The Garden of Betrayal - Lee Vance [79]
“So, this has something to do with your work?” Claire asked, turning to me when Kate had finished. She looked pale but composed.
“It must, although I can’t imagine what. I don’t want either of you to be concerned, though. I have a call in to Reggie. He and I will figure this whole thing out and take care of it.”
Kate glanced at her mother.
“You and Reggie are going to take care of it. So Mom and I should just hang around here at the hotel and wait. Maybe book a massage and a pedicure.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I said, stung by her sarcasm.
“Isn’t it?” Claire asked quietly.
I hesitated, afraid of getting them involved in anything dangerous, but recognizing that I’d made things worse between me and Claire in the past by being overprotective.
“I’m sorry. This is difficult for me. I worry about you both, and I want to protect you, and I feel guilty for having brought this into your lives.”
“It’s difficult for all of us,” Claire said. “I think we should try to understand it together, as a family.”
I was a little surprised to hear her be so forceful, and more than a little happy to hear her emphasize our being a family. It made me feel hopeful. Kate spoke up again before I could formulate a reply.
“Which brings us back to Mom’s question,” she said, looking at me. “Are we sure this has to do with your work?”
“As opposed to what?”
“As opposed to something to do with Kyle.”
“I’m not following.”
“I was thinking about what you told me in the cab. The e-mail Reggie got was sent through an offshore remailer. Your phone and the repeater in our house were both forwarding information to an offshore server. There’s a similar level of technical sophistication. Maybe the e-mail and the bugging are related somehow.”
I felt light-headed, as if I’d been sucker punched from behind.
“It’s possible,” I admitted.
“Has there been much going on at work?” Claire asked.
“A huge amount. Way more than I’ve had time to tell you about.”
“So, Kate could be correct that the bugging has something to do with the e-mail about Kyle, but we can’t rule work out.”
“Right.” I rubbed my forehead with my hand, trying to think. “Frankly, I have no idea what’s going on.”
Claire tucked her hair behind her ears, looking pensive. Kate slipped a rubber band off her wrist and handed it to her.
“The earliest files on the Cayman Island server were from Sunday night, correct?” Claire said, glancing from Kate to me as she pulled her hair back into a ponytail. “And you got your phone back on Monday morning.”
We both nodded.
“So, it seems likely that the people who bugged us are interested in either something that happened this week or something that’s supposed to happen soon.”
“Probably,” I said. “But I don’t see how that helps. The e-mail and the work stuff all fall in the same time window.”
“I have an idea,” Kate said. “Maybe we should go through your entire week minute by minute and do what you do when you’re working on a big project—write everything down on note cards, and tape it all up on the wall, and see if any connections pop out.”
I didn’t have any better suggestion.
“Sounds good,” I said. “Let’s get to it.”
I took the creepy photographs down while Kate and Claire ran out for supplies. They came back with coffee, bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwiches, and enough note cards, poster paper, colored markers, and Scotch tape to document the entire Civil War. Our goal was to lay out everything that had happened by event, time line, and people involved. Two hours later we’d created a flow chart from hell, with dozens of boxes connected by lines and arrows that intersected everywhere. If there was a pattern in the data, it was well hidden. Pushing my chair back from the table, I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees. Tired and frustrated as I was, I felt buoyed by working together with Kate and Claire—particularly Claire. Her transformation was nothing short of incredible, a testament to the rejuvenating power of having something to do other than brood. It made me wonder if it had been a mistake all