Simply Lies

Chapter 47

Clarisse sat in front of her computer screens writing something down in a new notebook. It was labeled War on the Past.

Things were happening quite rapidly now.

Her surveillance camera had shown that Wilson Sullivan had picked up Gibson and they had driven off together. She had an overnight bag, so wherever they were going it was some distance away.

Where would you go with the cop on an overnight, Mick? Where would you need official muscle to get to what you want to get to?

Something occurred to her.

She went online and did a search. There were a number of results, but the very first one would do.

The front-page story in the Fauquier Times: “Murder in The Plains. Daryl Oxblood Slain. No Suspects.” And there it was. On the wall in a room of the house the phrase, DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO.

The Fauquier County Sheriff’s Office had not been as tight-lipped as their colleagues to the south, who had kept that piece of information zealously guarded. They had actually let someone take a picture and run with it.

So Gibson did the search I just did, found this item, and she and Sullivan went there to see about possible connections.

They would have talked to the neighbor, seen the crime scene, talked to the cops. A search on Daryl Oxblood would have turned up nothing after twenty years back.

She will know what that means. They’ll run his prints.

Clarisse thought back to what she had done and not done while there.

I tried to erase the phrase but I was stopped. Gibson will surely see that. I wore gloves, so no prints... the comic book! Did I put it back exactly...

She closed her eyes and let that recent memory flow back into her hippocampus where she analyzed it thoroughly, although the result was not to her liking.

No, I didn’t. I should have taken it with me. Stupid.

“BD and RE.” Gibson will know about that now.

Something else occurred to Clarisse. She ran and got the gloves she had worn that day. On one fingertip the fabric was soiled. With blood.

BD’s blood. Not mine. With the gloves I left no prints or DNA behind, but it still was a blunder. You are truly getting sloppy, girl.

Clarisse took several deep calming breaths as she composed a reply to the last email.

Okay, let’s cut out the high school snarky babble. We’re older and hopefully wiser now. Yes, I want Mommy back, so put up with her for a bit longer. Once I find what I’m looking for, we can arrange the trade. It will be complex but what isn’t, right?

She paused, wondering whether to go there or not. Oh, what the hell.

And FYI I know who Daryl was. It was unnecessary. Why do that to him? We had a history, all of us. Granted he was not the brightest bulb, but he got out. You could have let that sleeping dog lie, right? He had a life. He was doing okay. You snuffed him for no reason. I know we’re all messed up. But let’s try to get this done the right way. You want the nice, quiet life with bags of money? Well, so do I. We act appropriately, we get there. We don’t, we all go down. Because there are others on the trail here and they have badges. So don’t screw this up. We have one shot. And only one.

Clarisse’s finger again hovered over the send key. This was serious shit. The person on the other end of this email trail was serious shit.

The key went down and the email went poof into the ethereal darkness. She wondered how long before the reply came, if there even was one. Clarisse’s email had been logical, rational, made sense all around, for their own well-being, their own survival. But the thing was, the person she was facing could not be counted on to see it that way. The most dangerous enemy of all was the one who, consciously or not, didn’t care about dying.

But in another way, it placed the person in danger of being anticipated by an adversary.

And that will probably be the only difference between my surviving this or not.

Because seeing Daryl Oxblood with his head nearly cut off changed everything for me.

Clarisse brought up some financial documents from a previous hack she had done. They belonged to Daniel Pottinger. They represented a dozen accounts from a similar number of financial institutions both foreign and domestic.

The problem was every single one of these accounts had been cleaned out and closed within the span of one week nearly seven months ago. Clarisse had only a guess on the total amount of money, but based on other things she had found and the cash price paid for Stormfield, she estimated it to be about half a billion dollars.

Now that qualified as a treasure under any definition. And she had always loved round numbers.

She figured Gibson would be able to snag these same documents at some point if she already hadn’t. Whether she would drill deeper was the question. Clarisse was banking that she could. ProEye could get into places no one else could.

I may not have ProEye-level resources, but I’m cleverer than the great Mickey Gibson is or ever will be. She was the great one everyone loved. I was the one no one loved or even knew existed. But I will show her. And everyone else.

She hit a key, and all those empty accounts disappeared from the screen.

Still, if I get there first, all well and good.

If Gibson gets there first, still all well and good, possibly.

She changed her clothes and hair and makeup and personality and demeanor.

She stopped at her laminator and pulled out the item she had encased in heated and hardened plastic. She trimmed off the edges and punched a hole in it, then ran it through a lanyard and placed that around her neck. She walked out the door because she had an appointment to keep.

Somehow I am loving every minute of this.

Even though I’m scared to death.