Kill Process (46 page)

“It never should’ve happened at all. I shouldn’t have let you talk me into going to Seattle.”

We’ll be arguing this point for a long time, I suspect. I change the topic. “Did the police find the recordings?”

Thomas nods. “They did, and discovered something about Lewis Rasmussen hiring that monster. The detective told me the California police are bringing Rasmussen in for questioning.”

“Already?”

“A judge issued a subpoena for Rasmussen’s communication records already. They’re looking for more evidence linking Rasmussen to Daly. The detective’s here at the hospital, waiting to talk to you when you wake up. Which is now, I guess. You can wait, if you’re not ready.”

“No, it’s fine. Send him in.”

Thomas leans over to kiss me, and I turn away, afraid of his touch.

“Sorry,” I mumble.

“It’s okay,” Thomas says, but my stomach says it is very much not okay.

Thomas goes out, and a woman in street clothes comes in and holds out a badge and photo ID.

“Hello, Ms. Benenati, I’m the detective working the Daly case. I’m very sorry for everything you’ve been through. If you’re up to it now, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

I try to straighten out the hospital blanket around me, like it somehow matters how presentable I am in the hospital, but I’m too befuddled to do more than pull randomly on it.

“Call me Angie.”

“Angie, did you know Chris Daly, the man in your apartment?”

“No . . . I never met him before today.”

“Really? We’ve listened to the recordings from your apartment. You addressed him by name.”

“I knew he was harassing me.”

“Was he behind the blog post earlier this week?”

I’m impressed. The police did their homework.

“Yes, but that’s not all he did. He broke into Tapestry’s systems. He was reading our emails, tapping our phones.”

“How do you know?”

“I worked in security for years. I found traces of him in our logs, in file change dates, in our network latency. I knew someone was out there.”

“How did you know it was Chris Daly?”

This is where I must skirt a fine edge, and my head is still woozy.

“Anyone who works in computer security needs an alternate profile as a hacker. The only way to stay abreast of threats . . . to be where they’re being discussed. Our company security is top-notch, and there are only so many people with the knowledge and skills to compromise it. I asked around the hacker community, got answers.”

“You said to Daly, ‘I hacked your bank accounts. Froze them all with automated fraud detection.’ Why did you do that?”

I freeze, wishing I could remember exactly who said what. If only my brain wasn’t so clouded with drugs.

“I should talk to my lawyer first.”

“We’re not here to arrest you. The video evidence clearly shows you were in immediate, life-threatening danger from Daly. The police found you still taped to the table. Daly was clearly a dangerous man, you must have suspected as much. Your actions likely provoked Daly into torturing you.”

Are the things I say here admissible in court? I’m not sure, but I don’t want to find out after the fact. “I don’t want to answer that question.”

“You were deliberately antagonizing and provoking Daly. We had your two friends down to the precinct, spent hours questioning them. Cybercrime isn’t my beat, I’m strictly homicide. Still, your behavior complicates things.”

“We weren’t antagonizing him. If someone attacks me with a gun, and I take the gun away, that’s not provoking them. That’s reasonable defense. Daly was attacking
me
, and all I did was take away his access to tools he could use to hurt me.”

“Why not go to the police? Why take matters into your own hands and risk Daly lashing out at you?”

“What would the police have done exactly? Travel back in time and undo the damage done by the fake article on Monday? Why even ask me this? If you think I was in the wrong, ask Daly why
he
didn’t go to the police.”

“Daly is dead,” says the detective, “and you are not.”

“That makes me the perpetrator and Daly the victim?” I glare back at the detective.

“I’m not here to judge you. Just to discover the facts of what happened. Tell me about the robot with the gun. Whose robot was that, yours or Daly’s?”

“I want to talk to my lawyer.”

The detective sighs, looks off into the distance, then back down at me. “I’ve been up since midnight, Angie. I pulled your files, saw the closed records from California, made some calls. I understand you’ve been through tough times before. It must have made it even more difficult to go through last night. Help me understand why Daly singled you out.”

“Lewis Rasmussen paid him.”

“That’s what you said last night. We’re pulling records right now, trying to find a connection. You must have had a reason for believing that.”

“Rasmussen has been interfering with my company, Tapestry, right from the beginning. He tried to buy us, and when I wouldn’t sell, he tried to cut off our funding, and when that didn’t work, he hired Daly to destroy me, to kill me if necessary. I had to do what I did to Daly to protect my life.”

“Why does Rasmussen care about you?”

“Tapestry’s existence is a threat to Tomo.”

The detective shakes her head. “Not meaning any disrespect to your company. Tomo’s the largest company in the world. It’s hard to believe Tapestry is a threat to them.”

I tug on the blanket. “Tapestry isn’t a competing social network. It’s a framework that prevents the centralization of power. Rasmussen wasn’t afraid we’d destroy Tomo as much as he was afraid we’d destroy all forms of centralized power.”

The detective scratches in her notepad.

“Tomo holds their users hostage,” I say. “You can’t leave Tomo without losing connections to your friends and family. Could
you
quit today? Ask them about PrivacyGuard. It’s a hoax. A system designed to fool people into believing they have privacy. They track everything you do. Have you seen the data they compile on everyone?”

Of course she has, she’s a police officer. Although it never seems crazy from their side of the wire. She ignores my question. I’ve wandered too far into the land of the paranoid even if I’ve avoided saying the word “conspiracy.” Jesus, I’m talking too much. I need to stay on message. I blame the drugs they’ve given me.

Eventually she finishes her questions, and as she talks to me about what’s next, I find myself unable to pay attention and gradually nod off.

When I open my eyes later, Emily is in a chair on the other side of the room, typing silently but furiously on a tablet.

“Em!” I feel truly joyous at the sight of her.

Emily starts and looks at me. “Oh, Angie.” She sets the tablet down and sits next to me on the bed. “Why did you do this to yourself?”

“What?”

“You played me and Thomas. You knew this was going to happen.”

Of course Emily can see through me in an instant. I continue the deception anyway. “I didn’t know . . .”

“You knew. You lied to us. You lied to everyone. The police, your friends. You knew exactly what to expect, how everyone would behave. You engineered us. I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Angie.” She stands, lifts a steel pipe over her head, and slams it down on my legs.

“NOOO!” I scream and keep screaming.

The room blossoms into light and someone in scrubs races into the room.

I’m still screaming when the orderly takes me by the shoulders.

“You’re okay. I’m here.”

“Where’s Emily?” I say.

“I don’t know who Emily is. Your husband went down to grab some food.”

“Emily’s not here?” I’m so confused.

“I’m afraid not, hon. You were having a nightmare. You want me to page your husband?”

I nod and lean back in the bed. Emily has never threatened me, never been a source of fear in my life or dreams. But the nightmare seemed so real.

*     *     *

They dismiss me from the hospital the next day. They probably would’ve let me go earlier, but someone took notice of all the press waiting to talk to me and decided to let me have another twelve hours of rest.

I can walk, but barely, my legs pure agony. They bring a wheelchair and Thomas wheels me out to the elevator. Downstairs a few reporters are hanging around, working on their computers, probably second stringers who can afford to sit in a hospital waiting room. I don’t recognize any of them. One stands and introduces himself as a reporter for a television station, another for a newspaper, and the third for a local blog.

I loathe the idea of talking to the press, yet I can’t pass up this opportunity. It’s too big a potential news mention for Tapestry, too big a chance to take a chunk out of Rasmussen and Tomo. I decide on the newspaper reporter: I want someone with more credibility, someone who’s got enough space to report the story properly. I tell him I’ll do an interview tomorrow.

The police are still investigating my place, and I’ve been told it’s a disaster. Thomas inspected it, and pronounced that I’d be staying at his house. We drive back to his place, and he sets me up in his bed, then gets me the next dose of my pain medication. When he needs to leave for work, Emily comes over to take care of me.

She takes one look at my bruised face and grimaces.

“What the hell happened?”

“I didn’t think it would be like this.” I try to say more, but I’m too choked up to speak.

Emily holds me tight, and I rest my head on her shoulder.

Later she gets me tea and sits next to me on the bed.

“Angie, I have to say something. I’m not sure I want to bring it up, but I can’t stop worrying about it.” She shakes her head. “From what Thomas and your friends told me, you had to know this Daly guy was going to come after you. Why did you send us away?”

“Are you blaming me for a sick bastard coming after me and torturing me?”

“Not exactly, but . . .”

“You are.”

“You could’ve handled it other ways like a sane person. Like calling the police or having Thomas and I stay with you or even leaving town with us.”

I shake my head. “It was the only way to make him stop. If he exposed himself and I got evidence, I could go to the police. It worked. He confessed and admitted it was Rasmussen.”

Emily takes my hand. “You could have died. It was too big a gamble. Jesus, did you set out to kill him?”

I stare down at where her fingers wrap around mine and debate what to say.

“I thought maybe he’d come to my house. I pictured he’d come to the door, accuse me of attacking him, and confess what he’d done in view of the webcam at the front door. I never planned to let him in. It’s a Brumbie security door, for Christ’s sake. The robot was a last-ditch backup . . . not for him. For me. If I had to kill myself. I couldn’t stomach the thought of . . .”

“Shh,” Emily says, as I cry. She leans over and hugs me. “I’m sorry for mentioning it. I couldn’t put the thought out of my mind. I didn’t understand how you, of all people, would put yourself at risk.”

“I’m afraid of Thomas,” I say in a tiny whisper. “Each time he comes close I want to hide. All my symptoms are back.”

“Then you’ll keep going to therapy. You kicked its butt once, and you can do it again. I’ll talk to Thomas for you if you want.”

I nod.

Emily strokes my hair, and eventually I’m done crying and wipe my eyes.

“I need to do a press interview tomorrow. Can you help me get made up?”

“Are you sure?” Emily says. “So soon?”

“While the news is hot, and before the police try to stop me from talking to the press.”

*     *     *

Emily brings my laptop before she leaves, and I spend the afternoon getting caught up with what’s happened in the day and a half I’ve been out of things.

There are a dozen stories about Chris Daly’s death, and someone has linked him to his official job at the FCC, who have made no statement except to confirm he was an employee. What’s been reported are the facts: gunshots, Daly dead, me hospitalized. There are mentions of the fraudulent blog post from a few days earlier, and some conjecture wondering if they are connected.

Other articles reveal Lewis Rasmussen has been arrested and is in custody, but there’s no statement from the police yet about why, or what evidence they’ve found.

Igloo retrieved the spare video recording from my apartment and leaked it, so the video is making its way around social media, everywhere except on Tomo itself, where someone cut in the censor filter to exclude the video. I briefly consider circumventing the censoring code, but there are too many eyes on me right now. Besides, they’re making things look worse for themselves, which is better for Tapestry.

Lots of stories are connecting the two events, Chris Daly’s attack and death, with the arrest of Rasmussen, thanks to the video.

The tightness with which the police are controlling the flow of information suggest the investigation is being run from very high up, which can only mean it’s being taken seriously
—
and that implies they’ve found further evidence linking Daly and Rasmussen.

I’m distracted by the computer and the web, and I don’t notice until too late my legs are throbbing and my face aching. The painkillers have worn off and I’m in agony.

“Thomas!” I try to yell, and stop short at the pain in my jaw.

Nobody comes.

“Thomas! Emily! Someone . . .”

I panic, wonder if Daly got to them after all, or maybe he was working with a partner I didn’t know about. They could be dead, maybe lying in the kitchen in a pool of blood, while their killer makes his way upstairs to . . .

The door bursts open and I shriek and cower behind my arm.

“It’s just me,” Thomas says.

I’m so relieved, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Sorry,” he says. “I was on a work call.”

“It’s okay. But I need something, I hurt so bad.”

He glances at a clock. “Shit, you’re way past due.” He disappears into the bathroom and returns with a glass and my bottle of medication.

It’s such a little thing to travel fifteen feet away for water and a pill, yet I’m so grateful that I’m overcome again. I take his hand and pull him close.