Chapter Fourteen
“You sitting down?”
Grant Calvin’s voice sounded more somber than Nick had heard in a long time. His first thought was for Grant’s wife.
“Is Gemma okay?”
“What? Of course she’s alright. No, this is about Simon Norville.”
Nick rolled his neck, felt the muscles bunch up at the mention of the man’s name. “What about him?”
“He’s in critical condition. They’ve moved him to the intensive care unit at RMH.”
Royal Melbourne Hospital was one of the two largest trauma hospitals around Melbourne, and Nick was familiar with it, having been a patient at their facilities more than once.
“What happened? I thought he was on lockdown.”
“He is or was. He’s allowed one hour a day outside. Guess the guards got lax, since he’s in a wheelchair, and weren’t paying close attention. A fight broke out. Norville got thrown from his chair and stomped pretty bad. Lost consciousness, and it’s serious enough the prison doctors weren’t sure if there was any kind of traumatic brain injury, so he’s been transferred.”
“He still unconscious?”
“At latest report, yes. They’re supposed to call the minute he wakes up.”
Nick pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering when they’d catch a break. With Norville now out of commission, and the hit man still on the loose, this cat and mouse game was driving him crazy. The shooter had struck twice. First when he shot Antonio, and the second time when they bombed his car. No, wait, three times if he counted the slashed tires.
“Where do we stand on finding out about the nieces and nephew? Were you able to track their movements?”
“Jesse Norville, the nephew, was the easiest. He’s only been out of the country once in the last six months. Had a business seminar in London for his company. We were able to confirm that he checked into the hotel, charged meals at a couple of restaurants. Waiting for confirmation from the event coordinators that he actually attended, but he’s not popping as being your shooter.”
“Alright. What about the two nieces?” There was silence for a moment before Grant coughed, the sound raspy and deep. It had a choking quality to it, enough that it worried Nick. “You alright? That doesn’t sound good.”
“No worries, mate, I’m fine. Nothing to worry about. Anyway, Cassandra Bishop, she’s been a bit trickier to confirm alibis for because she’s in and out of the country all the time. Get this, she’s a travel writer for an online magazine. Goes to places, takes lots of photos, then writes up what she liked and didn’t like about the place. In the last six months, she’s been to Greece, South Africa, Iceland, Hong Kong, and the States. Specifically, Texas.”
Nick sat a little straighter, a tickle of excitement spreading through him. “Where in Texas?”
“Dallas and Fort Worth. But that’s not that far from Shiloh Springs, is it?”
“About three, three and a half hours by car.”
“That’s what I figured. I’m still looking at the dates, checking flights and destinations. You know the drill. But what’s to say she didn’t sashay over to the U.S. while she was supposed to be in one of those other places? Seeing as she’s Norville’s kin, and she works on computers every day, she might be savvy enough to fake a second identity for traveling from point A to point B.”
“Cassandra Bishop. Name doesn’t ring any bells for me. But if she wasn’t directly involved with Norville’s criminal activities or the trial, it wouldn’t.”
“So far, most of her trips align with dates you were in Texas, which, if we can verify them, would eliminate her from the suspect pool. Supposedly, she was in Athens during the period Antonio Boudreau was shot.”
“You sound like you’re not convinced.”
“I’m not. She’s too squeaky clean. Every T crossed, every I dotted. She’s either the biggest OCD person I’ve ever seen, or she’s got something to hide.”
Nick smiled because he knew his old friend well. Calvin was suspicious of everyone, didn’t trust easily. And ninety-nine percent of the time his instincts were spot on. If he suspected Cassandra Bishop, chances were good there’d end up being a good reason for his following his gut.
“Keep digging, I trust your judgment. What about the other niece?”
Grant chuckled. “Now here’s where things get interesting. She’s Cassandra Bishop’s sister. Her twin sister.”
“Twins?”
“Yep. Alexandra Bishop. Spitting image of her sister too. Identical twins. Now do you get why I’m suspicious of Cassandra? How simple would it be to switch places with her sister? Say Alexandra uses Cassandra’s passport, goes to Athens while Cassandra, under an alias, follows you on your jaunts to America to visit the Boudreaus?”
“Any activity on Alexandra Bishop’s passport for the last six months?”
“Nope.” Nick heard papers flipping in the background. Not surprised because he knew Calvin was old school, loved printouts where he could make notes and mark things up. “Alexandra lives in Geelong, has a small place by the beach. There are no records of her leaving there. From what I can tell, she’s a bit of a homebody, and rarely ventures far from her home.”
“Except she did visit Norville in prison.” A picture was forming in Nick’s head, but it seems so outrageous as to be impossible.
“Yes, she did. Several times, in fact.”
“We have Cassandra, who’s a bit of a globetrotter and has been in multiple places in the past six months. Alexandra hasn’t left the country at all. Jesse made one trip. London. Have I got that right so far?”
“You do. What are you thinking?”
“That one plus one plus one doesn’t equal three. I’ve gotta go. Keep checking into Cassandra’s alibis. Something doesn’t feel right.”
“Will do. I meant to ask, how are you doing? Gemma keeps pestering me to check in with you. You know how she is, she worries. You’re her baby boy. I had to stop her from buying a plane ticket to America when she heard about the car bomb explosion.”
Nick smiled at the thought of the woman who’d been such a part of his life for a long time. “Tell Gemma I’m fine. I promise I’ll video chat with her soon, so she can see for herself. I was lucky; it could have been a lot worse.”
“Keep your eyes open, Nick. Something about this whole situation feels…off. I can’t put my finger on it, but my gut’s telling me things are about to come to a head, and we better be ready.”
“I’ll be careful. Talk to you soon.”
Disconnecting the call, Nick stood and stretched, the muscles in his back protesting being still for so long. Walking out onto the front porch, he looked around, taking a deep breath. He might have lived in Australia for more than half his life, in between jobs, but there was something about Texas that made him feel like he’d come home. A good part of that was the Boudreaus and this ranch, because he had memories tied to it. But it was something more than the family’s ranch. More than the dirt beneath his feet or a sense of nostalgia.
No, it was a beautiful brunette bombshell who had snuck into his heart and soul. Who stole his breath every time he saw her. Made him forget everyone and everything. He wanted to snatch her up and sail away to a secluded paradise where it was just the two of them, with nobody threatening or bullying or trying to kill them. Where they could simply be themselves and be together.
Because wherever Gracie was, that was home.
Nick waited impatientlyon the porch. He’d knocked a couple of times, but nobody answered. Too bad he knew they were home. He’d seen them drive past the Big House about twenty minutes earlier, and their truck was parked in front of the old foreman’s house. After his talk with Calvin, he couldn’t stop thinking about the twins, Cassandra and Alexandra Bishop. They were connected with Norville through blood, though he didn’t know how deep that connection ran. Sometimes family was close and other times distant familial bonds were easily broken.
“Hang on, hang on, I’m coming,” Dane groused before swinging the front door open. “Nick. Is something wrong?”
“Can I talk with Destiny? I’m hoping she can help me with some computer-related stuff.”
“Uh, sure, come in.” Dane ushered Nick into the living area before turning to yell toward the stairs, “Des, honey, Nick’s here. He’s got a couple of questions for you.”
“Be right down.”
The clip-clop-thump of feet running down the stairs preceded Destiny’s appearance through the side opening into the kitchen. Looking a bit disheveled, she brushed her hair back off her face and offered Nick a tentative smile. He had the feeling he’d interrupted some personal time between the two.
“Hi, Nick. What can I help you with?”
“You’re the best computer person I know here in the States. Wondered if I might pick your brain with a couple of questions.”
“Dude, she’s one of the best computer experts in the world. At least according to good old Uncle Sam, who keeps trying to steal her away to work for them.”
Destiny bumped her shoulder against Dane’s. “Stop. You know I’m not going anywhere.”
“Darn right, you’re not.” Dane placed a brief kiss against Destiny’s forehead. “Their loss is my gain.”
“Um, you guys want me to come back later?” Nick almost felt like an unwanted third wheel. While it was lovely to see one of the Boudreau brothers happy, he needed help figuring out whether his hunch about the twins held water.
“No, it’s okay. What can I help with? I’m always up for a little computer sleuthing. Please, please, tell me you want me to help you spy on somebody important. Maybe the Prime Minister of Australia? Oh, I could dig into ASIS, let you look at your file?” Destiny’s expression was filled with mischief, and Nick bet Dane had his hands full trying to keep this one on the straight and narrow.
“Thanks, maybe another time for some fun. Right now, I need you to help me look into a couple of people. Twin sisters. Cassandra and Alexandra Norville.”
“Norville? That name’s familiar. Isn’t that one of the men you mentioned to Dad you suspect of being involved in Antonio’s shooting?” Dane motioned for Nick to follow him and Destiny into an office space tucked away in the back of the house, past the kitchen.
“Simon Norville. Yeah, he’s at the top of the list of persons of interest. The twins are his nieces.”
Destiny sat and immediately started typing, her hands flying across the keyboard. There were three color monitors across the desktop, and photos and pages of data began populating each as she typed. Finally, she stopped and began explaining what she’d found.
“The picture on the left is Cassandra Norville. That’s her passport photo, which was issued about eighteen months ago. Prior to that, she didn’t have one. The picture on the right is Alexandra. Again, that’s her passport photo. Hers is less than a year old. They’re definitely identical twins. The only thing distinguishing them is their hair. Alexandra’s looks like it’s her natural color, what I’d call a mousy brown. Cassandra on the other hand has changed hers to platinum blonde.”
Nick studied the photos of the twins closely. He didn’t recognize either of them, though up until six months ago, he’d been involved in the Brashear case, and hadn’t been back in Australia much. Deep undercover, he been too focused on bringing down the human trafficking ring to pay much attention to his prior arrests.
“You’ll note that Alexandra’s passport has never been used. Cassandra’s looks like a frequent flyer, a different country almost every month. Lucky girl.” She pointed to a different monitor. “She writes travel articles for a magazine-type blog, The Travel Bug. Not a very original name. Doesn’t look like they’ve got a lot of traffic to their site, either. Lemme see who owns the mag.” Her fingers raced across the keys, and she gave a grunt of satisfaction. “Yeah, just what I thought. Cassandra owns the domain for the magazine. Interestingly, she started it just over six months ago. Pays all her own expenses for travel, meals, etc.”
“You got all that in less than five minutes? I’m impressed.”
“Oh, Nick, you ain’t seen nothing yet. It would be easier if you could tell me what you’re looking for.”
“My boss has been looking into any connection between Simon Norville and the hit on my life. So far he’s dug up three family members who have visited Norville while he’s been incarcerated. The twins, who are his nieces, and a nephew, Jesse Norville.” As Nick spoke, Destiny started typing, giving him a keep going motion. “We’ve pretty much eliminated Jesse. He’s only left Australia once in the past six months, on a work trip to London.”
“Are you thinking Norville hired somebody, or had somebody do the dirty work for him, since he’s not allowed to use computers?” Dane leaned against the wall while Destiny worked, though he had kept a silent vigil until now. “Dad mentioned something about Norville being in a wheelchair.”
“He is. Paralyzed from a fall which he blames me for. We struggled during his arrest, when he tried to run. I tackled him and we fell down a flight of stairs. Man hates my guts.”
“Um, guys, somethings not adding up here.” Destiny looked at Nick. “Take a look at this.” She pointed to a photo on the third monitor.
“What am I looking at?”
“I might have been tinkering with a facial recognition program that a friend developed. Really cool stuff, a whole lot better than anything available on the market today. He sent me a copy a few months ago, and we’ve been making adjustments and tinkering. Stefan Carlisle works for Carpenter Security Services in New Orleans, and people who know about this software are ready and willing to toss billions of dollars his way to license it. Anyway, this right here is a surveillance photo of Cassandra Bishop five and a half months ago in Greece. Athens, to be more precise.”
“Right. Calvin said she was in Athens right around that time.”
“By every account, he’s absolutely right. The passport shows Cassandra Bishop. Identification shows it’s her too. Plane ticket, hotel, they all show Cassandra Bishop. Except this,” she tapped the screen, “isn’t Cassandra. It’s Alexandra.”
“Wait, what? How can you tell?”
“Like I said, awesome facial recognition software. I won’t go into all the technical stuff you probably wouldn’t understand about pixels and finite measurements and all that jazz. But there are subtle differences which aren’t visible to the naked eye. Like the cheekbones being higher and wider on Alexandra. By millimeters, but it’s there. It’s hard to explain. There’re also indications she’s wearing a wig.”
“They switched places?”
“I can’t say that. What I can say is that the person in Athens using Cassandra Bishop’s identification is not Cassandra. Whether she and Alexandra planned it together or whether Alexandra stole her sister’s identity? Facial recognition can’t tell me that.”
Nick’s mind raced at the implications. Why would Alexandra pretend to be her twin sister? And if Alexandra was in Athens six months earlier, where was Cassandra? He was quickly finding himself with more questions than answers.
Six months earlier, he’d been in Brashear’s headquarters in Dubai, posing as his bodyguard/right hand man, half a world away from Norville. He knew the man hated him and had sworn vengeance, the entire gallery in the courtroom heard him. Yet he hadn’t made a move toward Nick in all this time. Had he been playing a long game, working and planning with one of his family members to take Nick out?
“Can you check Cassandra’s travel since then? She’s supposed been in several places, at least according to her travel blog, magazine thing. Iceland, Hong Kong, and I think South Africa.”
“I’m on it. Give me a few minutes. Honey, can I get a Diet Coke, lots of ice? And my Skittles?” Destiny shot a cheeky grin over her shoulder at her husband. Turning back around, she looked at Nick. “That’s my thinking food when I’m going deep. My brain wants sugar.”
“You get me this information and I’ll buy you a case of Skittles.”
“Deal.”
He watched as she focused on her monitors and keyboard, and soon he realized she was engrossed in her task, and had blocked out everything around her. Dane placed a large glass filled to the brim with her requested drink along with a bowl almost overflowing with the colorful candy. Destiny reached out and grabbed a handful, popping them into her mouth and chewing while she worked.
Dane gestured toward the kitchen with a jerk of his chin and Nick followed, leaving Destiny alone with her computer.
“Coffee or Diet Coke? That’s pretty much all I’ve got to offer at the moment. Destiny cleaned out all the Diet Dr Pepper yesterday.”
“Coffee would be great.” Nick looked around and liked what he saw. The former foreman’s house had been extensively renovated and expanded. A large modern kitchen that had U-shaped white cabinets around three sides with granite countertops in a dark gray. State-of-the-art stainless-steel appliances with double ovens and a Viking refrigerator complimented the set up. It was a chef’s dream kitchen, and he couldn’t help wondering who the cook was in their family.
Nick took a seat at the eat-in breakfast area, and watched Dane pop one of those little coffee pods into the machine. Within minutes, he held a steaming hot cup within his hands. Taking a sip, he let the warmth seep into him, and a little of the tension in his muscles eased. He had the feeling Destiny was on the right track, and while he trusted all the people he worked with in Australia, and their computer techs were some of the best in the world, Douglas had told him time and again how good Destiny’s computer skills were. There was a story there, he was convinced, but until they were ready to share it with him, he was quite happy to let her do all the heavy lifting.
He had to admit he was surprised she’d discovered Alexandra’s subterfuge with Cassandra’s ID so fast. Calvin’s guy hadn’t found that yet, and Destiny took a whole five minutes to uncover the switcheroo. He’d better not mention to Calvin about the facial recognition software, or he had the feeling there’d be another country trying to convince her and this Stefan guy to sell.
Muttering sounds came from the office area, and Dane chuckled as he walked to the table with his own cup. “That’s my girl. She talks back to the computer when she’s working. Must not be too bad right now. I’m not hearing death threats and nothing’s been thrown across the room.” A loud bang almost immediately followed his words. “Oops. Guess I spoke too soon.”
“Gets a little involved, does she?”
“When she’s working on a project, I can lose her completely for hours. Sometimes days. It’s like she’s in a whole other world when she’s at the keyboard. Of course, I can’t complain, because her computer skills saved my life.”
“Really?”
Dane chuckled. “On the Dark Web, Destiny found out someone had put a contract on my life. Turns out somebody uncovered the fact that my name was changed when I was little, to protect me and my familial inheritance. My love came and warned me, and things kind of spiraled from there. We ended up in Vegas and got hitched there.”
“How big an explosion did Ms. Patti have about you getting married in Las Vegas?”
“It wasn’t her happiest moment, true, but she adores Destiny, so everything worked out. Besides, I’m not the only one who got hitched when she and Dad weren’t around to witness. Actually, Rafe and Tessa are the first ones who’ve had the whole big white wedding thing that Momma wanted.”
He knew Rafe had gotten married recently, and of course Ms. Patti and Douglas had renewed their vows. Seemed like most of the Boudreaus had met their soulmates and gotten their happily ever after. The only ones still unattached were Gage and Nica. He could only imagine what Ms. Patti had dreamed of for her baby girl’s wedding, whenever it happened.
“Hey, guys, come here.”
Nick eased to his feet at Destiny’s call, his muscles still achy and sore from the explosion, yet tense as anticipation raced through his mind. Maybe they were close to figuring out this intricate puzzle of players and could unravel who wanted him dead.
“Did you find something, hon?”
“Maybe. It’s weird. We determined Alexandra was the twin in Athens. When I checked Hong Kong, it’s clearly Cassandra. Iceland is Alexandra. South Africa is again Cassandra. It’s like they’re taking turns traveling, which makes absolutely no sense.”
Nick ran his hand through his hair, beginning to feel that ever growing sense of frustration rising. “What about the U.S. That was on the list Calvin gave me.”
Destiny swallowed down a huge swig of her Diet Coke before answering, a big grin starting to appear on her face. “That’s where things get interesting. Eight weeks ago Cassandra Bishop flew into DFW. Around the same time, there’s evidence that Jesse Norville also flew into DFW.”
“Jesse? I thought the only activity on his passport was the trip to London.”
“That’s true. His legal passport was only used one time for the aforementioned trip. But, when I loaded his photo into the facial recognition program, it clearly shows him flying into DFW with Cassandra Bishop. They came in on the same flight from Sydney, nonstop straight to Dallas-Fort Worth. The facial recognition isn’t mistaken. Jesse Norville flew under the name Joseph Simons.”
“You’re sure it’s Cassandra? Not Alexandra?”
The look Destiny shot his way had him raise his hands in defeat. Yeah, she wouldn’t make a mistake about her precious facial recognition program. If it said it was Cassandra, then it was her. Which begged the question, why did both Cassandra and Jesse fly into DFW together? It might have been an innocent trip, except that Jesse used a fake ID, which raised all kinds of questions.
“Any evidence Alexandra might have come in before or after them?”
“Program’s still running. If she did, it’ll be under another name, because Alexandra Bishop doesn’t pop in any database as leaving Australia.”
“Does it show them going back to Australia after they flew into DFW eight weeks ago?”
“No. I’ve checked manifests, passports, and security footage. Unless they managed to have plastic surgery and change their bone structure, we should have picked them up. So I’m pretty confident in saying they are still in the States. Can’t say specifically where they are, but that’s what I’ve been able to find. Want me to keep digging?”
“Is there any way to see if they’ve been in Shiloh Springs? Or maybe any of the surrounding towns? Austin might be a good starting place.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but it’ll take a while. Going through closed circuit cameras is a whole lot different than scanning airport security footage. I’ll let you know the minute I find anything, okay?”
“Thank you. This information has helped a lot. I need to talk to my boss, update him on what you’ve found. Thanks again.”
Nick headed back toward the Big House. He needed to talk to Calvin, let him know what Destiny uncovered. Try to make some sense of the whole convoluted mess the three cousins had created.
Reaching the front porch, he sat on the porch swing and pulled out his cell phone, dialing his boss.
“Nick, I was just going to call you.” Calvin’s harried tone instantly alerted Nick there was a problem.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Norville. He’s gone.”