Undercover Genius (34 page)

“For your own safety, it might be better if you stayed in
our custody a while longer.” We heard the detective flipping his pages for more
questions.

As if on cue, an alarm shrieked through the entire building.
A loudspeaker intoned, “Evacuate the premises immediately. I repeat, emergency
evacuation, follow procedures.”

I sighed and took Sean’s arm as he hurried for the exit.
“Bomb threat,” I warned. “DeLuca has found his loose-lipped little shit.”

Sean snickered as we ran for the door. “He wouldn’t really
blow up a police precinct would he?”

“No, but Broderick might if he thought Leonard could nail
him, and he was getting darned close by implicating Smedbetter.”

The street rapidly filled with cops and prisoners. The news
vans would be here shortly. This routine was getting really old. I knew better
than to hang around for the bad guys to find me. I headed for the Metro
station.

Shots from a rooftop echoed off the old bricks. Shrieks of
horror split the crowd as they backed away from the toppling victim.

Bye-bye, Leonard,
I whispered as I ran for safety, tugging
ever-curious Sean after me.

“I left my car over at Bill’s apartment,” Sean said when
he realized my goal was the Metro. “Let me give you a ride.”

The curls falling over his forehead didn’t conceal the
concern in his eyes. I patted his muscled bicep reassuringly. “You are a
seriously annoying man, but a good one. If your foot is hurting, you can give
me the keys, and I’ll go get the car for you.”

He sighed and glared down at me. He knew me too well, kind
of like an older brother. “Turn off Magda and get real again. I will fetch
Patra or whoever it is you’re after now. I owe you for this story. It’s huge.
It’s ginormous. If it doesn’t win us a Pulitzer, it will be my own fault. So
where do you want to go?”

Ambulance sirens screamed down the highway. The police
station didn’t blow up. I cast a look over my shoulder to the mob milling in
the street. Cops were running for the rooftops, but they wouldn’t find
anything. DeLuca’s men would have their exits planned.

Rest in peace, Leonard.

It was late and I needed to go home.

“You need to be at your office more than I need to be
anywhere,” I told him. “Go on, fetch your car, call Patra, and the two of you
write your prize-winning story. I need time to locate everyone. I can do it
easier on the train than clinging to your dashboard. We might make a good team,
but you’re a scary driver.”

“We make a lousy team,” he argued. “You’re going to get us
all killed one of these days. If we’re safe for now, if you don’t need me to
take you anywhere, I need to go back and check what happened at the precinct and
verify that it was DeLuca’s thugs who killed Bill.”

“We’re never safe, not as long as megalomaniacs and monsters
run loose,” I pointed out. “All we can do is take them down one at a time. I’m
sorry Leonard didn’t have time to contemplate changing his ways, but even
DeLuca had to know his personal rat would squeal. There wasn’t any way he could
let Leonard continue spilling secrets. Without Leonard following me, the train
is safe enough, go on.”

Sean accompanied me and made sure I got on the train. I
wasn’t about to linger with DeLuca’s goons hanging around. If they’d shoot
DeLuca’s old pal, then they’d happily go after me, if they knew who I was. So
far, they really didn’t — which was why grandstanding was seldom my modus
operandi. I was still furious with Patra.

I texted Patra and Nick to see where they were. We needed a
family confab. And after today’s events, I wanted to make certain they were still
alive.

Patra called back, her voice brimming with excitement and
laughter. She was already at Sean’s office, downloading info into his computer
with his permission. It sounded like she had Sam with her, and they were hosting
a Pulitzer party.

“Is someone singing
ding-dong,
the witch is dead
?” I asked in suspicion.

“Broderick is about to have a house dumped on him,” she
explained. “My exposé today was only the tip of a very
large iceberg. We have Archie so nailed that the FBI is hunting for him right
now. Apparently only Homeland Security gets to hack phones in this country, not
media, and they’re totally ticked. Besides, Archie’s connection with a crime
boss bears a lot more scrutiny. We shouldn’t be having this much fun without
drugs and alcohol.”

“I take it you’ll be dining on carry-out and won’t be home
tonight,” I translated.

“Will I still be allowed in the house?” she asked, with just
enough trepidation in her voice to be believed.

“I may strangle you, but the house is as much yours as
anyone else’s, for now. I kind of provoked Graham, so he may have changed the
locks. We all need to get together and talk sometime, though. The repercussions
from today’s events could be . . .”

“Entertaining?” she suggested.

“Not precisely the word I had in mind. We need to protect EG
from the wrath of our enemies, and we may have created one or two today,” I
reminded her.

“Why do you think Magda keeps moving around? But I don’t
think anyone will touch us after we’re finished here. I’ll be there tomorrow.
Any word on that CNN job?”

“Not yet. That’s on the agenda. Just let me know you’re
alive. I need to find Nick.”

Nick answered with a weird mixture of resignation and awe.
“I’m with the FBI. I may still have a job, maybe. I’ll get back to you.” He
clicked off.

Okay, that was interesting. I couldn’t decide if the day was
improving, but I wanted to think positively. With everyone but EG accounted
for, I headed home.

Home
, I hoped, if
Graham hadn’t locked the doors or criminal gangs hadn’t burned it down or the
media raided it.

It had been a lot quieter when I’d lived in my Atlanta
basement. But quiet had its limitations.

I got off at Dupont. The sun had set and the street lights
were just coming on as I discreetly slipped up the alley behind the house. I
kept a sharp eye out for vagrants or footsteps following me, but instead I
heard odd screams and . . .
cackles
? . . .
echoing off the old mansions. I couldn’t resist checking the front. Easing
through the vine-covered archway, I lingered in the shadows between houses and
studied the situation.

The worst of the traffic snarl had been cleared, but the BM
story was still ripe and juicy, and a lot of news vans hung around. Or had been
hanging around.

As I watched in amusement, men with microphones shouted and ran
for their trucks. Women shrieked and covered their heads. Even as I poked my
head out to see better, one of the remaining news vans screeched away from the
curb — with a colony of
bats
?
swarming after it. I stared in disbelief at the black cloud of flapping wings
swooping and swirling in the twilight beneath the street lamps.

A loud, crackling cackle split the air, and another van hit
the gas, careening down the street and out of sight. Mesmerized, I slipped
through the gate and leaned against the corner of the house to watch as van
after van hit the road. The mob that had spent the afternoon watching the news
trucks was running for cover.

I glanced up toward EG’s tower. I was pretty certain that
was Mallard in her open window, waving a towel to set our resident bat colony
free.

But the cackling loudspeaker . . . Only one
person that I knew of controlled the mechanical equipment.

A spooky wail emanated overhead as I entered through the
front door. All we needed was a skeleton dropping from the sky and tombstones
in the yard and we’d be ready for Halloween.

Sounding more like a little girl than her usual Wednesday
Adams self, EG flung her arms around me when I entered. “Mallard says we’re
having a party! Thank you, thank you! I want skeletons and spooks. Can we have
it in the basement, please, pretty please?”

Maniacal laughter rang through the house.

* * *

EG and I enjoyed lasagna and peach pie in lonely splendor
on Wednesday night. Fairly oblivious to all the commotion her half-siblings had
created throughout the city, EG happily discussed Halloween preparations. The
candelabra didn’t once offer a protest.

I’m the one who raised an objection to EG’s suggestion of
live bats in the basement.

“Mallard chased them all away, anyway,” EG said mournfully.
“He’s calling pest control in the morning.”

“If only pest control eliminated two-legged pests,” I
murmured, but if EG heard, she ignored me. The candelabra might have snorted.

I sent EG to do her homework after dinner, but I was too
wound up to concentrate. I went to my room and called up news websites on my
laptop. A passing reference to one of the Hollywood stars I’d warned last night
caught my interest, and I linked to an entertainment page.

The whole site was furious rants and threats of lawsuits regarding
Broderick Media’s tapping of telephones and insidious slanting of the news.
Hollywood was forming a lynch mob. I clicked on one or two familiar names, but
they all just said they’d received an anonymous warning and had taken their
phones to their computer people and discovered the spyware. I’d warned them it
was probably Broderick’s minions. They could find their own proof.

I looked but couldn’t find any interviews with Archie
proclaiming his innocence, and if anyone knew to talk to Smedbetter, I didn’t
find evidence of it. The media was having too much fun smearing Archie’s stupid
TV stations and gossip rags to dig into the real story behind the story.

I just wanted to know that my family was safe. I waited
until midnight and finally gave up and went to bed.

* * *

No news vans littered the street on Thursday morning when
I walked EG to the Metro. Apparently the breaking stories over Broderick and
DeLuca were more appealing than chasing maniacs with bats and dead lawyers. I
was good with that.

Construction crews swarmed over the house across the street,
and not one of them carried an assault weapon that I could see. Given the
crushed fences and rutted lawns along my path of destruction, I was kind of
relieved not to meet any neighbors.

Both Nick and Patra texted to say they’d be home by dinner.
No word of what they were doing. Once I was back in my office, I emailed Graham
to ask if the CNN job was still open in Atlanta. He emailed back an application
form, smartass.

I called Oppenheimer. His assistant said he was down at the
courthouse and would get back to me. I didn’t know if it was necessary any
longer, but I checked on Lemuel, the witness against Smythe. He was talking to
the FBI, too. Fine, then, everyone was safe. I could get back to work.

I didn’t know what my work was. We’d broken Broderick Media
wide open, which probably ought to be the end of Graham’s research, not that he
was saying so.

Out of idle curiosity, I fed Patra’s stolen archieleaks
files into the Whiz and began searching for names from other suspected Top Hat
members. No surprise, Paul Rose was a Broderick investor. The Righteous and
Proud — theoretically the umbrella group for the humble religious types
who knew nothing about investing in mega-corporations — had also privately
funded their mouthpiece. Probably with Smythe’s blackmail money.

I hoped the FBI was smart enough to start putting pieces
together, but I had my doubts. Once this latest scandal blew past, Senator Rose
and his cronies would be back with boatloads of cash to invest in more media to
spin pretty stories so the politicians would look good in front of cameras. It
was the American way.

Nick came home and collapsed in bed. Patra sent me a photo
of Sean sleeping on his desk. There might be a decade difference in their ages,
but not necessarily in their maturity. I wasn’t touching whatever happened
between them. I texted back and asked for a photo of Sam Adams, my hero. She
sent me a shot of a skinny, long-haired nerd hunched over a keyboard.

I resisted going upstairs and hunting Graham down. The ball
was in his court, as they said in the gym I’d once attended. Maybe I should
find another public gym instead of hiding out in Graham’s. I’d learn more about
the outside world, but it was really hard to resist the temptation of running
into Graham again.

I dug into a couple of cases from other clients that I’d
been neglecting. I have some very good international contacts who help me with
translations. That side of my business had been growing lately. I wouldn’t see
replies until tomorrow. Not everyone can be a night owl.

Mallard brought me gumbo for lunch, and a newspaper. I
almost dropped my teeth, but I remembered my manners.

“Join me?” I asked.

“Another time, thank you,” he said gravely. “I’m preparing a
repast for this evening. Please dress for dinner.”

I blinked and stared after him as he departed to his
hideaway. A
repast? Dress for dinner?
Had
hell frozen over? Only a few weeks ago he’d been chasing us out of his kitchen
with a kitchen ax when we’d tried to make our own meals.

I ate my gumbo and returned to my computer. Broderick’s
dirty deeds had made headline news, naturally. I scanned the article. It
concentrated on phone tapping and bribery and not the real skullduggery like
chasing employees off cliffs and killing people who knew too much, like Patra’s
dad and Bill. But this was only part one of the series, so I could hope for
more — so could Archie and his cronies.

A small paragraph said Sir Archie was out of the country and
unavailable for comment. Yeah, I’d bet.

To keep me entertained, I received an email from Sam Adams
with an audio file attached. His message just said
from the boy’s room.

The file quality was bad. I could hear a toilet flush, so he
meant a real boy’s room. A voice echoed against hard walls, and I strained to
make out the words.