The Constantine Conspiracy (13 page)

Rick shook his head as he watched the reports, unsure of what they all meant. Raised without religious influence, he usually ignored such discussions. Poor people cared about those things, he’d always figured, people with problems they were too weak to handle for themselves, ignorant yokels of low intelligence. Who needed that nonsense? Disgusted, he flicked off the television and lay back down to wait for Bridge.

She arrived an hour later, and Rick watched through the window as she parked her rental, took a quick look around, then shouldered a computer case and made her way to his room. She wore tan slacks and a turquoise blouse, and she moved like a woman accustomed to going places and not afraid to arrive. A minute later, Rick opened the door, stepped back, and beckoned her inside.

“Hey,” he said, not sure how else to begin. “Thanks for coming.” He pointed her to the single chair in the room and she stepped to it.

“Fashionable outfit.” She indicated his sweat suit. “Where’d you get it?”

“Saks Fifth Avenue,” he said. She didn’t need to know about Tony. “Pizza?” he pointed to the last slice in the box on the nightstand. “Not cold yet.”

She nodded and Rick paused, the whole situation feeling suddenly weird. “This is crazy,” he said. “You being here, me being here too for that matter. Not exactly my normal accommodations.” He waved an arm over the cheap room.

Shannon dropped the computer case to the floor while Rick inspected her. She seemed strangely calm, and he again sensed something unusual in her—a power he couldn’t fathom. A scary unease swept through his body.

“Who are you?” he asked. “Why are you sticking your neck out for me?”

“We have the same middle name,” she said, as if that explained everything.

“Taylor?”

“Yeah, my mother’s maiden name.”

“My dad’s middle name. Weird.”

“Yeah. So we have to stick together, right? I’m your friend, you can trust me.”

“But you don’t know me.” He took a seat on the bed.

“Like I told you when we met, I do know you, better than you realize.”

“Yeah, you read about me on the internet, watched
Hollywood
Insider
, kept up through
People
magazine. I’m not sure I’m buying that anymore. You’re far more than a celebrity stalker.”

Shannon reached for the pizza and bit into it. Rick watched her eat, her full lips, white teeth, long fingers at work. A pair of discrete earrings decorated her lobes, silver crosses. His suspicions rose.

“Something’s wrong about you,” he said as she finished the pizza. “A park ranger in Montana doesn’t take the chances you’re taking to help a complete stranger.”

Shannon licked her fingers, then hauled her bag off the floor, opened it, and tossed a manila folder at Rick. “Take a look at those,” she said.

Although he noticed how she’d changed the subject, Rick’s curiosity about the folder got the better of him. He dropped his inquisition and opened the folder, eyed the pictures of the motorcycle track. “Where’d you get these?” he asked.

“At the edge of your property.” She quickly filled him in on what she’d learned about the motorcycle. “I have a contact in Helena’s crime lab. He’s checking ownership records, should know something in a few days. Plus he hopes to pull some video from Helena’s monitors—roads, airport, et cetera.”

“A contact?”

“A potential beau, least he hopes so.”

“It figures.”

Shannon shrugged again, her slender neck arched. “Whoever rode that motorcycle might have killed your dad.”

“I believe I’ve already met him,” Rick said.

“What?”

Rick brought her up-to-date on his narrow escape at Rolling Hills.

“You went to see your mother?”

“Needed to see if she knew anything about Dad’s death.”

“That was risky.”

“What else was I going to do?”

“She say anything helpful?”

Rick shook his head, unwilling to reveal anything else until he found out more about Bridge.

“I don’t suppose the intruder gave you his name, who he worked for,” Bridge said.

“We didn’t exchange personal histories. But maybe we can track him through the motorcycle. Get a license from a video monitor, find his identity that way. Then go after whoever hired him.”

Shannon nodded, obviously considering what she had just learned. “Things are moving fast,” she said.

“Then we should too. You said you brought a DVD, other items of interest.”

“You bet.” Shannon slid out the computer, then a DVD. After booting up the computer, she slipped the DVD into the drive, clicked Start, and twisted the screen where Rick could watch.

“Why do you think somebody murdered your dad?” Shannon asked while they waited for the computer to load.

Rick thought of his mother’s focus on the word “conspiracy.” Should he reveal that to Bridge? But how did she fit into the picture? Although he held no proof, he suddenly knew she was part of the mystery he faced, would have bet his life on it. Was she a plant, maybe for the same people who murdered his dad? An attractive diversion, a backup plan to make sure he didn’t cause any trouble? Maybe even a danger to him, a “B plan” killer if his investigation got too close to the truth?

“I’ll make a trade with you,” he said quietly. “You tell me why you’re here and I’ll tell you something my mother said to me.”

Shannon faced him, her eyes steady, confident, almost boldly so. “You won’t believe me if I told you,” she said. “So let’s just leave things as they are right now. No reason to push from either direction—yours or mine.”

“But I’m correct about one thing, right? You’re not just a park ranger.”

Shannon laughed. “Like I said, you won’t believe me if I tell you.”

“Right now I’ll believe just about anything.”

“Then believe this,” she said as the DVD finished loading. “You can depend on me. I’m your ally in this, okay?”

Although he knew he needed to stay cautious, Rick found her assurances comforting, and he hoped more than anything he’d hoped in a long time that Bridge was telling the truth.

A blue screen popped up on the computer with a request for a password.

“I’ve thought about this since we talked last,” Rick said. “Let’s try the simple things first.”

He typed in his dad’s birthday—month, day, year—but it didn’t work. He tried his mom’s birthday next, then his, but both times without success. He tried his parents’ anniversary date but that failed too. He mixed them up in a variety of combinations, but none clicked.

“Okay,” he said, leaning back after fifteen minutes or so. “Something more complicated.” He typed in his home address but that didn’t do it, then his college address, but again the computer rejected it. He tried phone numbers, addresses of other homes the family owned, shoe sizes in various combinations but without success. Another half hour passed and Rick sat back, momentarily at a loss.

“You know his social security number?”

“Dad wouldn’t use that—he never gave out private information.”

“Try his hometown, his favorite movie, favorite sports team.”

Rick typed them all in, along with a variety of combinations, but none worked.

“I’m running out of ideas here,” he said finally, his back beginning to ache.

“What did your dad love the most?” Shannon asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You know, what did he like doing, how did he spend his leisure time?”

Rick thought a moment, then typed in the ID number of his dad’s private jet. That too failed. He remembered a locker number from his dad’s gym and tried it but without success. He recalled the name of his dad’s favorite camera and entered the letters but with no luck.

“I’m running out of options,” he said, trying to think.

“You played sports,” Shannon said. “Basketball, soccer. Your dad never missed a game, right?”

“So?”

“I know a guy who combines all his old jersey numbers and uses that for his passwords.”

Rick recalled his high school days—10 in basketball, 20 in soccer. “Worth a try, I suppose.” He hit the keyboard, the numbers entered but nothing happened. Then he tried the numbers backward. Again, no success. On the third try he typed in the name of his high school and the numbers forward, and the computer whirred and clicked to a new screen. Rick turned to Shannon.

“Did you already know that password?” he asked. “Tell me the truth.”

“No, it was just a guess, an educated one, and yes, I’ve done a good bit with computers over the years, but nothing more than that.”

He paused, not sure what to do next. “Who are you?” he finally asked.

“Look,” she diverted his question by pointing to the computer screen, to twenty-six characters printed in the center of the blue background. Xyz123abc91011rst456062419.

“It’s a code,” Rick said.

“What was your first clue, Sherlock?”

“And I know what it means this time, what it fits.”

Shannon faced him. “Really?”

“Yes, and I might tell you if you take back the Sherlock crack.”

Shannon smiled. “Okay, I’m sorry, you’re not Sherlock. But dazzle me with your knowledge anyway.”

“It’s a code for a panic room in my folks’ house.”

“Like in the movies? A room where people—rich people, I mean—hide when some catastrophe strikes?”

“That’s it—protection against home invasions, terrorist attacks, just in case, you know. Dad showed it to me years ago. It’s built off the sunroom in my mom and dad’s bedroom.”

“Why would your dad have a DVD with this code on it in his desk in Montana? And why give Luisa the key weeks ago to open the drawer?”

“He wanted me to find the DVD?”

“Definitely. And that means your dad feared something, someone. Suspected something might happen to him. Had he acted differently recently? Was he upset, nervous?”

“Not that I recall.”

“It’s obvious he wanted you to have this DVD if anything happened to him,” Shannon summarized. “But why?”

“Something in the panic room,” Rick said. “He’s pointing us to it.”

“Who else knows about the room?”

“Not sure, not too many people though. You’re thinking the police have already searched it, right?”

“Yeah, but I hope not. It might be our only chance to find out what’s going on.”

Rick bit his lip. “Maybe we should take this to the authorities, let them dig to the bottom of it.”

Shannon shook her head. “I don’t trust the police,” she said. “You shouldn’t either.”

“Would you care to tell me why?”

“Soon, Rick, I’ll tell you soon.”

“You tried to stop me when I ran from Solitude. Why the change in attitude?”

“I had one job to do then, another one now.”

“You wanted me to run, didn’t you?”

“No more questions about me, Rick.”

Rick started to argue, but then let it go. A woman like Shannon Bridge didn’t say what she didn’t want said. “You have to go to the room,” he offered. “During the funeral on Friday.”

“I know,” Shannon said. “I brought clothes for it.”

“What?”

“Clothes for the public reception—in the rental car; I didn’t know for sure, but thought I might need them.”

“You anticipated attending my dad’s funeral?”

“Just the public part. You got a problem with that?”

Rick took a long look into her bold eyes. “Who are you?” he asked once more.

“I think I will surprise you when I tell you,” she said. “I really do.”

“I have no doubt of that.”

Shannon glanced back at the computer and hit the Enter key, but nothing more popped up, so she shut down the DVD and placed it back in her bag. Rick watched her quietly, his mind busy. In normal times he probably wouldn’t have given her a second look. Although attractive, she certainly didn’t rival the women who usually draped his arms. But these weren’t normal times and she was anything but a normal woman, and though he disliked admitting it, even to himself, his affairs with starlets had brought him no more than momentary satisfaction. For most of his life that hadn’t mattered, but lately things had changed. Meaningless physical relationships with no personal attachment added up to wasted time and an empty life.

“We’ll need to make arrangements,” he said, standing and pacing by the bed. “Find a way to get you in and out safely, without arousing suspicions.”

“Luisa?” Shannon asked.

“I assume she’s home by now. Maybe she can help us.”

“Seems logical. She’s obviously devoted to you, willing to do what you ask.”

“I’ll call her, best to use your phone though, if that’s okay.”

“Sure. So what’s the scheme?”

Rick paused, considered his hastily conceived idea, then quickly outlined it for Shannon. “You game?” he asked when he finished.

“Only a thousand things could go wrong so . . . yes . . . sounds like a winner to me.”

“You don’t have to do it; totally up to you.”

“No, no, it’s the only option. Whatever your dad wanted you to find is somewhere in that panic room, and since you can’t go find it, I’m your girl.”

Rick stopped pacing and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Where will you stay until Friday?”

“I’ll get my own hotel room.” She smiled. “In a little better neighborhood.”

“That does not surprise me,” he said softly.

“I didn’t think it would.”

16

Thursday, midmorning

G
erald Grimes’s blood pressure jumped as he watched the video feed pouring into his computer. For two days he’d done little else but make phone calls, pressure friends, and cajole co-workers, begging them for access to any and all video feeds from monitors in Helena. A few had responded to his pleas and forwarded him footage from cameras around the city, and he’d spent hours checking through the files. To his surprise he’d discovered far more eyes in the sky than he’d ever imagined. For a city of fewer than 50,000 people, Helena kept exceptional vigil over its inhabitants. Every road in and out of the capital sported cameras at the city limit signs. All the official buildings—city hall, fire and police stations, hospital, schools, library—kept watch by monitor. Banks, quick markets, car washes—everywhere a citizen turned, someone put the act on film.

Grimes found the image he needed on a piece of video from an airport camera, a thick-bodied man on the expensive motorcycle about an hour and a half after the death of Steve Carson. Although the man’s helmet obscured his face, the tag showed an easily read number—YCZ496, state of Florida.