frustration. I needed more on the Gable case.

That investigation was the only link to our adversary. Find the twins, and I’d find Ella.

I was considering options for stealing a police case file when a fanged unicorn appeared on my screen. Shelton. Requesting a meeting.

I was logging into our chat room when a second message popped up.

Shelton wanted to meet at the bunker. Said it was important.

Clock check—8:00 p.m.

Saturday night. I can pull that off.

Grabbing keys and iPhone, I tapped my thigh for Coop to follow.

“C’mon, dog brain. This time, you’re more than welcome.”

• • •

“I’m a genius,” Shelton announced smugly.

A smile split my face. “You cracked the encryption.”

“What? Oh, hell no.” Shelton waved the idea away. “Keep dreaming. But I found something else you’re not gonna believe.”

The four of us were gathered around the bunker’s circular table. Hi was munching on a sleeve of double-stuffed Oreos. Ben watched with distaste, his feet up and hands behind his head.

I sat next to Shelton, who’d brought his laptop from home.

Coop was gnawing a rawhide in the back chamber.

“Spill it,” Ben commanded.

“I wasn’t getting anywhere with those B-Series files.” Shelton opened the computer and typed quickly. “So I decided to poke at something else for a while. Get my mind right. My first thought was of Rex Gable’s phone records.”

Shelton spun his laptop to face the group. “Check out this nugget in what Chang sent us.”

His finger tapped a word at the top of Chang’s email.

“Bellweather.” I looked at Shelton in confusion. “What does that mean?”

Shelton smiled triumphantly. “It’s the name of Rex Gable’s favorite hunting dog. I found a random reference online.”

Ben’s feet hit the floor. “You dragged me out here to talk about a dog?”

“Kind of,” Shelton said slyly, “since that dog’s name is Gable’s password for his cellular account.”

“Hey, genius,” Hi said, mouth encrusted with chocolate crumbs. “We already
have
those records. You’re looking at them right now.”

“Use your brain cells, Stolowitski. For how many different accounts do you use ‘Westeros’ as the password?”

“For everything!” Hi blurted. “And now you’ve ruined it, jerk!”

Suddenly, I understood.

“What’d you find?” I asked excitedly.

Shelton made a sweeping gesture toward his laptop. “Rex Gable has a Gmail account.”

He pulled up an inbox. Dozens of emails, filed in separate folders.

“Shelton, that’s awesome!” Trying to decide where to start. “We can divide—”

“Ahem.”

I blinked. “You’ve already found something, haven’t you?”

Shelton’s face grew serious as he punched more keys. Then he spun the computer to face us once more.

Onscreen was a single email.

From: Rex Gable. To: Rex Gable. No subject. No message.

One attachment. An MP4 file.

Noting our attention, Shelton double-clicked.

The twins’ ransom tape played in its entirety.

Hi scratched his head. “I don’t get it. Of course Gable has the ransom tape. They’re his own stepkids, for Pete’s sake.”

Shelton tapped the
date
of the email.

Monday, April 1.

I had it in a flash. “That’s the day I testified! We ran into Detective Hawfield the next morning, in the DA’s office. Commissioner Riggins, too. At that point, neither of them were treating the twins’ disappearance as a crime.”

Ben followed my drift. “Which means they hadn’t seen the ransom tape yet.”

“Which
means,
” Shelton finished, “Rex Gable had a copy at least a full day before the police. Maybe even two!”

“He mailed the clip to himself,” I said aloud. “Why do that?”

“Because
he
filmed the dang thing, like you said!” Shelton was so amped his voice cracked. “He’s the kidnapper!”

My fingers drummed the table. “You could be right.”

“
Could
be?” Shelton sounded incredulous. “That’s a smoking gun, girl!”

“Not necessarily,” Hi countered. “Maybe the kidnapper emailed the tape directly to Rex Gable first, and he panicked for a day, not knowing what to do. Or maybe the kidnapper told Gable he
couldn’t
go to the police.”

“But why did he email it to himself?” I repeated.

“I do that sometimes,” Ben said, “when I don’t wanna risk losing an important document, like a paper for school. Uploading it to Gmail is like a free backup in case my computer dies.”

I nodded, thinking aloud. “Shelton still could be right. Gable uploads the file and sends it to himself, backing it up externally, like Ben said. Then he destroys every other copy. Now the tape is out there in the cloud, but
not
on his hard drive or camera. It creates a level of distance. So long as he’s not a suspect, the police won’t check his personal email.”

“Still, not very smart,” Hi said. “I mean,
we
found it. If we’re right, Rex Gable’s an idiot. Why not delete that email after sending it on to the police?”

“He
did
delete it,” Shelton answered. “But the fool never emptied his trash. I found that message in his deleted items folder. I figured that would be the most interesting place to start.”