The message was from Anton.
All I could do was stare at it. The seconds ticked by, and I still stared. First of all, Anton never sent email. Despite being a professional information broker and probably owning more computers than I had guns, he had been something of a Luddite when it came to living in the modern world. He hadn’t even had a mobile phone. I always picked up a folder full of printouts from him in person, and though I had always assumed part of that had to do with much of his information coming from places that weren’t accessible via clickable URLs, I also figured Anton simply liked dealing with the world through landlines and hard copies.
Second of all, he was dead.
That part was still true. I looked at the timestamp and thought back, then shivered—he’d sent this less than three minutes before the first explosion had gone off.
I finally took a deep breath and read the words. The email was only one line long:
penny’s real excited. wants me to send you this right quick. her find.
-anton
p.s. “p” = “pithica” we think
One file was attached. I opened it. I felt like my fingers should be shaking, but they were perfectly steady.
The file was text only, and looked like a response to someone:
To: 29814243
Re: Missing flash drive
>> his wife, he must have had an unbreakable hiding place. Lost cause at this point?
All sources verify P. has not found it. If they are still searching, so are we.
H. suggests it may have been removed from the scene but not handed over. Unlikely, but the zombies they use, it’s possible. Pursue that line. Let’s hope it was a blind spot.
The beginnings of adrenaline had started tingling through me. I read the message again. The mention of a wife…could that mean…?
“Arthur,” I called. He was next to me in a flash; I tried not to roll my eyes. “Arthur, was anything missing from Kingsley’s crime scene?”
“Yeah. He had a USB drive he always wore around his neck, but they never found it. Was one of the things that made the whole thing weird—the doc said he never took it off.”
The email was definitely talking about Kingsley, then, and he’d had a flash drive with…something…on it, and Pithica had been going crazy trying to find it. And apparently so had someone else, whoever had written this message…
My thoughts constricted in horror. As far as we knew, the only other group working against Pithica was Steve’s. And he had as good as told us that they would obliterate anyone who found out about them in order to protect themselves from Pithica.
Oh, God. Anton.
Penny.
“I found the drive, you know,” said Arthur morosely. “Too bad it was useless.”
It took my brain several seconds to catch up with his words, and then I cried, “You what?”
“Found it. In Polk’s house, once I tracked down she was the killer. Was only a few weeks ago.”
“What was on it?”
“Couldn’t tell; it was all coded up. But it’s useless.”
“How do you know that if it’s encrypted?”
His face was all moon-eyed hopelessness. “Asked Dawna Polk about it. She said it was nothing.”
Holy crap. “Arthur, where is the drive now?”
“Checker’s got it. I’m going to get it back from him and toss it, though.”
“Arthur! Arthur, no, that’s—that’s not you talking; that’s—forget it. Have you talked to Checker about this yet?”
He sighed. “I can’t reach him.”
I was suddenly having trouble breathing. “You can’t reach him?”
“No. It’s strange, you know? He usually answers. I can’t reach…I can’t reach anybody.”
Oh, crap. Oh, fuck. How had I not thought of this before? Shit, I had mentioned Checker in my generous tell-all to Dawna, and I had only just met him. Arthur worked with him all the time.
“Arthur,” I said carefully. “Don’t freak out, but did Dawna ask you about Checker?” Would it matter? Could she have seen everything anyway, whether or not she had asked?
“No,” Arthur answered. “Well, not until after I mentioned him. She was real interested. He’s a heck of a guy, you know?”
“Oh, no.” I pushed back the blankets and scrambled up. “Oh, God.”
“Russell, stop! What are you doing? You can’t get up!”
“The hell I can’t.” I tore the medical tape off the back of my hand and slid out the IV, ignoring the dark blood that welled up. It would clot. “We have to find him. Now.”
Arthur shook his head. “You ain’t allowed to find Checker. It’s part of his security whatsis, you know—clients don’t get to know where the Hole’s at.”
“Arthur, this is very important.” I grabbed him by the shoulders. “Where Checker lives—he calls it the Hole?” I took a deep breath. “Do you know where it is? I’m not asking you to tell me, but do. You. Know?”
He looked like he was thinking it over. It was wildly disconcerting, like watching a five-year-old child in a grown man’s body. “Of course I do. But I ain’t telling you, so don’t ask.”
I physically shook him. “Arthur! We have to find him, now! You know, so Dawna knows, and Pithica’s coming after him!” We might be too late already.
Arthur shook his head again, adamantly. “She wouldn’t hurt him. She was just interested.”
“No! She would definitely hurt him! She lied to you, remember? About Rio? About not hurting me?”
His face clouded. “Yeah.”
“And it made you doubt her motives, right? Remember?”
“Yeah…”
Thank goodness Dawna hadn’t had another crack at him after undoing her own work. He would have been a Pithica-loving robot. “Arthur, listen to me. You don’t have to believe me, okay? But you do have to go see Checker, now. In person.”
He frowned down at me. “You feeling better enough for me to leave for a while?”
Oh, Jesus, did I ever. “Yes! I promise! Now go, right now!”
He shrugged me off. “Don’t know what you’re so hyper about, but okay. I am kind of worried I can’t reach him.” He grabbed his coat off a chair. “And I can get that flash drive back off him, too.”
Oh, brother. Was I this bad under Dawna’s influence? How on earth did I fix this? Rio always seemed to be able to talk me out of it, but Steve had implied I was highly unusual that way, and I still didn’t know why. I shuddered to think what Arthur would have been like if Dawna hadn’t had me shot.
“You lie back down,” Arthur admonished, pointing at me as he headed toward the door.
“Cross my heart,” I called after him.
The door closed. I found my jacket and gingerly zipped it; if it was still raining out I probably didn’t want to get the bandages wet. My boots were by the door.
It was indeed still raining, the continuous, drenching downpour that was the hallmark of Southern California’s wet season. The flat we’d been in turned out to be back in the congestion of Los Angeles proper, and Arthur, honest guy that he was, got on a bus. Since I stole a car, it was mind-numbingly easy to follow him, even through miles and miles of red lights and stop-and-go traffic.
After three line transfers and over two hours, Arthur disembarked from the latest bus line near Panorama City and started walking. I ditched the car and followed, hunching against the rain and turning up the collar of my jacket against the deluge. Arthur was one of those people who was always glancing around and checking his surroundings—it probably came with the whole being-a-PI thing—and his observational skills would have caught most tails, but I’m very good at following people.