Hide 'N Seek (19 page)

Jamie shook his head. “If you want to know about that you’ll have to ask her. I better get back to work.”

“I asked O’Malley about the lawsuit and he didn’t tell me either.”

“Leave it alone. Why are you sticking your nose into something that’s none of your business?”

“Because I care about her too.”

“Only care about her?”

Jamie’s gaze was hard. Beck thought about not answering his question because he didn’t think it was any of Jamie’s business. But then, he’d already pulled Jamie into his business by asking about Marklynn. He figured the man deserved an answer, an honest one.

“I love her.” Beck turned towards the door, but Jamie’s voice halted his steps at the door.

“Beck,” Jamie paused, as if weighing his decision about the amount of information to share. “There were a lot of rumors when she left the force about a relationship with her Shift Commander. We never talked about it, but I don’t believe it went down the way he said it did. More to the point—it’s none of my business. If you want to know what happened then she’ll have to tell you.” Jamie’s mouth twisted and a somber expression settled on his face. “I think she’ll tell you when she’s ready.”

“From what I found out, she gave an interview to Michael Blake, the investigative reporter. Her interview was never aired because a settlement was reached between her and the police department. She won. I don’t understand why she left her job?”

“You’ve been busy.”

That wasn’t the response Beck was hoping for but it seemed that was all he was going to get from Jamie. He pushed on anyway.

“According to O’Malley, Marklynn walked away with a truck load of money.”

“She walked away with enough to start over.” Jamie’s hand cut through the air. “That’s all.”

A scowl settled on Jamie’s face and he turned his back to Beck. It was a clear sign that he should back off, and leave well enough alone. He wanted to know more and wanted to ask the one question that had been bugging him since meeting Jamie.

“Why did you decide to partner with Marklynn? I could understand if you were close to retirement and you were looking for something until then. Brooks Investigations was a startup company with a woman at the helm. Not a lot of men would give up the job you had. Let alone, want to take directions from a woman.”

The hard edge in Jamie’s voice softened a little and a smirk appeared on his face. “You’re like a dog with a bone.”

“My father calls it creative intelligence,” he smiled.

“He was being kind. To answer your question, I’ve always been a risk taker. I wanted a challenge…something different. I can go from a missing person’s case to corporate espionage in a matter of months. What more could a guy ask for?”

Beck suspected there was something more behind Jamie’s flippant response, but he didn’t want to push any more. He could take a hint. He wasn’t going to get any more information anyway. The scowl was back. He was dismissed.

“Can I get back to work? I’d hate to have
Shadoe
slip by me because I’m distracted.”

•  •  •

Markie didn’t leave Jamaica Plains until about one that afternoon. Not until she canvassed every house within a four-block radius in the neighborhood where Sydney had taken the picture, the Bowman’s house. They were still upset that their Renoir painting was stolen. All they talked about was suing Beck Security Systems and could care less about Sydney.

With nothing to show for her efforts except for sore feet and exhaustion, she decided to return to the office. First she had to make one call to tell Nan she had come up empty handed again. But Nan called her first on the ride back to the office to say, Sydney was still alive and they were close. Markie held on to that hope when she arrived at Brooks Investigations an hour later.

“Hi Cate,” Markie said as she rushed passed Cate’s desk and headed up the stairs to her office.

“I expected you back hours ago.” There was an almost maternal tone in Cate’s voice. “Are you okay?”

Markie paused half way up the stairs turning to face Cate. She had emerged from her office and was standing at the bottom of the stairs watching her.

“I will be once I get some good news for a change.”

“You’re in luck. The mystery woman has a face. The picture is on your desk. Carlos is running her picture to put a name to the face.”

“Yes!” She punched the air, turned and ran up the stairs. “Tell Karter there is a bonus in this for him.”

Markie saw the picture on her desk as soon as she walked into her office. Throwing her bag on the chair in front of the desk, she reached for the picture of Beck’s ex wife in the file folder. She placed the two pictures side by side. Was it the same woman?

There were similarities between Monika and the blonde woman. Both were tall and willowy with the blonde having a little more muscle definition. Monika however, was the more attractive of the two with light green eyes and long brown hair. The other woman, there was something almost sinister about her. Her eyes were haunting, cold.

Even though there were certain similarities, she couldn’t say for certain they were the same person. The woman could have changed her appearance. People do it all the time if they are on the run.

Reaching for the phone as she sat down behind her desk, she dialed O’Malley’s number and got his voice mail again. She came to the conclusion he was avoiding her. Perhaps it was time she paid him a visit.

Kicking off her shoes, Markie began to massage the soles of her feet. Jamie was right. It would’ve been faster with the two of them, but she didn’t want Jamie around. When he was right about something he would beat it to death.

Markie wasn’t pleased about his comment that morning. Jamie had accused her of saddling herself with guilt over what Macy had told them and he was right. Because she was always pushing her sister to be what she wanted her to be she’d missed out on what was going on in Syd’s life. If she had let her be, Sydney would have probably come to her sooner about the pictures and maybe her abduction could have been prevented.

Nan said she’d known about Derrick when Markie had asked about him during their conversation earlier. Sydney asked Nan not to say anything about Derrick to her. It shouldn’t bother her but it did. Why was she upset about it anyway?

When she and Jared broke up no one knew the reason why. When you close people out of your life you miss out on their life and they miss out on yours.

She grabbed the phone and dialed Beck’s number wanting to hear his voice.

“Good afternoon, Dalton Beck’s office,” the woman sang the greeting.

“It’s Marklynn Brooks from Brooks Investigations. Can I speak with him, please?”

“He’s on the other line. One moment please, Ms Brooks.”

She was put on hold and a soothing jazz instrumental filled her ear.

“Hello Marklynn Brooks. I’ve been thinking about you all day. How are you?”

Hearing his soothing voice, she leaned back in her chair and propped her feet up on the corner of her desk. Smiling. She liked the fact that he was the only one besides Nan daring enough to call her Marklynn and she let him get away with it.

“It’s been a good day. We finally got a clear picture of the woman in the photo.”

Beck paused then asked, “Have you identified her?”

“We’re working on it. I’ll ask Jamie to get you a copy. By the way, FYI the Bowman’s are on the war path.”

“I know. Them and the Franklin’s,” he said sounding weary. “The legal department is having a field day.”

“Sounds like it. How is it going with Jamie?”

She had a quick chat with Jamie after his first visit at Beck’s office. It seemed as though he was settling in quite well at Beck Security Systems and she’d told him not to get too comfortable when he started beaming about Beck’s Research and Development budget.

“He knows what he’s doing. The IT guys as you know live in a world of their own, with a language of their own. They see Jamie as some kind of God,” Beck laughed.

“Then he has died and gone to IT heaven. When he joined the agency I didn’t think I would have enough of this kind of work to keep him interested. Then you came along. I’m thinking of expanding that side of the business once we find your hacker.”

“Good business move,” Beck said then fell silent.

Markie wanted to see him and was waiting for him to resurrect the dinner offer he’d made that morning but he didn’t. Then she remembered she had told him to slow down—he had told her to set the pace.

She wanted to see him and cleared her throat before asking. “Did you want to come by tonight? You have to bring dinner of course. I’m in the mood for Chinese.”

He didn’t respond and she knew what he was waiting for. Confirmation of what the evening would hold. What she wanted to happen. Then she stepped out of her comfort zone.

Why had she changed her mind? Because it felt good to have someone in her life even if it was only temporary and that was as far as she was going to analyze it.

“I can make you breakfast in the morning. Although, I don’t have the leftovers required to make the Beck’s Special.”

“I’ll come by and make dinner.”

“In that case you should buy what you need.”

“I plan on it. The only thing in your fridge is milk, yogurt and chocolate covered almonds.” She heard the laughter in his voice and her heart did that little flip-flop thing again.

“You noticed. I should be home by six. See you then.”

Marklynn hung up the phone staring at it as if it was some kind of foreign object. She reminded herself she wasn’t going to analyze why she felt the need to be with Beck or to lean on him.

She wanted to and that was all there was to that.

•  •  •

“Jamie found something,” Malcolm said when Beck answered the phone. For a split second he thought it was Marklynn calling back to cancel. She’d seemed a bit hesitant when she’d mentioned dinner.

“I’ll be right there.” Beck hung up the phone and leaped out of his chair running towards Jamie’s office on the other side of the building.

Malcolm was hunched over Jamie’s shoulder pointing at the monitor when Beck entered the office a few minutes later. The two men were staring at the monitor. Malcolm yanked at his tie, his expression sullen. Jamie cursed and turned to the laptop next to the other monitor, his fingers flew over the keypad.

“That’s it,” Jamie said, his gazed fixed on the laptop. “Gottcha.”

“What are they doing?” Malcolm asked as he glanced from Jamie to the computer screen.

“Lurking. Nothing is being uploaded,” Jamie replied, eyes still fixed on the monitor. I’ve put a program in place to counter anything that’s uploaded.”

Beck could have been invisible. No one noticed his arrival. The two men were lost in a game of hide and seek trying to find a person who didn’t want to be found. From what he could figure out
Shadoe
had entered the network and this was the closest they’d come to catching him in three months. He held his breath waiting for them to tell him it was over. Tell him his life can go back to normal again. But no confirmation came.

“The IP address is hidden,” Malcolm grumbled. “No matter what program we ran we couldn’t find it. What about—”

“Hello? Remember me,” Markie cut in, a trace of annoyance in her voice. “I’m still on the phone, Jamie.”

Beck didn’t realize Markie was on speaker. She sounded just as anxious as he was. Moments ago they’d made plans for dinner. Given the turn of events it didn’t look like it was going to materialize.

“Sorry,” Jamie said. “We’re still waiting for Beck,”

“I’m here.”

Jamie looked over his shoulder. “Oh, Beck just walked in. Good. I don’t have to explain twice.”

Beck pulled up a chair and sat down next to Jamie. “Hi Marklynn, I got here almost five minutes ago and they just noticed I was in the room.”

“As I was saying the malware is written to mimic the monitoring software,” Jamie said. “When it’s uploaded it works with the software. The system has been hacked into at least a half a dozen times already based on the failed alarm systems. Right now, we have a visitor who is for lack of a better work just surfing.”

“Shadoe.
Can we trace it?” Marklynn asked.

“Yes, but it may not be so easy,” Jamie replied shifting in his seat. “
Shadoe
has gone to a lot of trouble to upload the virus and he’s not going to let us catch him. It’s a game with him. He’ll let you come close, but what we have to do is beat him at his own game.”

“He may very well lead us to Iceland by the time we get a fix on the location,” Markie said. “But you’re going to try, right?”

“Yes. It’s being done as we speak,” Jamie said.

“
Shadoe
is in and surfing. Why? What does he want?” Beck already knew the answers to his questions. Whoever was sabotaging his company wanted him to know he wasn’t untouchable.

“They are gearing up for something big,” Malcolm replied. “They want to destroy Beck Security Systems.”

“I agree,” Jamie said. “But on the other hand,
Shadoe
may not know we know he has just accessed the system. Perhaps he was too eager to hack into the system and got sloppy.”

Beck leaned back in the chair shaking his head. He didn’t know what to say. Who would want to destroy him? He thought about his ex wife. By all accounts she should be dead. But he wasn’t even sure of that anymore.

“You don’t believe that
Shadoe
is sloppy any more than I do,” Marklynn said echoing his thoughts.

“No,” Jamie replied. “I agree with Malcolm. Whoever it is is getting ready for a final showdown. “I can promise you this. I’ll find your
Shadoe
.”

“Will that be before or after I lose my company?”

•  •  •

Four minutes and thirty-two seconds.

Phoenix rerouted the signal and timed it down to the second. She had plenty of time before Jamie locked onto her signal. But she wasn’t going to let him. Until then she could have some fun. She was smarter than him. Better than him. With all of his education credentials, he still couldn’t catch her.