The fix a novel, p.24
The Fix: A Novel, page 24
“I told Cyrus you could probably dig up a suit that would fit him from one in the pool house,” her father said.
“Absolutely,” Gigi said as she stood. “But first, I made a batch of homemade Popsicles. Do you want to help me get them out of the freezer and taste-test them?”
“Okay!” Cyrus said. He looked at Cami, and when she gave him a nod, he followed Gigi, and they disappeared down the hall. She watched them go. Cyrus could act so grown-up sometimes, but she needed to remember that that was out of necessity, and he was really just a kid, thrilled by things all kids were thrilled by.
Cami walked with her father into the family room, where he sat down in his usual chair, and she made herself comfortable on the couch. She told him the entire story of what had transpired since she’d first taken the incoming call from the unknown number. He seemed increasingly troubled as he listened to her, then shocked by the developments in California.
He inserted a few questions here and there, but mostly listened, and she was grateful he didn’t lecture her on some of the choices that she thought he might. Like jumping on a plane with a virtual stranger to fly across the country and face any number of known and unknown dangers. Perhaps the fact that she and Cyrus were there, in his home, looking well, kept him from criticizing her judgment.
She also went through all that she and Rex had discussed on that deck overlooking the ocean about the possible connection between the crime that took his wife and daughter, and Cyrus’s kidnapping. He expressed the same confusion and obvious doubt, but he was clearly concerned as well. “But, Cam, you’re not a hundred percent sure that’s what your mother was trying to say?”
“No. But what if, Dad? What if we missed something all those years ago? Something that could only have been clear now that that phrase was said to me, to involve me in what was happening to Cyrus? Do you remember ever hearing anything about a do-over? Did you get any strange calls during that time? Or weird messages?”
“No. Nothing. The police probed me with questions like that too. ‘Did anyone threaten you? Any odd interactions, messages, even if they seemed like nothing at the time.’ I didn’t have anything to report to them.”
“Was Mom in the habit of listening to your messages or opening your emails or anything?”
“Well, she did do some administrative work for me at home. Just basic stuff while you and Elle were at school that allowed me to be at my desk less on the weekends.”
Her heart gave a small gallop.
“So just computer work? She didn’t answer your phone?”
“My phone? No, I mean if you’re talking about my cell phone, I always had that on me when I was away from home.”
Cami chewed at her thumbnail. They’d had a landline back then, even if it was rarely used. She remembered her mom walking through the house on occasion with the portable phone at her ear. She wondered briefly about pulling phone records but doubted that could be done a decade later. Plus, how would it help if she could look through the numbers that had come into their house in the days before the murders? There would probably be all kinds of random numbers. As she recalled, the majority of calls that came through on the landline were telemarketers. It was why her mom had kept saying she was going to get rid of it and just use their cell phones.
“What about your emails?” she finally asked her dad. “Any chance you can still access those?”
“From eleven years ago? I don’t see how.”
“I don’t suppose you still have your cell phone from that time?” Maybe the call had come through on her father’s phone, and her mother had intercepted it while he was sleeping or otherwise occupied.
“No, Cam, I don’t have that anymore. It’s long gone.” His forehead lowered. “Cami, I don’t know that this is good for you. Have you considered . . . well, it seems like you’ve been given a second chance with Cyrus. Whether it ends up that he remains with you or goes to another—”
“He is going to remain with me. I’m not giving him up again. And Dad, of course it doesn’t feel good to dredge up Mom’s and Elle’s deaths, but if there’s a chance of finding some answers that we didn’t have before, how can I turn away from that? Plus, if this is related to Cyrus, then he might still be in danger.”
Her father sighed and looked out the window for a moment. “You’re right. I was only thinking of you, Cami. Of your happiness. I worry that you’ve closed yourself off.”
“To what, Dad?”
“To a family. To love. I worry you think you gave that up and don’t deserve a second crack at it. Or maybe you’re afraid.”
She could see the worry lines around her father’s eyes. He was speaking from concern. He was a good man who loved her and had loved his wife and younger daughter, and he had found a way to move on. Maybe she hadn’t. Not entirely anyway. And maybe she was closed off in some sense. Perhaps she’d held on to the guilt of giving up her son and shied away from offering her heart to anyone again in the hope of avoiding pain. She’d had enough of that to last a lifetime, thank you very much. Or at least that had been her approach for the last decade. Rex’s face flashed in her mind. But maybe . . . maybe she could rethink that.
The sounds of splashing and laughter drifted toward them from the backyard, and Cami looked in that direction. Whether she’d avoided it or not, love had shown up at her door. Or in the case of Cyrus, on her computer screen. And she needed to know why. “I’ll find some time for self-reflection later. Right now, I’m on a mission.”
His eyes softened. “My fighter.” He paused as he looked at her. “Just promise me you’ll keep yourself safe from here on out. No more going out on your own and putting yourself in danger. I can’t lose another daughter, Cam.”
Her heart twisted at the raw pain on her dad’s face. She reached out and squeezed his hand. “I’ll be safe, Dad. I’m just researching now, okay? I’ll let you—and the authorities—know if I find anything.” He nodded, and she let go of his hand. “Just one more thing. How can I look at the cases you worked on?”
“My cases? Which ones?”
“All of them. Or, no, let’s say going back five years from the date of the crime.”
“The digital files are with the courts. But I kept personal notes on most of them. Those are up in the attic in boxes. But Cam . . . what would you even begin looking for?”
“I don’t know. But it’s a place to start. Maybe something will jump out at me.” She had no idea what that might even be, if anything. But what else did she have?
Her father helped her bring down the six boxes of files and put them in her trunk. She wasn’t hopeful she’d find anything—after all, the police had already looked at that angle, but they hadn’t read through every detail of every case. And she didn’t think they’d gone back that far either. While Cyrus was sleeping, she’d begin that monumental task.
An hour later, after sitting on the patio in the sun and sharing a glass of lemonade with her father and Gigi, she and Cyrus packed it up and got back in the car. Cyrus looked happy and tired, his nose slightly sunburned. He looked like a little boy who’d spent a few hours simply being a kid. I’m going to give you more of that. I’m going to make up for all the hardships you’ve survived.
“Ready to go home?” she asked him.
He nodded. “Can we come back?”
“Of course. My . . . I mean, your pops said anytime.” Her phone rang, and she glanced at it in the console. It was a call from California. “Give me one second to answer this,” she told Cyrus.
“Hello, Camille?”
“Yes, Detective Mauro. Is everything okay?”
She listened for a moment, tears welling in her eyes. She thanked him and hung up and then met Cyrus’s eyes in the rearview mirror with a smile that felt a little wobbly. “Our blood matches,” she told him. “I’m your mom.”
“I already knew that,” he said very seriously.
She laughed and swiped at a tear. She supposed she did too. “We need to celebrate,” she told him. “And I have a really important question for you now.”
He scrunched his forehead down as he looked at her with at least a small amount of concern. “What?”
She paused for effect. “Pizza or burgers?”
His face blossomed in a smile, full of childish pleasure.
“Sushi.”
She laughed. Gosh, she loved this beautiful, unique little boy. “Sushi it is.”
Chapter Forty
They’d done it. Rex still found himself turning his head randomly to find the computer screen where he could check on the well-being of the little boy for whom they had desperately searched. And he had to continue to remind himself that Cyrus was fine. He was with Cami—his mother—and Rex’s role, such as it’d been, was done. He was no longer needed.
Which was good. It meant success. But it also meant saying goodbye to the partnership he’d formed with Cami, and damn, he missed having her by his side, even if he didn’t miss the circumstances under which she’d been there.
He was used to being debriefed after a mission. But this time, he supposed, he’d either have to forgo one, or give himself time to filter through all the emotions he’d held at bay while emotions had been impractical.
He’d gone to text her a hundred times that day but held himself back. She needed time with Cyrus. Time to get him settled, and time to get to know one another. That would be a long process, but these first days were important as far as establishing trust. He didn’t want to get in the way of that.
He’d called his mom and let her know he was back. She hadn’t asked many questions and seemed distracted by something—probably one drama or another going on in her own life. He was partly annoyed and partly grateful that he didn’t have to explain what had happened with Cami and Cyrus. It would do him well to start thinking of the whole experience as another one of his jobs, one that he was proud of, but one that he’d eventually leave behind.
But not quite yet.
He sat at the kitchen table, where Cami had first asked for his help. He knew Cami was planning to visit Hollis in the coming days if possible. Maybe she’d already reached out to him via his campaign. Maybe they’d already spoken. He hated the way that idea caused his stomach to cramp.
He typed Hollis’s name in the browser, punching the keys more harshly than need be, and then clicked on what looked like his campaign website. A close-up of Hollis’s face wasn’t exactly what he needed at that moment, but there it was all the same. Rex already knew that if he had hoped that Hollis Barclay had peaked in high school, he’d be sorely disappointed. Because he’d seen him on TV and a few billboards, too, in recent months. Maybe the guy had even become a better version of himself. He’d like to think so, especially considering he was seeking power by way of a political office, and because Cami was counting on it as she spoke of their son to him.
But Rex wasn’t there to look at pictures of Hollis or attempt to determine whether he’d matured, or even to wade through his various political platforms. He was there to hack into the website, and hopefully read his emails. Specifically, he wanted to know if the message from Cyrus had been received and if there were any messages from Hollis to other parties directly afterward.
Hacking in was a breeze. There were virtually no safeguards, and anyone with a basic knowledge of coding could have breached the site. Evidently, whatever else Hollis was, he wasn’t worried about cybersecurity. At least not here.
He clicked from one page to the next, examining the metadata and moving through the site as though he were the administrator. There were a couple of blog posts that had been written but not yet posted, but neither was of much interest to him.
It took a little longer to get into the associated email, but that was relatively easy work too. He’d hacked into the emails of foreign government officials. In comparison, this was child’s play. Which likely meant Hollis didn’t keep anything here he didn’t want others to see. But it was still worth a try.
Rex went directly to the read emails and scrolled back to the weeks before Cyrus was kidnapped. Sure enough, there was an email from Cyrus Sanders from a school’s .edu address that had been opened and—presumably—read. He opened it, feeling a tug on his heart as he read it.
Hi,
My name is Cyrus and I’m your son. Sorry to spring this on you, but I am in a really bad place with a foster family who don’t treat me good and I hope you can help me. My birthday is April 18th and I’m eleven years old.
Sincerely, Cyrus Sanders
PS Please write me back here. I don’t have a cell phone and my foster parents will get very mad if you call them.
“Shit,” he muttered, that tug making him wince. He hadn’t only reached out to Hollis; he’d asked for help. Had Hollis read this and chosen to ignore it? How could anyone be that cold?
He rested his head in his palm for a moment before looking back up. When he did, a reply email popped up under Cyrus’s original message as though he himself had accidentally hit the reply key. But he hadn’t. His hands were nowhere near the keyboard. Rex watched as a string of letters appeared in the subject line that made absolutely no sense.
What the hell?
His skin prickled. There was someone else in there with him. An administrator? But what kind of coincidence would it be if that person had the same weeks-old email open that he currently did?
He clicked off Cyrus’s email and went to the sent folder and scrolled back to the date Cyrus’s message had been sent. He didn’t see a reply but did a search for Cyrus’s school email address just to be sure. There was nothing, just as he’d thought. Hollis had never responded to the boy directly.
Rex wasn’t sure if his annoyance was because of his preconceived conception of Hollis Barclay’s personality or because he felt a deep connection to Cyrus after what they’d gone through together. Analytically speaking, if Rex had come across an email like that one on a different case where he had no personal context for the people involved, would he also have bypassed the email and possibly considered it a prank? Cyrus didn’t mention Cami’s name, so maybe a junior staffer had simply disregarded the email . . . which wouldn’t have been completely unfounded.
Personal bias was never helpful when trying to see all angles.
He opened an email that had been sent in the hours after Cyrus’s, but it was nothing of any importance, just a question about signage. But just as he was about to close that correspondence, again, a reply email popped up. He brought his hands away and watched as, again, a string of numbers appeared in the subject line. What the hell is happening? He’d never experienced anything like this.
He grabbed the pad and paper sitting near the edge of the table and wrote down the letters, which looked like random gibberish. Then he brought his head back slightly as the cursor jumped down to the body of the message and again, gibberish was displayed.
The same prickle skated under his skin. Was someone following him around the site? Watching him through the inner workings of Hollis’s campaign communication? What or who? If it was a who, they weren’t very good at it. It almost seemed like a weird bug, maybe some partially installed security that wasn’t quite up to speed.
In any case, he needed to quietly exit this space. He wasn’t working on behalf of the NSA, and if anyone found out he was hacking into campaign websites illegally, he could get fired from his job or possibly arrested for election interference.
He backed out and covered his tracks and then shut down the computer. He’d gotten the information he’d gone there for. He now knew that Hollis or someone on his staff had opened Cyrus’s email and that if Hollis had answered at all, it hadn’t been from there.
He stood, feeling antsy and still troubled by the feeling that he’d been watched. Rex grabbed his sweatshirt and headed for the door. He had some information to share with Cami.
The nerves only fired up when he was at her door with his fist raised to knock. He heard the TV from inside and the soft sound of voices. And he felt like an interloper.
He stood there for a moment, indecision making him feel like the kid he’d once been. The one always standing on the outside looking in, afraid to make a move and risk being rejected.
He’d seen the police car parked across the street from Cami’s apartment. He didn’t even have the excuse that he was checking on her safety. The cops were readily available, should she need them.
“Fuck,” he muttered as he turned away. The news he had could very well be relayed on the phone, and he knew that. Behind him, the door opened. Startled, he turned to see Cami.
She smiled, so welcoming that he felt her expression wash over him from head to toe. “Hi,” she said.
“Hey.” He looked back at her door, noticing the small camera near the top corner and answering his own question about how she’d known he was there. “I was, ah, just checking in.” Behind her, he saw a pile of boxes sitting haphazardly against the wall.
She opened the door wider. “Do you like sushi?”
Sushi? “Yeah, sure.”
“Great. We picked it up to celebrate our matching DNA, and we have plenty. Cyrus is watching a show, but will you come join me?”
Chapter Forty-One
Gosh, Cami was happy to see him. When her phone had dinged with the notification that someone was at her door, she’d been practically giddy when she’d opened the app to see Rex standing there.
How could you miss someone you’d only really known for a week? And yet, she did. If she’d had any doubt, the bounce of her heart left no question.
She’d considered calling and inviting him over to have dinner with them, but then thought better of it. She’d already dragged him into so much. Rex probably wanted to get back to his life. He was in town to settle his grandfather’s estate, a task that she’d taken him from. And now he was behind schedule and having to make up for lost time. Because of her.
There was also the matter of her growing attraction. She had some inkling that he was attracted to her, too, but she also understood his misgivings. She understood why he’d want to pass on taking their relationship even one step further.
