Chapter 35
35
“ I ’ll go get us coffee,” Jackson said as she opened the laptop Leo gave her the day before. “You like yours black, Lina, but Leo?”
“Cream and sugar, please,” he said without looking up from his screen.
Lina flashed Jackson a smile. He leaned over and kissed her temple before heading out.
“Do you like being a CPA?” Leo asked as he typed something on his keyboard.
Lina shrugged and pulled up a browser. “I like math, and the rules make it easy.”
“Not exactly as exciting as your prior job.”
“Excitement is overrated,” she said, shutting down the discussion. It didn’t surprise her that Leo knew her past employer. He probably knew half her missions, too. That didn’t mean she intended to talk about them, though.
“HICC is always looking for good people,” he added.
“Thanks, but no thanks. I prefer my travels to be more about cocktails and beaches than subterfuge and misdirection.” As she spoke the words, she realized how true they were. She’d spent her entire early life training to be a spy. And she’d been a damn good one in her short tenure. So good, the agency still called, asking her to come back. She always said no, but on those quiet nights, she sometimes wondered if she should—her life had become so pedantic. But the truth was, she did like her job. And, more to the point, she liked her quiet, routine life.
“Fair enough,” Leo said. “You get the files?”
She nodded. “Opening the first now.” She clicked on the top file in the link Leo sent. Instantly, she recognized it as a doorbell camera on the Kuntz house, four doors down and across the street from her dad’s. She’d played with their daughter growing up, but they’d lost touch when Elsa went to boarding school on the East Coast for high school.
As the video rolled, Jackson reentered the room with three mugs. Handing one to Leo, he retook his seat and slid one over to her. “Finding anything interesting?”
“I just started,” she said, shifting her computer so he could see the screen. They watched in silence, sipping their coffee. A few cars drove by, and they did their best to slow the video and zoom in, but at that distance, the quality wasn’t great.
“I assume the police ran all the plates they could get from the videos?” Jackson asked.
“They did. Most are neighbors. A couple are delivery people,” Leo answered.
“Any chance a neighbor could have done it?” he asked her.
“Unlikely that a neighbor is tied to Navios, and I think it would be too much of a coincidence to think that after thirty-five years of living in that house, my dad suddenly pissed off a neighbor enough to kill him.”
“Fair,” Jackson said, taking a sip of his coffee. “If all the cars have checked out, what about the people?”
A young couple passed by the camera’s field of vision. The man wore one of those baby slings, and the woman held the leash of a golden retriever.
“I don’t know their names, but they live two streets over and take their dog to the dog park at the end of the block all the time,” she said, nodding to the family. Then, picking up her coffee, she sat back. The video continued but showed no movement—no cars, no people, not even a cat.
“You raise a good point, though,” she said, keeping her attention on the screen. “There are neighbors on all sides, making it hard to come in from the back. Two of them also have dogs that are outside most of the time—both of whom are barkers.” She smiled as a memory popped into her head. “My dad didn’t work at home very often, but he had these huge noise-canceling earphones he’d wear because the dogs drove him crazy.”
She paused, realizing it was the first time that a memory of her dad—not her mom and dad, but just her dad—made her smile. He looked so ridiculous when he wore those over-earmuffs. They were twice the size of regular ones and dwarfed his head.
“The dogs would have barked if they heard anything in your dad’s yard?” Jackson asked.
“Definitely,” she answered with a nod.
“There were no reports of dogs barking,” Leo interjected, his face a foot from his computer as he scoured something.
“They came in from the front,” Jackson said.
“And if all the cars were checked, that means they walked to the house. Maybe parked around the corner or at the small plaza at the bottom of the hill. Either way, we should see them in at least one of the videos,” she said, returning her attention to the screen.
A woman walked by with a small dog on a leash. Tall and thin, she wore a thick three-quarter-length coat in an animal print over a pair of black leggings. That wasn’t what caught Lina’s attention, though.
When the woman passed from view, Lina rewound the video and watched it again. Then again. After the third time, she sat back. “Do you see what I see?”
Jackson’s lips thinned. “That was Nest. Which means Sam is nearby.”
“Who’s Nest?” Leo asked, pulling himself away from the computer. “And Sam?”
Lina rewound the video, pausing it on a clear side view of Nest. Rotating the computer, she said, “That’s Nest.”
“She was with the man following Lina when she called me. We nicknamed him Sam because he reminded us of Yosemite Sam,” Jackson said, pulling out his phone. Swiping through several pictures until he found the right one, he handed it over to Leo.
“I thought you called Viper because of your dad’s murder. I hadn’t heard you were followed.” He looked at the phone. “And this is the man?” he asked, holding the device up. On the screen was the picture Jackson took in the bar with Sam’s face in full view, but only the back of Nest’s head.
She looked at Jackson.
“We never shared our theory,” he said.
“We got caught up in the hunt for the clues,” she said with a shake of her head.
“What theory?” Leo asked, tapping Jackson’s phone, presumably sending himself the picture.
“I fled Seattle because my dad told me to. I didn’t call Jackson until I realized I was being followed. Then, when Jackson and I finally had a chance to think about it, we both thought it was weird. If the killers were after my dad, why follow me?”
“Because they had reason to believe you had—or could lead them to—information they wanted?” Leo finished, leaning back in his chair.
“Which meant they knew about the bag,” Jackson said.
“And the map,” she said.
Leo’s expression darkened as he realized the implications, realized that Dr. Kato’s death hadn’t been swift. That Sam and Nest had witnessed him crawl to wherever he hid the bag intended for Lina. And when they found the map and realized they couldn’t read it, they waited for someone who could—Lina.
“Why wouldn’t they just take the bag?” Leo asked. “If you never found it, we never would have figured the rest of this out,” he said, waving to the death certificates.
“They couldn’t be sure, though, could they?” Jackson said. “Maybe they thought she’d know to look for it if something happened to her father. Or maybe they thought the map led to someone who could tell her everything—someone who knew as much as Dr. Kato. Someone they might also need to silence.”
“It was safer to let me take it and make sure all the loose ends were tied up,” Lina finished.
Leo considered this with a nod. “Whatever their motivation, I’ve got my next step.” When both she and Jackson each raised an eyebrow in question, Leo grinned and held up his phone, showing the picture he’d sent himself. “HICC has one of the most powerful facial recognition programs in the world. Whoever Sam and Nest are, they won’t be in the shadows much longer.”