Worst Date Ever (Scandals #3) (9 page)

It was almost eight that night when I parked the car in the circular drive at the mansion.  Liberty and I got out and silently walked inside.  We were both exhausted from spending hours waiting…for the cops, for the Assistant D.A., for the IT expert the D.A. hired and for the evidence room clerk who seemed to resent our presence in his domain and for keeping him after hours.  When I finally got my hands on Michael’s phone, I felt like a field mouse hiding under a rock while a flock of hungry hawks circled me.  I tried to ignore them, hoping my fingers wouldn’t fumble and reveal my discomfort at the situation.

None of my past experiences with government officials had ever been pleasant, so I had a natural creep factor just being in the same room with them. I clicked through several windows on the phone, being careful not to delete anything and making sure everyone, especially the D.A.’s geek, watched my every move.  Just as they had said, all of the text messages appeared to have generated from Michael’s phone.  But when I hacked into the phone system with my laptop, the extra routing for the damning texts to Tamara was visible even to the most untrained eye.  The IT guy picked up on it right away…after I pointed it out…and I could tell from the look he gave the D.A. that this info would weaken the case against Michael.

Liberty hadn’t said much, but I could see she was making mental notes.  It wouldn’t take her long to get up to speed on cell phone technology.   

The D.A. got the clerk to print out a copy of all the contents for each of us, and we were finally able to leave.  I sucked in deep lungfuls of air as soon as I was outside, grateful to be out of that claustrophobic environment.  Even though it was quite large, there were fences, gates, guards and security cameras.  It made me feel guilty…even though I had done nothing wrong. 

To add to the whole prisoner role play, we had to endure the thirty minute drive back to Scandals in a van with no windows and a separation between us and the driver. 

It was late July, and the sun was just dropping below the trees.  The mansion was built on the west side of Lake Travis, so we didn’t get to enjoy the sunsets off the lake.  But they were still pretty spectacular in the wide-open Texas skies above the sprawling branches of ancient live oaks.  As it slowly set, the gold and orange rays would play peekaboo among the dark green leaves and twisting limbs.  I stopped for a moment and soaked it all in.  Every day I was here, I felt more at home.

“Hello ladies,” John said with a welcoming voice from where he stood on the porch in front of the open door.

“Hi John,” Liberty responded.

“Your beverages await you at the staff meeting.”  His formality was very tongue-in-cheek.  We all knew that the pool-side staff meeting was an excuse to unwind and decompress.  It was very casual, but it was a great way to freely discuss our cases.  Some amazing ideas came out of these unofficial brainstorming sessions.

Liberty had a higher energy level and beat me to the pool area.  I changed into a swimsuit and pulled on shorts and a tank top over it.  Maybe a swim would clear my head and the exercise would tire me enough so that I would be able to sleep later.  For some reason, this whole thing with Cody was wearing me down. 

The bar was open and Reno and Jenny held up their beers and nodded as I gratefully took an over-sized margarita from John’s outstretched hand before making my way through the labyrinth of chairs and tables near the pool.  Liberty was already lounging with a glass of lemonade.

“Hey Tulsa,” Jenny smiled.

“How’s it going?” Reno asked.

A month ago I would have assumed he was just being polite, but after getting to know Reno, I realized he was a genuinely nice person.  He hid it under a tough exterior…sort of like I did.  As far as our backgrounds, he and I had a lot more in common than any of the others.  It sounded like his alcoholic mother hadn’t been much of a parent other than providing him with food and shelter.  But even that kind of childhood would have been preferable to mine.

“We’re good.  Had a great day on the case.” I let the sour icy liquid slide down my parched throat.  “Just exhausting.”

“Rumor has it,” the corners of Reno’s mouth twitched, “that you’re going to e-stalk a fireman…and that he’s hot.”

I looked at Jenny and cocked my head.  “Any regrets yet?”

“Making a list,” Jenny answered with a smile, pretending to be thinking about all of Reno’s shortcomings…although, her hand resting possessively on his thigh sent a mixed message.

“E-stalk?  Really Reno.  That’s not my style.  I’m just going to come up with a profile he can’t resist and then penetrate his computer…much classier.”

Reno gave me an amused look.  “Actually, that’s much creepier.”

“What’s creepier?”  Christopher and Killeen sat down next to us.  Killeen eased down on the chair more carefully than the rest of us.  She was almost at the end of her first trimester and starting to be physically aware of her pregnancy.

“Tulsa’s e-stalking Cody,” Liberty piped up cheerfully.

“Et tu, Liberty?” I muttered.  “You’re off the case.”

Liberty waved away my threat.  She knew I was joking.

“What happened at the APD evidence warehouse?” Christopher asked.

“Tulsa was terrific,” Liberty gushed.  “You should have seen her.  The D.A.’s IT guy didn’t know half of what she did.  She just flipped through the phone and proved that Michael didn’t send the text to his girlfriend.”

“Really?  You learned that?  So quickly?”  Christopher was impressed.

“I think the D.A. is convinced that Michael’s phone was breached and that the texts were routed through several servers before appearing on his and Tamara’s phones simultaneously,” I explained, a little embarrassed at Liberty’s profusive remarks.

“Good job, Tulsa.” Killen smiled.

Okay, I really didn’t know how to take outpouring of approval.  I shrugged. “It was easy.  There was a malware app installed on his phone that autodialed Tamara’s phone and sent her the text message that caused her to go to his lake house.  He wouldn’t even have noticed it was there unless he went back and looked at his sent messages.  And who does that?”

“No idea where it came from?” Reno asked.

“Not yet.  It was triggered by the clock on Michaels’ phone, so the person didn’t even have to be in the state.”  I pretended to focus on the last of the slushy margarita left in the glass. 

“God, that’s sick.  But how could the hacker know Michael wouldn’t be with her?  That would have been weird.”  Killen rubbed her arms as if her skin was crawling.

“Good question,” I told her.  It was an angle I hadn’t considered.  “Apparently, the person is close enough to Michael to know his schedule.  Besides, the app was so sophisticated that it wouldn’t trigger if they were geographically too close.”

“You mean like using Wi-Fi?”  Dallas joined us, carrying a bucket of iced Budweisers. 

  “Nothing as simple as that,” I answered.  “There are two methods the app could have used…the 
Pythagorean Theorem
 or the 
Great Circle Calculation
.  This guy used the Great Circle because it only worked if they were miles apart.  The
Pythagorean Theorem
 is good up to maybe a tenth of a mile.  That meant that Michael’s phone and Tamara’s phone were separated by at least fifteen miles.”

“That doesn’t sound like it absolutely clears him, does it?”  Killeen asked.

“No…it just means the text message was on automatic and the prosecutor could argue that Michael was smart enough to build the app and had the access to her phone to download it.”

“Does he have an alibi?”  Reno questioned.

“Of course not.  That would be too easy,” I scoffed.  “Said he was home alone…in his condo downtown.”

“What about cameras?  Surely, they could show when he entered the building and when he left,” Dallas commented.

“The security system was down that day, so there’s no record,” Christopher stated.

“Where was his phone?” Reno asked.  “Is there any record?”

“The GPS says it was in his condo all night,” I answered.

“So, he could have left his phone in the condo and let it trigger the message while he was hiding out in the lake house,” Killeen suggested.

I couldn’t think of a way to dispute that one.  It was certainly possible.

John arrived with a tray full of fresh drinks and some pigs in a blanket.  “Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes,” he told us.  In spite of that, we cleared the plate in seconds before continuing our conversation.

“So they can’t prove he was there or sent the text personally.”  Liberty summarized.

“That part has reasonable doubt written all over it,” Dallas spoke up.

“But he can’t prove that he didn’t,” Jenny commented.  She had been quietly listening to the conversation.  She hadn’t been part of our group for long, but she fit in so well that none of us questioned her right to join in the discussion.

“So what’s next Tulsa?”  Christopher asked.

“I, for one, am convinced that Michael is innocent.  He really seems to care for Tamara.”  I know opinion didn’t really count, but after spending some time with him, I felt uniquely qualified to vouch for him.  “We’ve got to find out who really sent the text.  And I’m pretty sure it’s Cody.”

“Oh no, not the fireman,” Killeen groaned.  “He’s supposed to be one of the good guys.”

“Yes, well, I have my doubts.  Once I get inside his place I’ll find a way to load my own BOT on his machine and we’ll see what I can find.”

Jenny spoke up again, “That could be dangerous.  What if he catches you?  If he’s killed once, it wouldn’t bother him to kill again to save his hide.”

That silenced all of us.  The thought had occurred to me, but I dismissed it.  I could be putting myself at risk, but to be honest, it wouldn’t be the first time.  Living with strangers and fending for myself had often been in unsafe conditions.  But I had survived.  And I would get through this, too.

“Dinner’s ready,” John announced.

“Oh, yes.” Killeen got to her feet with an athlete’s grace, belying the extra load she was carrying.  “I’m starved.”

The soothing music playing in the penthouse elevator combined with only four hours sleep last night made me want to curl up in the corner and take a nap.  I felt my eyelids drifting closed when the chime jerked me awake just as the door opened.  Michael stood there with his arm extended, a cup of coffee in his hand and a sympathetic smile on his face. 

“I look that bad?” I asked. 

“Of course not. Christopher called to let me know you were on the way.  He said it was too late last night to let me know about what you found out about my phone.  But he said it was good news.”

I shuffled into the foyer and grabbed the coffee mug.  “Thanks.”

“He said you found some reasonable doubt.”  He smiled.

I nodded and sipped the large coffee mug’s contents.  Maybe I was a bit testy because of my lack of sleep, but he seemed a little over-eager.  “I never went to law school, but I think a good lawyer could argue that.  We were able to prove your phone wasn’t at the lake house.  Bad thing is all this technology can’t prove that
you
weren’t.  No alibi, but no proof ether.”

We crossed the lobby and went into his office.  There was no one around except for Chloe, but he shut the door anyway.  We sat on opposite ends of a sleek contemporary couch that was surprisingly comfortable in spite of its minimalism.

“Darius said there was some sort of virus on my computer.”

“Yep.  Let me ask you a few questions…have you ever plugged a memory stick into any of your boxes in the network?”

“Memory stick?  No way.  I don’t download anything into the office network.  I have a personal tablet I use to play on-line, but my office computer is 100% behind a firewall. It doesn’t even have a Wi-Fi connection.  Why?”

“You have a BOT in your box.”

“A BOT?  What does it do?”

“It grabs the identity information and sends it out of your network.”

“Did you kill it?  Is it still there?”  Michael stared with horror at his computer.

“Still there,” I confirmed, much to his dismay.  “What do you know about Cody Daniels?”