Her phone buzzed. The number belonged to an old friend. Another condolence call. She let it roll to voicemail. She had more important items to attend to. There were the funeral arrangements to make, flights to book, hotel rooms to reserve. She couldn’t mourn. She had too much to do. But before any of that, something else required her attention.
If Don Bennett wouldn’t tell her what Joe was working on, she’d damn well find out herself.
–
Mary nudged open the door to Jessie’s room. “Hi, sweets. Can I come in?”
Jessie lay facedown on her bed, arms splayed over the edges. “Go away.”
Mary took a step closer. It was no time to argue. A truce had been declared between all mothers and their teenage daughters. “I need your help,” she said. “I’m looking for my in-house IT squad.”
A groan was the only response.
She entered the bedroom tentatively. Clothes covered the floor. A glass of root beer sat on Jessie’s desk, and next to it an ice cream wrapper. The posters of horses and boy bands were long gone. On one wall, done up as a lithograph, was a quote from Julian Assange about “information wanting to be free,” and on another a street advertisement for DEF CON, the hackers’ convention in Las Vegas. The room was essentially a battlefield. The frontline between adolescents and parents.
Mary sat down on the bed. She waited for an outcry, a command to get off, or just a plaintive “Mom!” Jessie was silent. Progress, thought Mary. She ran a hand along her daughter’s back. Fifteen years old. Already taller than her mom. Mary’s firstborn was a young woman.
“It’s about my phone,” she went on. “I think I lost a message.”
“So?”
Mary fought the reflex to pull her hand away. “It was from your dad.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
A moment passed. Still Jessie didn’t move. Mary gathered a measure of the sheet in her fist. She gave Jessie until three to move or to show the smallest hint of civility.
One…two…
Jessie grunted, then pushed herself up to an elbow. “Give it.”
Mary handed her the phone. “I thought maybe you could tell me how I lost it or if I can get it back.”
“Maybe.” Jessie sat up and put her feet on the floor. She cradled the phone in both hands, head hunched low over it like a priest blessing the sacred host.
“He called at four-oh-three,” said Mary. “But I didn’t check the message until around five-thirty.”
“I see it.”
Mary’s heart skipped a beat. “The message?”
“No,” said Jessie. “The call.”
Mary tamped down her disappointment. She caught a glimpse of the screen. Lines of letters and numerals and symbols as alien as cuneiform or Sanskrit. Her daughter, Champollion.
“Not here,” said Jessie.
“I thought maybe I deleted it by mistake.”
“And then deleted the deleted messages? That would be lame.”
“I didn’t do it. You can check-”
“The older messages are still there,” said Jessie. “I can read.”
“I listened to it once at home and then before I went into the hospital to see your dad. I told Mr. Bennett that I’d gotten it and-”
“Why?” Jessie sat up straighter, a hand pushing the hair from her face, tucking strands behind her ear. For the first time she looked directly at her mother. Mary found her gaze oddly innocent, frightened.
“I thought he would be interested in what your father said.”
“What did Dad say?”
“It doesn’t matter. It was about his business.” Mary took a breath. “And so when I came back for my phone, the message wasn’t there anymore.”
“Then why are you so hot on getting it back?”
Mary hesitated, suddenly slack-jawed. How had Jessie managed to take control of the conversation? “Dad said that he might be in trouble. He said that he loved us all very much.”
“He was in trouble? Like how?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he say?”
“I can’t entirely remember. I was upset when I heard it.” Mary gestured to the phone, anxious to get clear of dangerous waters. “Do you think you can-”
“So he called when I was unlocking your phone?”
Mary nodded.
“And it was before…” Jessie stopped. Her eyes flitted around the room, gathering pieces of the puzzle. “So you’re saying it was my fault.”
“No, sweetie, of course not. I’m just asking for your help to see if we can get the message back somehow.”
Jessie tossed her the phone, stood, and brushed past her. “You’re trying to tell me that if I hadn’t been unlocking your phone, you would have gotten the call and maybe we could have done something to help Dad.”
Mary rose. “Of course not. You have nothing to do with it.”
“Really? Then why are you telling me about it?”
“Because the FBI won’t help me. Because I don’t know who else to ask.”
“He’s dead. What does it matter? Daddy’s dead.” Jessie threw herself back onto the bed. “Why did you tell me about the message?”
Mary sat down and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Jess, please.”
Jessie knocked the hand away. “It wasn’t my fault. Get out.”
“Jessie.”
“Did you hear me? Leave.” Jessie dug her head into her pillow. A sob racked her chest.
Mary walked to the door. Grace was there, peering in, eyes wide. Mary returned to the bed and knelt by Jessie’s side. “It wasn’t your fault,” she whispered. “Don’t you ever believe that.”
A cry escaped the pillow. A plea to break a mother’s heart.
“Why did you tell me, Mommy? Why?”
19
The man named Shanks drove down Pickfair Drive. Late in the afternoon, the neighborhood was alive with children riding bicycles and mothers pushing strollers along sidewalks. No one looked twice at the work van belonging to the nation’s largest phone and Internet provider.
Shanks parked at the corner of Pickfair and Lockerbie, across the street from the target’s home. “We’re here,” he said.
No response came from the work bay. He looked over his shoulder at the Mole, seated at the surveillance console, eyes locked onto the monitor.
Shanks climbed out and walked around to the sliding door. He was big and muscular, his pecs straining against his technician’s uniform. He rapped his hand on the door before sliding it open. “Let’s get this done. Too many eyes on the street for my liking.”
“Target is inside but not currently using her phone. Same goes for the girls.” The Mole didn’t avert his eyes from the monitor. He was small and wiry and pale. If Shanks’s uniform was too tight, his was too loose. Tattoos of snakes and daggers and skulls covered every inch of his thin, gangly arms.
Shanks poked his head inside the van to get a glimpse of the monitor. A dozen nine-digit phone numbers filled the screens. It was a wireless capture protocol called Kingfisher and worked by transmitting signals that mimicked the nearest cell tower to pull all nearby mobile calls out of the air. “What girls are those?” he asked.
“She has two daughters. They have phones, too.”
Shanks stepped outside. He didn’t ask how the Mole knew about the girls. “Just concentrate on the woman. Mr. Briggs said level two. Don’t get carried away.”
The Mole shifted his gaze to Shanks. “You giving me orders?”
Shanks came out of Cabrini-Green on the Near North Side of Chicago. He’d served his time in the Corps, and then harder time in Florida State Prison. He’d seen his share of hard types. No one had eyes like the Mole. Black as day-old blood and set a mile deep in their sockets. “Just do what you got to do and let’s motor.”