Chapter 9
9
“Knock knock, anybody home?”
In quick succession, Gunnar heard a woman’s voice, hoped it was Ruth, then realized it wasn’t. The same little rollercoaster ride had been happening every time a woman walked into the garage lately. So far, it had never been Ruth.
This time, Charlie Santa Lucia strolled into the shop, shoving her sunglasses to the top of her head. Gunnar set down the brake pad he’d just pried off Bennie Thomas’ 2004 Subaru Outback. “Hey, Charlie. Thanks for taking the time.”
“I owe you one. I took refuge in here once, remember that?”
“That was nothing.” When Charlie had first come to Firelight Ridge, she’d been running from the man who was now her man. Gunnar hadn’t thought twice about letting her hide out in his back office. Of course he’d had no clue he’d stepped in the midst of a romance, but then again, neither had they.
“Well, I appreciated it at the time, and still do. So what did you want to show me?”
He led her to that very same back office, which was now more like Nelson’s playground. The two of them had reorganized it so that Nelson had room for his comic books and video games. That seemed to be all it took to keep him happy, though more and more, he accepted Gunnar’s invitations to get outside—probably because Gunnar sometimes let him drive the ATV.
“Nelson, this is Charlie, remember we met her in the Magic Bus? She’s a hacker.”
“Former hacker,” Charlie said modestly. “Or should I say, reformed. I only use my knowledge for good and to help out friends with computer mysteries.”
Speechless, Nelson watched as Charlie folded her blonde, tall-drink-of-water self into the chair in front of the desktop. Gunnar couldn’t blame the kid. Charlie was a knockout with her brash confidence and wry manner.
“This is the database that Nelson found.”
She nodded and scrolled through the entries at a dizzying pace. “Can you tell me anything about it? You said it was your father’s. Any idea what he might have been tracking like this?”
“No. As far as I know, my father was just a mechanic. In the seventeen years I knew him, that’s what he did. He fixed vehicles, and he took care of me, and sometimes he went to The Fang for a beer, and that was about it. He skied a lot, too. Backcountry, telemark. Loved to ski. Loved to hike. I think that’s why we moved here. I never even saw him use this computer.”
“Could someone else have created this file?”
“No. He never had anyone working for him. It was just him and me.”
Charlie glanced up at him in surprise. “What about your mother?”
“She died when I was little.”
“I’m sorry.”
Gunnar shrugged. The departure of his father had affected him much more than the loss of his mother, since he’d been seventeen instead of two. “Thanks,” he said briefly.
Charlie resumed her scrolling. “To be honest, it looks like some kind of code to me. These numbers aren’t amounts, or dates, or coordinates, or any of the obvious numerical designators. I think the numbers stand for something else.”
“Like what? Can you decipher it?”
“Not without some kind of key.” She looked over at Nelson. “Have you found anything like that? Maybe something that shows a correspondence between numbers and letters?”
Nelson shook his head no.
“Would it have to be in the computer?” Gunnar asked.
“Not at all. Maybe he wrote it down on paper somewhere.” They all looked over at the filing cabinets, which were so stuffed with papers that the drawers didn’t quite close all the way. “Good luck with that. I’m a digital gal, not analog.”
Gunnar gave a sigh. As if he had time to go through decades’ worth of paperwork in the middle of summer. “I guess it’ll have to stay a mystery.”
“I’m sorry,” Charlie said sympathetically. “Want me to try a decryption program?”
“Sure.”
She tapped some keys, then sat back. “This is the part where we wait.”
As they all stared at the spinning circle on the screen, Nelson suddenly found his voice. “That’s not what my mom said.”
Gunnar and Charlie both turned to the boy. “What are you talking about?” Gunnar asked.
”You said your father was just a mechanic and didn’t do anything else.”
“Yeah. Did your mom say something different?”
“I overheard her talking on the phone before we came here.” Nelson shoved his glasses back into place. “She said he was a sea agent.”
“What’s a sea agent?” Charlie frowned in puzzlement.
“I don’t know. I couldn’t really hear very well because she was walking back and forth on the patio.
But a cold chill was slowly traveling down Gunnar’s spine, an icy possibility that seemed too impossible to contemplate. “Did she say CIA agent, Nelson? Does that sound like what she said?”
“Maybe. Yeah. CIA agent.” He screwed up his face. “It could have been that.”
Good lord. If Bridget really believed that their father was a CIA agent, why hadn’t she breathed one word of it to him?
Charlie looked down at the computer screen. “I sure hope I didn’t just access classified information,” she said lightly, with just an edge of nervousness. “I don’t need any more trouble along those lines.”
Classified information? This was getting more surreal by the minute. Was a SWAT team about to rappel down the side of his shop and bust through the window? There was only one in this office, tucked under the ceiling to provide some light. Gunnar glanced at it nervously, then shook his head at his own movie-fueled paranoia. He’d watched too many of Kathy’s DVDs.
“We don’t even know what the information is. Or if it’s information at all. Maybe it’s just random numbers,” he said hopefully.
She raised an eyebrow at him. “It’s a lot of trouble to go to for a bunch of random numbers.”
Just as she said that, the decryption program ended and the results flashed on the screen. No match .
“What does that mean?”
“It means that whatever code he used, this program doesn’t know about it. It’s very obscure, and created by someone who knows encryption.”
They all fell silent as they gazed at the computer screen. To Gunnar, it felt like one of those dividing-line moments. He could either try to figure out what these numbers meant, or he could close the file and move on.
“Maybe we should look at the other things he has on his desktop,” said Nelson. “He could have left the code somewhere else.” He moved his hand toward the keyboard, but Gunnar stopped him.
“Sorry, Nelson. I need to think about this. I’m responsible for you while you’re here, and I don’t want you to get dragged into anything risky.”
“Huh?” Nelson shoved dark curls away from his face. “Why is it risky?”
“Because I don’t know what’s going on here.” He punched the button that turned off the desktop. “You’re telling me my father could have been a CIA agent and—” He stopped abruptly as a memory surfaced. Shortly before his father had disappeared, Gunnar had surprised him coming back from a ski. His expression had been grim, far from his normally genial one. As soon as he’d seen Gunnar, he’d tried to adjust it, but too late.
“Everything okay, Pop?”
“Listen to me.” He’d taken Gunnar by the shoulders and given him that “serious life lesson” look that Gunnar always took seriously. “Everything I do, it’s for you. This place, this shop, these mountains…I did the best I could. You’re safe here. All this is for you.”
“Okaaaay…” All of it was so strange, Gunnar hadn’t been sure how to react. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Just remember all I’ve taught you. You can trust the folks here, most of them, anyway. Except the Chilkoots. Watch out for them, you understand?”
After that, he’d launched into a story about the wolverine he’d spotted near Thunder Pass.
Gunnar snapped back to attention as Nelson tugged on his sleeve. “Uncle Gunnar? Uncle Gunnar? Does this mean I can’t use the computer anymore?”
“You can use it, just stay out of my father’s part of it. You can do that, right?”
Nelson nodded, a little crestfallen, but clearly happy that he wasn’t going to lose access to the entire computer.
Charlie gave him a sympathetic pat on the back as she got up to go. “You let me know if you need me to do any research, okay?” she murmured on her way out. “I won’t do anything without your go-ahead.”
He nodded, feeling more numb than anything else. If his father had had some secret identity, did he want to know? Did it matter at this point? Would it help bring him back to Firelight Ridge? What if he was a rogue agent who was running from authorities? What if he’d left Gunnar because he’d been given another assignment, and figured Gunnar was grown enough to be on his own? Grown enough not to be heartbroken by being abandoned?
All this time, he’d interpreted that conversation with his father to mean that he was leaving the shop to him. That was why he’d stayed here after his dad’s disappearance. It was a way to feel close to him, to exist in the world his father had built for him.
He’d also feared that if he left, his father might come back and find him gone, and they’d never see each other again.
He walked Charlie out of the garage, into the fresh pure mountain air. The ridge known as Firelight Ridge was lit up by the afternoon sunshine, the alders and lupine giving it a vivid purple glow. So familiar…and yet suddenly, unfamiliar.
Questions were flooding through him, questions that had percolated unspoken for years.
Why had his father chosen this place in particular? Why had he raised Gunnar so far outside what might be considered “normal”? Gunnar had hung out with enough tourists to know that his childhood was unusual. He didn’t care—he was happy with life, happy with who he was and where he was.
But that didn’t answer the question—why?
“Listen, Charlie,” he murmured as she was about to hop onto her bicycle. “Can you please keep all this to yourself?”
“Of course.” Then she hesitated. “It’s hard to keep things from Nick. Not only is he a professional investigator, but he knows me really well.”
Crap. It was probably a lot to ask, to keep a secret from your significant other. “If you tell him, can you make sure he knows I don’t want this getting out? Not until I can sort it through in my head.”
“Absolutely. One thing about PI’s, they know how to keep secrets. And Gunnar…” She touched him lightly on the arm. “Everyone in this town cares about you and would have your back in a second.”
“Except the Chilkoots,” he said automatically, thinking of what his father had said.
She didn’t get it, of course. “I don’t know about that. I’ve seen how Ruth looks at you.”
Ruth. He hoped his reaction didn’t show on his face—his worry for her, his wish to see her walking into his garage.
All of that felt very distant right now. He had other things to deal with.
Right now, there was no room for anything in his life except this massive mystery that had just landed in his lap.