Chapter 37
I’m back at Cara and Ethan’s house— Will I ever stop thinking about this as Cara’s place? Probably not.
Sometimes, when I’m deep in my emotions, I think about the place we grew up in comparison to this palace. The sheer size difference alone—our house was about the same size as the pool house but nowhere near as luxurious.
Only feeling a little guilty and a lot weird, I step into Cara and Ethan’s bedroom. I know the chances of me finding anything are slim. Cara’s laptop was stolen, almost a hundred percent by the killer, so whatever she hid is probably long gone.
But Ethan is at his parents along with the girls so I can’t give up this chance to search their room with no one interrupting. I think he’ll be fine with me searching (or fine-ish) but I don’t want to explain even more to him about my investigation.
I haven’t talked to him much since yesterday. Or technically this morning since I dropped him off at that midnight meeting. But I know he wants to talk to me—interrogate me about why I was following him, what I’m up to.
And I don’t care to answer his questions.
I don’t bother with gloves like I normally would, and start the search. I’m as quick and methodical as possible, but that’s hard when I’m going through my sister’s things. As I work, I call Alex because I need a distraction.
Or human contact.
Whatever. I’m not a robot, even if I wish I was. “Any movement?” I ask when she answers.
“Well hello to you too. And yes. I planted a tracker on his truck and he’s been driving for the last half hour.
I think we might be close to his final destination but I’ve got nothing yet.
Oh, Foxe also ruled out Jordan Hughes. His alibi was shaky but it’s because it was a lie.
His real alibi—he was meeting with a divorce attorney at the time of her murder. ”
I mentally catalogue his name. He was on Garcia’s list of suspects, a colleague of Cara’s, and I wonder if Garcia knows about Hughes, assume he likely does by now.
I hate that we’re not really sharing notes.
I mean, I’m sharing stuff with him and he’s not arresting me for involving myself in his investigation. So there’s that.
“That’s something, thank you.” Hughes worked with Cara and lives in the neighborhood, but he’s been on my periphery anyway. Still, it’s good to have him off the list of suspects.
“How did things go with Chesky?” she asks.
“Weird. Or vague. He told me Cara asked him for a gun.” I recap everything as I keep searching.
Talking makes digging through their personal belongings a lot easier at least.
“Well it lines up with what you know about Ethan’s situation. And Chesky really didn’t care about Hannah blackmailing him?”
“Nope. Or that’s what he says anyway. He’s hard to read but he didn’t seem to care. And I think I believe him. He seems to love Ava. Maybe he wants her husband to find out.”
“If Hannah blackmailed him, then there’s a definite possibility that she blackmailed Ava.”
“I feel like there’s some irony or something if she blackmailed Ava while screwing the woman’s husband.”
“Right?” I pause when I think I hear something, but it’s just a dog barking outside somewhere.
“We need to talk to this Kade Godoy. If he was Hannah’s partner, then he’ll be able to tell us who they blackmailed.
” And it will give us a much better list of suspects to focus on.
Plus, the asshole pulled a gun on me. We’re having a conversation one way or another.
“Agreed…and he’s finally stopped.” Her voice gets quieter even though I know she’s alone in her car.
“Okay, he’s out of his truck, and inside a house.
” She tells me the address before she says, “I’m looking up the property records…
Huh. This place is owned by his dad. But his dad’s in a nursing home.
Or a home health place… I don’t know what to call them. ”
“Maybe this is where he lives, then.”
“All the lights are off. He might be in for the night.”
As I debate my next move, I receive a text from Foxe and realize it’s a group text with Alex included.
Meet me at Lucky’s Diner asap. I think I’ve found something and need you two to look at it.
“If Foxe needs our help, she must be desperate,” I mutter.
Alex snorts. “Right? You okay if I leave Godoy unattended?”
“Yeah. It’s almost midnight. I’m going to play the odds that he’s in for now.”
“Okay, I’ll see you two soon.”
I end the call, hating that I have to stop searching, but I’m done with their room anyway. And if Foxe has something, it’s bound to be useful.
One step at a time, I remind myself. It’s not lost on me that it’s similar to the alcoholic’s mantra of one day at a time. But it fits here too. I want to be frustrated that this is taking time, that I’m not finding out everything I need, but that’s not how life works.
I have to keep forcing myself to focus on the next step. Then the next.
Until I find the truth.
***
“I’m surprised you’re out in public,” I say as I slide into the booth across from Foxe. I’m a little annoyed that she chose the spot facing the door but she got here first.
And there are enough windows that we’ve got a good view of the deserted parking lot.
“Right.” Alex slides in after me.
Foxe shrugs. “This place doesn’t have any security cameras.”
I saw a couple out front but they must be fake or just not working, because that’s something Foxe wouldn’t make a mistake about.
Before I can respond, a cheery-looking woman, especially for so early in the morning, arrives with a tray of two coffees and three pieces of pie and begins setting them out. Her nametag says Minnie.
“She told me what y’all would want.” Her accent is faint, but I detect a little Georgia in her voice.
“Pretty sure this is the only time I’ve been okay with someone ordering for me,” Alex murmurs as she digs into what’s blueberry pie.
Mine is banoffee and I have to actively not moan because oh my god, it’s so good. Foxe really does know us.
“You want to get a room with your pie?” Foxe’s tone is dry.
Apparently I’m not subtle. “I would absolutely get a room with this pie—and show it a good time.”
Foxe grins. “Good. And I know both of you haven’t eaten today so you’re going to get real food too, but I figured pie was the way to start.”
Alex pauses, fork midway to her mouth. “Wait, is this because your news sucks? Are you trying to butter us up with food?”
“No.” Foxe pulls out one of her laptops and slides it around so we can look at it.
I start scanning the files, thankful that Alex reads as fast as I do. We’re both quiet as we read, shovel pie in our mouth, and then eventually pancakes and fruit, which is a nice surprise. I’ve seen some of this stuff before and already know what Cara was working on.
Self-driving air taxis (count me out for that). Similar to self-driving cars, they’re supposed to be the future. On the surface I can appreciate them. In reality, I will avoid them.
When I’m done, I sit back and Alex does the same.
“Explain some of this to me,” Foxe says, which surprises me. But then she adds, “Not the tech stuff, I’m clear on that. I just want to make sure I’m reading all of this right. Regular airline planes have a lot of safety features. That much I know.”
I nod. “They do, even more now than before 9/11. I won’t get into all of it, but the gist of it is that airplanes have a system that’s basically isolated from outside attacks.
The systems aren’t built to be flown remotely—they literally can’t be.
There are no receivers for the flight controls.
Obviously I’m not talking about drones and things like that.
I’m talking about the big-ass people movers. ”
Foxe snorts. “Is that a technical term?”
“Uh yeah. I learned that in my first pilot class.” I grin slightly, then continue. “So the nav system is an entity unto itself without any outside interference possible. Even the entertainment systems are separate in the big airliners.”
“What about autopilot? Could someone take over that?” she asks.
I glance at Alex but she motions for me to answer so I keep going.
“No. Even the autopilot only takes commands from the actual cockpit, not remotely. But even if they could, the way they’re built is so the pilot could simply take over autopilot with a little more force.
They’ll just manually override something like that.
And for the record, I’m talking about flying a plane only.
I’m not talking about communications or ATC because that’s a different system altogether.
” And unfortunately more than one tower has been the victim of cyberattacks.
But that isn’t what she’s asking about anyway.
Foxe nods so I continue.
“This…” I point at the laptop, then out of habit glance over my shoulder.
No one is here except Minnie, who’s flirting with the line cook.
And they’re not paying us any attention.
No wonder Foxe picked this place. “These air taxis, they’re not built like airliner planes because the whole purpose is for them to be flown by a computer.
Theoretically, even if they were hacked, the computer would want to protect itself. ”
“How so?” Foxe asks.
“If one of these air taxis loses access to its guidance system, they’re programmed to return home.
So someone might miss their final destination, but the thought is that if shit goes haywire, they return to wherever their home base is.
Like robot vacuums, they return to base when they’re done.
And some of these are being built with a ballistic parachute system. ”
“Not all?” Foxe looks dubious.
“It’s considered an upgrade.” Which means most won’t have them. Because that’ll cost money, and people never want to spend extra, even for safety.
Foxe nods now. “Okay. So the ‘big-ass people movers’ are protected against outside attacks. Someone could pretend to be ATC if they hacked their system and redirected a pilot, but actually crashing the plane from another location is out of the purview of possibilities.”
“Exactly,” I say as Alex nods.
“But these…” She points at the laptop again. “Are different?”
“Yes.” And one of the reasons I can’t ever see myself riding in one.
I’m too much of a control freak on a good day.
“These are run by computer chips. Like our cars,” I add because it’s the same thing.
And our cars are hackable. Well, my Corolla isn’t because it’s so old, but Cara’s BMW likely is.
Hmm, maybe I need to rethink driving it.
Even if I do love the leather seats and seat warmers.
“The software has to be updated consistently, and from what I just read…” I glance at Alex, who nods and takes over.
“Cara’s company had an issue with some of the software not updating properly. I couldn’t tell you the why of that—that’s your wheelhouse, Foxe,” Alex says.
“And it allowed someone to hack the system.” I pick up where Alex left off.
“It looks like it’s all being monitored and they’re doing everything they’re supposed to as far as safety testing before they roll out these new self-driving air taxis.
” Cara was working night and day on them.
Ava too. “From what I just read, they’ve had a few setbacks, but then fixed the back end.
And from my understanding, these air taxis will be monitored by real humans as a fail-safe. ”
“Okay, that’s what I thought too. Mostly.
But you explained everything enough that I’m on the same page now.
The issue I’m having is that there’s some backdating on some of the testing reports.
They’re trying to make it look like some of the earlier tests passed when they didn’t.
Nothing egregious, but…if they’re backdating some of these reports, I’m worried there might be something else going on.
I’ve seen this kind of thing before with medical testing and it was always a bad thing in the end. ”
That little alarm bell in the back of my head is going off louder now. “What do you need from us?”
“Nothing right now. I wanted to make sure I understood all the little details and I do now. I might need you to get into Ava’s computer again.”
“Just tell me when.” The woman is having an affair, which might end up being a good thing. If she’s off with Marcus while her husband Ryan is off screwing his newest conquest, I can use that to my advantage.