Dax was right. “So there are girls missing from foundation schools. At least three. There are likely more, but Maddox thought those three were important. I know two of them were from Africa, one from India.”
She pounced on the computer. Dax helped her with passwords. It was a simple thing to look up the names and locations of the schools. Two were within fifty miles of a Crawford subsidiary.
“You’re right. They shouldn’t have needed mercenaries.” She frowned. “After Tavia contacted the overseas teams directly, Mulford should have been asked to approve their expenditures. But I looked at his reports. Zilch. Zip. Nada. Not one request for reimbursement filed for on-the-job expenditures. When I told Tavia I’d follow up on his behalf, she told me not to do anything to distract them.” A nasty feeling settled in her gut that Tavia was somehow in on the scam, too. “What if those girls didn’t merely disappear?”
Dax shook his head. “How would we prove it?”
“I think . . . I need to figure out why those damn pictures were sent to me. Maybe I’m thinking too literally. Deep Throat was insistent I should have received his information. I’ve been thinking it would be out there in the open, but what if he was sneakier than that? That camera is the only thing I’ve received that wasn’t about work. If my laptop wasn’t malfunctioning . . . Oh, damn it.” The truth hit her like a ton of brinks. How had she been so stupid? She raced back into the kitchen. “I would have figured this out in a heartbeat if my laptop hadn’t been giving me trouble already. How could I not have seen it?”
Dax was right behind her. “I don’t see it at all, darlin’. How about illuminating me?”
She needed to be sure first. She pulled up the folder containing the
photos. The last few days had been so chaotic, she hadn’t thought to question why the photographs were taking up so much space. She had thought the trouble was with her system, but what if it was all about the photos themselves?
The menu popped up along with the file sizes. She pointed at the screen. “Do you see those file sizes? They’re huge.”
“Are you fat shaming the pictures?” Dax asked, his eyes narrowed. “Why does the file size matter? Aren’t pictures big files?”
Her hands were moving, flying across the keys because she knew what she had now. “They are big, but these are enormous. These took up almost all of the available space on my hard drive and there is a very good reason why. There’s something hidden in here.”
“Hidden how?”
She pulled one of the photos onto Connor’s computer. His system wouldn’t have the same capacity issues hers had. Again, she wished she’d left the card tucked into her laptop. She would have been able to remotely download everything to Connor’s laptop. “It’s called steganography. You bury important information under something that seems innocuous. Typically, the culprit codes their hidden material in a photograph. A huge file size is always the tip-off when someone tries that. And there it is.”
The photograph morphed and became something different.
“Whoa. What did you do?” Dax took the seat beside her. “Is that Russian?”
A thrill went through her. “I cracked the code. I can do it very easily now that I know what’s here. And that is definitely Russian. It’s all in Cyrillic. Unfortunately I have no idea what it says, but it looks like someone scanned it in. Those are handwritten pages.”
“I don’t know a ton of Russian, but I do know the alphabet. Zack is fluent and we used it almost like a code.” He pointed to the screen. “That’s a name. Do you see how it almost looks like an entry and then it’s signed. Over and over again. Like a diary. That’s feminine handwriting, I think. She signed her diary entries.”
Everly stopped. “So this is a woman’s journal. Dax, please tell me her name is. . . .”
“Natalia.”
“Oh god.” She still didn’t understand it all, but she knew one thing: She had to get back to those other photos. “We have to go to my office. The rest of this journal is on that SD card. That’s what Valerie was looking for, I’ll bet. She must have been involved or they used her as a patsy. This will lead us to the mysterious Natalia who hopefully knows a dude named Sergei.”
“Agreed, though I’m not sure what this has to do with embezzlement of Crawford funds used for the galas. I feel as if we’re still missing pieces of the puzzle.” But he was putting his boots on.
“I do, too, but we have to grab that SD card before Scott and whoever else is helping him does. That might tell us what we’re missing. If they steal that information, we’ll lose any chance we have to figure out what really happened to Maddox.”
“Gabe’s going to kill me.” He pulled out his cell and dialed a number. “Shit. I got his voice mail. Gabe, get your ass to Crawford. We think we’ve figured out a big, missing piece of this puzzle. It’s the package the informant sent, which is in her office. I’m taking Everly because she has access to the building and I don’t, but hustle there as soon as you can. Call me.” Dax frowned as he hung up. “All right. You lead the way.”
Everly practically raced out of the building and into the night.
• • •
I
feel naked without my cell phone,” Gabe grumbled as they worked their way around the crowd.
“You know why Roman does it,” Connor said.
Because there had been one too many scandals involving people taping speeches that were then played out of context or showed the politician in a bad light. Those tapes of politicians speaking to their bases had unhinged more than one campaign, so Roman had declared
cell phones out of bounds inside the banquet halls for fundraising events, even the ones Zack wasn’t supposed to attend.
“I know, but it’s a pain in my ass.” He strained to see through the crowd as they were finally allowed into the ballroom. A familiar face caught his eyes. “Hell. Is that who I think it is?”
Connor followed his gaze until it caught on a pretty blonde. “That’s Liz. Shit. Why wouldn’t he tell us?”
If Liz Matthews was here, then it followed that Zack was here as well.
Gabe’s gut twisted. Roman had lied to them. “I guess we should be happy he didn’t ban us from the ballroom.”
Connor held a hand up. “Stop. Those are our best friends. Give them a chance to explain.”
He scoured the crowd, looking for Roman. Now he understood all the security he’d been forced to go through.
“Mr. Bond?”
Gabe turned to find one of the Secret Service men he’d met a few days ago.
Shit.
“I need to see Zack.”
He stood his ground and wondered if they would haul him out kicking and screaming or if they would simply quietly tase him and dump his body somewhere.
“He would like to see you both. He and Mr. Calder are waiting in a private room upstairs. They saw you come in on the security cameras. I’m supposed to tell you that speaking to the tabloids about any incidents that might or might not have resulted in him earning the nickname ‘Scooter’ is an offense punishable by time in Guantanamo Bay.”
“Is he joking?” Gabe asked.
Connor’s lips had curled up. “I don’t think the Secret Service is allowed to joke.”
They followed the big guy in the dark suit to a private elevator.
“I think that was Zack’s way of telling you he knows you’re going to be pissed,” Connor whispered as the elevator started up.
“Yeah, well, no amount of joking is going to stop me from being
pissed, but I’m not stupid. I’m not going to punch the fucker until he leaves office.”
“He’s joking,” Connor said, rolling his eyes as he turned back to Gabe. “They really don’t joke about threats to the president, man.”
The doors opened, and Roman stood inside, wearing a perfectly pressed tux. He held his hands up. “It’s not what you think.”
Gabe thought seriously about throwing a punch anyway, but the Secret Service guard stood with his sunglasses on, looking badass, and Gabe decided to keep his head on his body. “Then explain what’s happening. I want to know who shut down the FAA investigation. I want to know why Mad was really on his way to see Zack. I want the truth this time because someone is coming after the woman I love and I won’t let Zack’s politics get her killed.”
After a short ride, they reached their floor. Connor followed Gabe out, and the guard took up a place in front of the elevator doors as they closed again.
Roman started talking. “First off, I was trying to keep Zack’s appearance tonight a secret. That’s why I didn’t tell you. The tabloids have been following you and Everly everywhere.”
“Not anymore.”
“I’m glad to know that plan worked.”
“Roman, bring them in. I think we should tell them everything.” Zack’s weary voice sounded from around the corner.
Gabe strode into the suite’s large living area. Zack sat on the plush sofa, and it looked as if he hadn’t slept the night before. Though he was dressed to the nines, an air of exhaustion hung around him.
Zack looked behind Gabe and Connor, then nodded. At once, the Secret Service retreated. “Is Dax with your girl?”
Gabe nodded. “Yes.”
“I was so sorry to hear about the harrowing incidents. I’m glad neither one of you was hurt.” Zack reached out and picked up a glass of what looked like Scotch. He downed it, then got up to make another. He glanced back, offering them a glass. “Anyone else?”
“No. I’d really just like the story. I need to get back to Everly.” He didn’t like seeing Zack so tired, but Everly was his first concern now. He didn’t care if exposing FAA irregularities started a scandal that rocked Zack’s presidency. Not if it meant getting Everly out of danger.
“I know this probably won’t help, but he asked me to bring you in.” Roman took a seat. He had a glass of his own. “He was going to tell you everything over breakfast tomorrow. He didn’t even realize that the plot leading to Mad’s death may be about him until earlier today when I told him what we’d found. We still don’t understand what it means.”
Zack turned. “You have to know I wouldn’t want you to endure the hell I went through for anything.”
Losing his wife. Gabe and Mad had been the ones to sit with Zack in the hospital that first night. He hadn’t been injured but after the reporters had gone, Zack had lost it. The doctors had sedated him. He and Mad had watched over him while Roman made arrangements for Joy’s body.
Gabe softened slightly as he sat. “I know you wouldn’t.” These were his closest friends. He needed to have a little faith. “Tell me what you know.”
Zack shrugged out of his jacket and laid it over the chair he sank into. “I know the head of the FAA swears to me his people tell him it was pilot error. I had nothing to do with it, but I would like to have Connor check into everyone involved in the investigation. I know you’re not supposed to work on American soil, man.”
Connor shrugged. “I’ve done worse things. I’ll get on it.”
He would find the truth. Oh, Zack might not act on it if he thought he had good reasons, but Connor would find it. That was one worry gone. “Why was Mad coming to see you?”
“He wanted to ask me about a woman named Natalia Kuilikov.” Zack took another drink. “He told me he’d been contacted by someone who had found her diary. He wouldn’t tell us who had contacted him, but he said Capitol Scandals was actively trying to acquire it. Apparently there was a bidding war for the book on the Deep Web.”
Gabe shook his head. “The Deep Web?”
“It’s like the dark alley of the Internet,” Connor explained. “There are addresses that you can’t get to through the regular means. A lot of criminal activity takes place on the Deep Web. Who was she? An old girlfriend of yours? Is she dead?”
“I don’t know,” Zack admitted. “I thought she was still in Russia. And she certainly wasn’t my girlfriend. I’ve talked about her with you. Nata.”
“Your nanny?” Gabe thought back. Nata was the nickname Zack had used when he’d been too young to pronounce Natalia. Zack had spoken fondly of the young Russian woman who had taken care of him for the first seven years of his life in Moscow.
“Yes.” Zack groaned. “You can see where I’m a bit confused. I was seven the last time I saw her. He and Mother employed an American woman who watched me during the summers when I wasn’t at boarding school. By the time my mother was killed in a car accident, Dad decided I was too old to need a babysitter. What could Nata have said that was so vital or secret that people would kill to know?”
“Did your father have an affair with her?” Connor asked.
“I already went down that road.” Roman paced the floor. “Even if his father had an affair with his childhood nanny, that’s not scandalous enough to touch Zack. His approval ratings are ridiculously high. Everyone knows his father had problems with women and booze, but the man is way out of the public spotlight now. A discovery like that is a footnote in a biography.”
“Have you asked your father?” Gabe knew Zack wasn’t close to his dad, but if he could shed some light on what was happening, it was worth the attempt.
Zack sighed. “I can try, but he’s in early stage dementia, I’m afraid. And he didn’t like to talk about the past even when he could remember it.”
“Then there has to be something more. We have to find that damn diary ourselves,” Gabe said. “I want to put some investigators on the
video feed from the parking garage. Maybe we can catch the man who was talking to Everly. He seems to know way more than he should. I also want to see the wreckage of Mad’s plane. My company built that plane. I taught Mad how to fly it. I want to do an independent study.”
Zack nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. Is Everly really Mad’s half sister?”
“Yes.”
“Wow. I wish I could have seen how that bastard would have handled having a sister. God knows he hit on all of yours. It made me happy I was an only child. Do you remember when he hit on Roman’s cousin when we were teenagers?”
Gabe was able to laugh. “She broke his nose. That was one of the best days ever.” He sobered a bit. “I wonder how he would have handled having a kid.”
“I hope Sara knows that we’re all behind her,” Zack explained. “Anything we can do.”
“You can get my cell phone out of jail,” Gabe requested.
“Already done,” Zack said. “It should be up here any minute. When we spotted you coming in, I tried to catch them before they took your phone, but I missed.”