Come and Find Me A Novel of Suspense - By Hallie Ephron Page 0,86
flight.”
“I’m sorry. I thought it was a trick.”
“A trick? Couldn’t you hear me screaming? You crazy—” He stopped and looked around. “Where’s Daniel?”
“I thought you knew. He’s long gone.”
“What do you mean he’s gone?”
“Left hours ago.”
“Gone where?”
“I . . . I don’t know. But he’s not coming back. He said his dream’s been perverted. He’s starting over. Clean. To do that, he had to get away from me. From you.”
The blood left Jake’s face. “From me? No way.”
“I’m just telling you what he said.”
“He wouldn’t just take off.”
“See for yourself.” She pointed to the systems on the floor. “He took all the hard disks with him.” Not that Daniel would be able to use what was stored on them. Soon enough, he’d discover that all of the data had been encrypted.
Jake squatted by one of the servers and peered in at the empty slots. “Where are they?”
Diana held out her hands. “I told you. Daniel took them.”
“I don’t believe you.” Then his gaze swept the room. “Where did you hide them?”
Diana sank down in her chair. As Jake tore through the room, pulling open drawers and clearing shelves, she checked the surveillance feeds. She switched all the exterior cameras to night vision. The one overlooking the loading dock showed a human figure. It was Daniel, getting into the Hummer.
Jake looked everywhere, even inside the little refrigerator.
“Really, they’re not here,” Diana said.
“It makes no sense. Why would he leave when . . . ?”
“When you’re about to hit pay dirt?”
He gave her a cold stare. “Something like that.”
Jake went over to his workstation and toggled through the security camera feeds. Diana watched, her heart in her throat. Her plans depended on help arriving on schedule.
“I told you. He’s gone,” she said.
Jake grabbed her upper arm. “What did you say to him?”
She wrenched free. She had to be careful not to overplay her hand. “I just pointed out the obvious. That you and Daniel have different goals. He’s an idealist. And you . . . well, you’re not.”
“I do what it takes to get Daniel what he wants,” Jake said. “It’s not cheap, getting the wherewithal to save the world from Big Brother and all that shit that he’s into. He’s known that from the beginning.”
“From the beginning. And when was it that you started planning all of this?” She indicated the space around them.
Jake looked at Diana, eyes narrowed. “Does it matter?”
“It matters to me.”
He laughed. “Let’s just say it’s been a very long time.”
“Whose idea was it for Daniel to fake his own death?”
“I know you want me to say it was my idea. But it wasn’t.” Jake laughed again in that not-funny way. “I warned him you’d never buy that lame story.”
“He knew that I’d want to believe it.”
He gave her a pitying smile. “Then I’m sorry to have to tell you this. The accident was Daniel’s idea. You were there as a witness, and a means to an end after it.”
Even though Diana had figured that out for herself, her heart wrenched when she heard Jake being so brutally and casually dismissive.
Jake went on. “His dream was to disappear, live off the grid, and, like the man said, sow chaos. To do that, he needed to sever his ties. Daniel’s great at the vision thing. Not so good at tactics. So the details of the operation—that was more of a joint project.”
“So the whole idea was to set me up as a front? Whose idea was it to use the trust I’d earned to hack my client’s data?”
“I’m sure you can guess the answer to that. I don’t give a shit about their frickin’ data.”
“Right. All you care about is fleecing them after the hack. That’s your department.”
“Accounts receivable.” Jake brushed his fingers and thumb together. “You’d be surprised how much people are willing to pay to protect their reputations. Fortunately, less than it costs to finance this operation.”
Diana said, “More than a million and a half, just to buy this place.”
If Jake was surprised that she knew, he didn’t show it. “Seemed like a bargain at the time. Still does.”
“Must have set you back even more to make it livable.”
“Fences. Plumbing. Wiring. Would you believe it costs more to blast potholes than it would have cost to build an access road, brand-new. Though in New Hampshire it’s easy to find folks willing to do it off the books.”
“Was it too risky to put the property in your own name? Certainly you couldn’t put it in Daniel’s.”