One of Fionna’s eyes wanders, and I think sometimes she shifts which eye she’s focusing on you just to mess with you.
As far as I know, she hasn’t been in a serious relationship for over a year, which is something Xavier has mused aloud to me about more than once, wondering when I think she might be ready to date again. Just for curiosity’s sake, of course.
I fill her in about what happened to Emilio and about the chase through the jungle after the snake wrangler, Tomás Agcaoili.
Fionna’s eyes cloud as she listens, and at last she asks us to give her a minute. She turns away from the screen so we can’t see her. I think we all know she’s crying but just doesn’t want us to see.
The three of us have all had at least a little chance to begin processing Emilio’s death, and we give her some time to let the news sink in.
At last, when she gives her attention back to the screen, it’s clear she’s trying to be as detached and objective as she can, but still, her pain comes through in every word. “At first people on Twitter thought it was all part of the escape, but I could tell by your expression, Xavier, that something had gone terribly wrong.” She takes a heavy breath. “There’s still a lot of speculation online that it was all faked, that Emilio’s really okay. I was hoping…” Her voice trails off. “I was hoping they were right.”
It’s a long time before anyone speaks, but finally Xavier does. He’s never been good with calculating time zones, and when he asks softly if her kids saw what happened, Fionna reminds him that it’s just now coming up on 5:00 a.m. there in Vegas. “They were all in bed. Thankfully.”
Xav tells her about the USB drive, and when he holds it up she just shakes her head. “RixoTray? Really? How could they possibly be part of this?”
“That’s something we’re hoping you can help us figure out.”
“And that, I’m glad to do. Stick the drive into your computer; let me see if I can pull anything up from here.” He inserts it into the USB port and starts giving her his password to access his hard drive, but she cuts him off: “I already have it. I hashed it a couple weeks ago.”
“You cracked my password?”
“You’re a role model to my kids, Mr. Wray. I wanted to keep an eye on what sites you’ve been going to.”
“I, um—”
“Nothing illegal, nothing immoral, no porn. I’m proud of you.”
“Oh… Thanks.”
“But you sure visit the X-Files archives a lot.”
“I like the X-Files.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Best documentary filmmaking of the last twenty years.”
“I really hope you’re not being serious.”
While she’s talking, she’s also studying her screen and typing. At last she shakes her head. “I might be able to do this from here, but I can tell you right now whoever did this is a pro. It’d be a lot easier if I had it in hand. When are you guys coming back?”
Fionna and her kids are house-sitting for me this week at my place in Vegas, but their home is in Chicago, and when she says “you guys” it sounds endearingly Midwestern.
“By Saturday afternoon,” I tell her. I’m scheduled to perform again Saturday evening at the Arête, the newest resort and casino in Vegas. “Tomorrow morning we’ll have to look into funeral arrangements, and I’m going to see if we can get anywhere with the police or maybe the consulate in Manila to find this guy Tomás Agcaoili. Then I imagine we’ll fly back as soon as we can.”
We have tickets for a very late flight Friday night but had planned from the beginning to get on an earlier flight if possible. Switching international flights isn’t typically as hard when you’re flying first class as it is when you’re in coach.
“Alright. In the meantime I can do some checking — flight manifests, that sort of thing, see when Agcaoili arrived in the country, if he was traveling with anyone. Maybe I can find out more about where he’s from or if he’s booked any tickets to leave the country.”
“Good. And the RixoTray connection, see if you can find out what Emilio might have to do with them or with Tomás.”
“Done.”
“One more thing. Can you remotely log into Emilio’s computer?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t know why anyone would want to kill him, but he was wired into that machine like it was his lifeline to the world. If he was involved in something he shouldn’t have been or found out something someone didn’t want him to know—”
“It would be on his computer.”
“Possibly, yes. Or at least footprints leading toward it would be.”
“Hmm.” She reflects for a moment. “I’ll take a peek at his phone and iPad files too, do some searching, see if he used any kind of cloud-based backups. If he did, I should be able to access the data, download it onto a ghost drive.”
Ah, yes. One of the disadvantages most people don’t think of when they move to online backup services — you put your files on the web and anyone with a little motivation and know-how can get into them even if the devices are turned off. If people knew how easy it is for hackers to access data on the cloud, I doubt they’d be so quick to sign up for those services.
Emilio’s house lies across town from mine, but it’s within the city limits, and Fionna suggests that she contact the Vegas police.
“Why not?” I figure it’s worth getting everyone we can involved in finding out what’s going on. “Who knows, maybe they’ll be willing to get to the bottom of this.” I’m not holding out a lot of hope, though: Emilio was a Filipino citizen killed in his home country. “Okay, our plan for tomorrow—”
“Actually, for yesterday,” Xavier clarifies, “for Fionna, that is.”
“No, today,” she corrects him. “At least as far as I’m concerned, but tomorrow for you, from your perspective. Remember, for me, this afternoon is tomorrow morning for you, so your yesterday evening will still be today for me.”
“I have no idea what you just said.”
“Xavier, Maddie is better at time zones than you are. And she’s only nine.”
A pause. “She’s almost ten.”
“Well… you have me there, Mr. Wray.”
“So.” I bring things to a close. “Fionna, you’ll be diving into Emilio’s data files; we’ll see if we can get anywhere with the police and the American consulate in Manila and do our best to get back home by Friday night or Saturday morning.”
We’re all on board with the plan, and after ending the video chat, Xavier, Charlene, and I take off for bed to do our best to get some sleep before the police from Kabugao arrive.
Colonel Derek Byrne, otherwise known as Akinsanya, stood beside the bed watching his partner Calista Hendrix sleep.
He liked to do this, to rise before she did and observe her when she had no idea that he was there.
Slowly, he pulled the covers away until only a single sheet was covering her.
The woman really was lovely.
She lay on her side, and he let his gaze move slowly down her body, tracing the curves of her impeccable figure outlined beneath the sheet.
He could touch her anywhere, run his hand across her arm, her back, her leg — light enough and she would never know, gentle enough and she would not even wake up.
She was his.
To do with as he pleased.
He bent closer and studied her face, then closed his eyes and drew in a long breath, smelling her clean, shampooed hair, still sweet and aromatic even after spending the last three hours nestled against her pillow.
Lavender.
Exquisite.
He stood.
From what he’d heard, things in the Philippines regarding Emilio Benigno had gone pretty much as planned, although Tomás Agcaoili had not been as clean about it all as he’d hoped.