Moving Target (17 page)

On her way to the lobby, she slipped the cup into her purse. If Banshee Group needed a sample to use as a comparison, Ali wanted to be prepared. Better to have it and not need it than to miss the boat.

Back in the suite, Ali shut herself away in her room and tried to dive into her computer. The hotel Wi-Fi was exceptionally slow, and she wondered if that had anything to do with the situation that had put B. on that last-minute flight from Japan to Zurich. When she was finally able to access her e-mail, she found an encrypted file from Stu that confirmed that Sister Anselm had been posted to Austin to help look after Lance Tucker. She was relieved to see, however, that the information about his medical condition, including the amputation of his right leg, continued to come from patient files Stu had hacked from the hospital records department rather than from the nun. B., with the assistance of Bishop Gillespie, may have asked the good sister to provide patient advocacy for Lance Tucker, but Ali knew her friend well enough to understand that she would never divulge a patient’s private information to anyone, including both B. Simpson and Stuart Ramey.

Ali sent B. a brief e-mail letting him know that she would be off to Oxford bright and early in the morning. Once she was able to get her recalcitrant search engine to cough up the information, she settled in to learn what she could about Kate Benchley and the Banshee Group.

According to Wikipedia, Kate Benchley, now forty-four, had been
born in the U.S. and left an orphan at age eleven when her parents, Clyde and Roxanna Benchley, were killed in a car crash. She had been sent to England to live with her father’s brother, Arnold, an eccentric millionaire and Oxford-trained medical researcher, who had chosen to specialize in DNA analysis. When he was asked to come to Kosovo to examine the mass graves of war crime victims, he took his new ward with him. He had made use of much of his own money to create the initial funding for DNAAA: DNA Atrocity Analysts.

When it came time for Kate to attend university, she had returned to the U.S. and enrolled in UCLA’s microbiology program. After receiving her Ph.D., she returned to Oxford to help out after her uncle was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. She renamed the company Banshee Group in honor of the mythic Irish fairy who was thought to wail her song of mourning at the death of important personages.

“My uncle started this organization, but I am honored to carry it forward,” she was quoted as saying. “Banshee Group takes the position that all people are important. Rather than simply keening over dead bodies, we help them find their way home to their loved ones.”

Or in this case, Ali thought, closing her computer, you may unmask a killer who’s gotten away with murder for sixty-odd years.

U
nable to face the prospect of another cardboard sandwich from the cafeteria, LeAnne let herself out through the lobby entrance. Setting off into the brisk evening air, she went in search of the taco truck Sister Anselm had located a few hours earlier when she went on a similar food-chasing expedition. A chill wind was blowing in from the west. According to the weatherman droning away on the television set in the burn unit waiting room, there was a possibility of a dusting of snow.

Cold as it was, the taco truck was doing land-office business, with diners carrying their paper plates of food and cups of hot coffee to folding tables strategically placed around a series of propane heaters. LeAnne had taken a single bite of her taco when her phone rang. Her mother was on the line with the welcome news that Thad’s basketball team had won the game when Thad scored the winning basket in overtime. Once Phyllis put Connor on the phone, he rattled on about having lost another tooth and wondering if the tooth fairy would put in an appearance. He also wanted to know when his mommy was coming home.

“Soon,” LeAnne said with a catch in her throat. “As soon as Lance is well enough for me to leave him alone.”

“Will he have one of those blade feet, like that guy who ran in the Olympics?”

“I don’t know what kind of prosthetic he’ll have,” she answered, “and he won’t be fitted with one until the burns are healed.”

Connor’s innocent conversation was enough to break LeAnne’s heart because Connor already knew about the amputation; Lance did not. Yes, Lance needed her at the hospital, but clearly she was missing important milestones with her other two sons, too. What she really needed was time-travel capability.

“Why would someone hurt him like that?” Connor asked. “It has to be someone really mean—a bully.”

“Yes,” LeAnne agreed. “It was someone really mean.”

“Will you tell Lance I miss him and want him to come home? Thad and I were talking. I’ll move into Thad and Lance’s room so he can have mine.”

That one took LeAnne’s breath away. She thought again about the check, the one Sister Anselm had insisted she give back. Had she accepted it, they’d still have a house to live in. “That’s very generous of you, Connor,” she said.

“Grandma says I have to go shower now. Do you want to talk to her?”

When Phyllis came on the phone, LeAnne gave her tooth fairy instructions. By the time she got off the phone, her tacos were cold, and so was her coffee. Even cold, the tacos tasted better than the food available in the hospital cafeteria. Taking a deep breath, and feeling somewhat recharged, she headed back to the hospital.

Approaching the waiting room Leanne saw Sister Anselm talking to a visitor. To LeAnne’s surprise, the visitor turned out to be Andrew Garfield. Lance and Andrew had once been pals who shared an obsession with computers. Andrew also happened to be the son of the superintendent of schools. Their friendship had suffered due to Lance’s legal problems with the school district. With Lance out of the computer science club, Andrew had become co-captain of the team. Just seeing
Andrew there, seemingly healthy and happy, made LeAnne furious. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

Taken aback by both her tone and visible anger, Andrew said nothing at first. Sister Anselm answered on his behalf. “Andrew came all the way down here from San Leandro, hoping to see Lance. I’ve explained that at this point no nonfamily visitors are permitted.”

Andrew finally found his voice. “My folks are at a conference in Phoenix. That’s why I came today. I wanted to tell Lance I’m sorry about everything that’s happened to him. We all hate the tagging system. I tried to tell my dad that half the kids in the computer club could have broken in to his stupid server. He told me if they did, he’d see to it that they’d all go to jail, me included. He also said that I couldn’t be friends with Lance anymore.”

His words rang true. LeAnne softened, but only a little. “Which is why you’re sneaking around to come see him?” she asked.

Andrew nodded. “For right now,” he said. “Once I leave home, my father won’t be able to dictate who my friends are, but I wanted to bring Lance this.”

A blue and gold San Leandro High School athletic bag sat at his feet. He reached down into it, pulled out something, and handed it to LeAnne. It was the plaque awarded to that year’s winning team in the Longhorn computer science competition.

“After our team won,” Andrew explained, “we took a vote on the way back home and decided that when he got out, we’d give the plaque to Lance because he’s the reason we won. We based what we did on one of his old codes, and the judges said it was brilliant. You’ll give it to him?”

LeAnne looked down at the plaque and bit her lip before she answered. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll see that he gets it.”

“And tell him that when he gets better, I hope he’ll let me work on his GHOST project with him.”

“Ghost?” LeAnne asked. “What kind of ghost?”

“That’s what Lance called it: go hide on server technology. It’s a cool
app for browsing the dark Web,” Andrew said. “He and Mr. Jackson were working on it together. When Lance got arrested and sent to jail, Mr. Jackson . . . well, you know.”

“He committed suicide,” LeAnne supplied.

Andrew nodded.

“Are you saying you think what Mr. Jackson and Lance were working on, this dark Web thing, might have had something to do with Mr. Jackson taking his own life?”

“No,” Andrew said. “GHOST had nothing to do with that. Mr. Jackson’s suicide is my dad’s fault, too. On the day the judge sentenced Lance to juvie, my dad called Mr. Jackson and told him he was next. Dad was going to see to it that Mr. Jackson lost his job and would never again work as a teacher. My dad’s a real classy guy, blaming Mr. Jackson and firing him for something one of his students did.”

“I know a good deal about computers,” Sister Anselm said, “but what exactly is this dark Web thing? I’ve never heard of it.”

“You wouldn’t,” Andrew said with a sigh. “It’s full of stuff you wouldn’t put on Facebook or Google. It’s a place where people can buy and sell all kinds of things you can’t buy in a store.”

“Illegal things, you mean?” LeAnne asked. “Like drugs?”

“And other stuff, too. It’s also a place where people can hook up for money.”

“So both drugs and prostitution,” LeAnne surmised.

“Among other things.”

“Does Lance use this dark Web?”

“He used to,” Andrew admitted. “I’m sure that’s what he was on when he hacked into the school district server. The problem is, the guys brought in by the school district to investigate were able to track him down anyway.”

“What’s the GHOST thing all about?”

“People count on being anonymous on the dark Web. Lance was working on a way to find out and trace whoever was there without anyone knowing he was there.”

“Was this on his computer when the cops showed up with a warrant and took it in for evidence?”

“Probably not,” Andrew said. “If Lance had any warning the cops were coming, he would have overwritten everything on his hard drive. I know I would have. Mr. Jackson probably did, too. I hide files from my folks all the time, but if I thought some cyber security guru would be going through my computer, overwriting is the only way to get rid of something permanently. If Lance and Mr. Jackson did any e-mailing about it, the cops might have found traces in some of the messages on their servers, but that’s it.”

“You’re saying that whatever they were doing is lost?” LeAnne asked. “There’s no way to get it back?”

“It may be encrypted and stored on a cloud where they both would have had access to it.” Andrew looked at his watch and jumped to his feet. “I need to go,” he said. “It’s a seventy-mile drive, and I’ve got school in the morning. You’ll give Lance my message?”

LeAnne nodded. “I will.”

She and Sister Anselm sat side by side as Andrew walked away. By the time he entered the elevator, Sister Anselm had her iPad out and was logging on. She scrolled through several pages before she spoke again. “It’s not hard to find,” she said, “and I think we may have just discovered why your son was attacked. The kind of people who would frequent a place like this would be unsavory at best.”

“You’re thinking what Andrew referred to as GHOST might have something to do with what happened to Lance?”

“Exactly,” Sister Anselm said. “According to Andrew, only two people knew what he was trying to do. One of them is dead, and the other one nearly so. I’m sure the kind of application Andrew mentioned would be very valuable to some people. Maybe that’s why the gentleman from United Tracking International made you such a generous offer today. If Lance has come up with something truly innovative, they’d like to be in on the ground floor.”

“But then who set Lance on fire and tried to kill him?” LeAnne argued.
“If he had created something that valuable, why would they try to get rid of him?”

“It depends on who’s responsible,” Sister Anselm said thoughtfully. “If someone besides the late Mr. Jackson and your son knew about GHOST, maybe this third party wants it all to himself. The other possibility is just the opposite: Someone operating on the dark Web wants to make sure GHOST is gone for good.”

“Should we go to the police?” LeAnne asked. “Given what went on before, I doubt they’d be receptive, but still.”

“No,” Sister Anselm cautioned. “Not yet. All we have so far are unfounded suspicions. I’d like to know more about Mr. Jackson’s suicide before we say anything to the authorities.”

“How do you propose to find out about that?”

Sister Anselm smiled. “It pays to have friends in high places,” she said. “I was a little puzzled when I was asked to come here. Usually, my patients need me to speak for them because they don’t speak the language or have no one to run interference with the medical establishment. When I was told that my patient wasn’t out of danger, I assumed Bishop Gillespie was referring to Lance’s precarious health situation. I’m beginning to think he meant something else.”

“That whoever did this to Lance might try again?” LeAnne asked.

Sister Anselm nodded. “With that in mind, one of us needs to be either in with your son or out here in the waiting room, at all times. By the way, do you happen to carry a weapon?”

“A weapon?” LeAnne asked faintly. “Are you kidding? I have a six-year-old at home.”

Sister Anselm reached into the capacious pocket of her skirt and pulled out something that wasn’t much larger than a cell phone.