The fix a novel, p.25
The Fix: A Novel, page 25
As for her, she was trying to convince herself it was a bad idea as well. He was leaving town soon, and she had a whole lot on her plate right now. The convincing, however, was falling short.
She liked him. She’d missed him. And she respected the hell out of Rex Lowe.
“Cyrus is watching a show in the bedroom,” she said. She lowered her voice. “We spent some time at my dad’s, and he’s been quiet since. He ate a little bit and then curled up on my bed.” She was slightly worried. Since she’d met him, Cyrus had been present and even upbeat despite all he’d experienced. But she also wasn’t completely surprised by his sudden reticence. A part of her had been waiting for it. A kid could only handle so much, and she hoped that if he was withdrawing, it was because he finally felt safe enough to begin to process.
She really hoped she was right because that would mean he felt secure with her, and that feeling of security had been compounded because of Rex, and then spending time with her dad and Gigi, not to mention the police car outside the window.
Rex’s gaze moved over her face, and his brow drew inward as though he’d seen her worry. “Can I say hi?” He held up a book she hadn’t noticed in his hand. “I actually have something for him.”
“Yeah, sure, of course. He’ll be happy to see you.”
Rex followed her the short distance to her bedroom door, and she peeked in before opening it all the way. Cyrus was still sitting propped up on her pillows, Boots snuggled next to him. Her boy’s eyes were trained on the television on her dresser, but his expression remained disinterested and far away.
“Hey, buddy,” Rex said as they both entered the room.
Cyrus looked up, and Cami saw the first flicker of interest and what looked like happiness at Rex’s presence. Cyrus trusted him, that was clear.
Rex raised the paperback and handed it to Cyrus, and the little boy scooted higher, eyes widening. “The Art of War,” he whispered, taking the copy of the book the man in the park had first given him. The man who’d stepped into the gap after Cyrus had found himself grieving and alone. She wondered if that man even knew how vital his kindness had been to a lost little boy. It made her want to cry.
Rex sat down on the side of the bed, and Boots stretched and then relaxed back into the blanket. “Yeah. I’ve read it about a hundred times. And it’s gone lots of places with me. All over the world actually.”
Cyrus looked up. “To war?”
“Well, I’ve never been to war, not like your dad. But I’ve been near war zones, yeah.”
Cyrus nodded slowly and then held the book against his chest. “Thank you.”
They continued to talk for a few minutes, their voices fading as Cami simply watched them together, her heart expanding by the moment so that she felt like it might burst. And she had this sudden vision of Rex Lowe’s face that long-ago day in the grocery store where he worked, the one she’d traveled miles out of her way to so that she wouldn’t run into anyone she knew. She’d been about to give birth to Cyrus, and the way Rex had looked at her . . . the raw compassion she’d seen in his face, the honesty of it? It’d slayed her, even if she’d been confused and traumatized. She’d known, deep in her bones, that if she’d asked him to hold her in that moment, that he would have jumped over the counter to do so. At the time, it’d compounded her emotional turmoil, and so she’d quickly left and then she’d sat in her car and cried. But later . . . just weeks later, looking into the earnest eyes of the man in the adoption agency’s folder, she’d seen that same sincere kindness, and she’d chosen him and his wife to love her child because of it.
And very suddenly, she had no ill feelings toward the woman at the adoption agency she’d worked with, the one who had apparently withheld information that might have disqualified Gray Sanders. She didn’t feel duped or misled because it hadn’t been disclosed to her that the man she’d chosen had struggled. She’d looked in his eyes and she’d picked him intuitively and she’d picked right. Her son’s sweetness and bravery and intelligence were living proof of that.
Rex stood, and Cyrus relaxed back against the pillow, snuggling closer to Boots, a small smile gracing his lips as he opened the book. Cami managed to lead Rex from the room, even though she felt a bit dizzy, like she’d just been catapulted through time and found herself on unsteady feet in her bedroom, where her eleven-year-old son and that shy boy behind the grocery store counter with goodness shining from his eyes were inexplicably sitting on her bed.
She gestured to Rex to follow her into the kitchen, where the rest of the sushi was, her bearings returning as they walked. She and Cyrus had gone a little crazy with the volume of food, but Cyrus had looked so delighted about pulling boats of rolls from the river that encircled the sushi counter at her favorite restaurant, and so she’d let him choose far more than they could eat in one sitting. “It seems like he’s decompressing,” Rex said. “That’s normal. And positive.”
“Thanks for saying that. Yes, I think so too. He needs it. He’s been on guard in one way or another for a long time.” Even before that room with the bars, from what it sounded like, he’d been the only one watching out for himself in the three years since his parents died and he went into foster care.
“Kids are resilient. He’s got your genes, and he was raised by good people. He’s going to be fine. He’s going to be better than fine.”
His words brought relief. She trusted him too. She believed to her core that he wouldn’t say anything unless he fully believed it.
She sat down and then handed him a paper plate and a pair of chopsticks. She inclined her chin toward the phone on the side of the table that was all set up and charging. “I bought him a cell phone so I could always reach him or vice versa. I figured that would help him feel as safe as possible no matter where he is. Then I scheduled an in-home visit from a social worker today and put a call in to a child therapist too. After that, I visited the school in my district and picked up paperwork. It’s all”—she shook her head as he put a few rolls on his plate—“it’s a lot.”
“One thing at a time,” he said.
“Yeah. Hey, do you want a beer?”
“Sure. We need to cheers to that matching DNA.”
That matching DNA. God, the words made her want to cry happy tears. She wanted to repeat the phrase again and again like a mantra to convince herself that it was real and that he was hers and no one could separate them again.
She got up and grabbed two bottles from the fridge, used an opener to flip off the caps, and then handed one to him. She extended her bottle and he clinked his to hers. “Cheers,” she said with a smile.
She sat back down at the table and made a plate for herself too. Despite the volume of food, once Cyrus had started checking out emotionally, his words and his appetite dwindling, she hadn’t been able to eat much herself.
“You could download an app to track the phone, too, just for ease of mind.”
“That’s a great idea. I will.” She didn’t want to be too much of a helicopter parent right off the bat, but . . . she also figured she had good reason to be one, at least for a little while. And she didn’t think Cyrus would mind some hovering.
Rex took a sip of beer. “Speaking of which, I called a buddy earlier and asked him to pull the geolocation data for that cabin and do some research based on what he finds. I would have done it myself, but Erik has access to more technology than I currently have available, and I don’t want to miss anything.”
She squinted one eye. “What’s geolocation data?”
“It uses apps to provide data that identifies the physical location of a device or user.”
“A device? Meaning a phone?”
“Right.”
“So you can tell who was at the cabin?”
“Not necessarily, but it might provide information on where a user went in addition to that cabin.”
She nodded before tipping the beer to her lips. “Is that legal? Tracking cell phones to a location?”
“Yeah. The gathering of it is at least, the usage may or may not be. The police might use it in the investigation, too, or they might not. Also, I hacked into Hollis Barclay’s campaign website today.”
She paused, bottle at her lips. She took a drink and then lowered it slowly. “You’ve been busy. What about that? Is that—”
“Legal? No.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.”
He smiled. “I know.”
“What did you find?”
He told her about finding the email from Cyrus. And about it being read, but apparently not answered, at least not from that account.
“He might not even be the one who opened it. He probably has campaign staff manning general emails, right?” she said.
“Yes. It hadn’t been forwarded, but I’d think staff would at least alert Hollis to a message like that.”
“You’d think. And if they did print it out for him or something that doesn’t have a digital trace, I guess he might have answered from a more personal account. Or been planning to. But even if he was aware of it . . . I wouldn’t be surprised if he just decided to ignore it completely.”
“It gives him a motive, though,” Rex said. “For the kidnapping. A kid that he denied and never stepped up for would be inconvenient right now. It’d take the focus off his campaign and put it on his personal life. It’d speak of character, or lack thereof. He’d want to avoid that, I’d guess.”
“Agreed,” she murmured, troubled once again by the question of Hollis’s possible involvement in Cyrus’s kidnapping. “I called the number listed on his website and left a message with the receptionist who answered, but I haven’t heard back from Hollis yet,” she said. “If I don’t, I’m going to go there. He’s giving a speech in DC tomorrow, so I’m leaving Cyrus with my dad for the day.”
Cyrus had specifically asked to spend the day with Pops, and her dad had seemed happy to do it when she’d called and asked. He’d mentioned miniature golf, and she was sure Cyrus would like that—she remembered loving it as a kid. And Cyrus needed some kid-like normalcy right now. But even more than the activity, she was glad she had her dad to offer Cyrus some male attention after he’d been deprived of a dad figure in his life for too long and obviously craved it.
Rex nodded slowly. He looked concerned and like he wanted to say something but was holding it back. She didn’t prompt him because she was pretty sure she knew—he was worried Hollis would be dismissive at best and cruel at worst. Or maybe he’d refuse to see her altogether. She was prepared for any and all scenarios, however. And her only goal was to get a feel for whether Hollis was capable of attempting to harm Cyrus. Beyond that, she didn’t hope for, nor expect, much. She’d given up on Hollis a long time ago. “Just promise you’ll call if you feel unsafe at any point.”
She was about to say she wasn’t worried about that, but if Hollis was part of the network who’d kidnapped a child, who knew what else he might do? Meeting him in a public place was important. “I promise,” she said. “And I’ll text you as soon as I’ve left.”
Rex put a roll in his mouth and chewed, appearing to have trouble getting it down. He followed it with a swig from the beer and then wiped his mouth with a napkin. “One other thing,” Rex said. “Something odd happened while I was looking around Hollis’s campaign site. It was like someone else was there.”
“There? What do you mean?”
“Inside with me.”
“You mean like a web designer or administrator making edits to the site?”
“No. It was like someone was following me around.” He looked off behind her as if even he—knower of all things cyber—was having difficulty explaining what he’d experienced. “Every time I went to a specific email, a reply box opened within it and a string of random letters and numbers was typed in.” He shook his head. “It was weird.”
“I call unexplained computer stuff a glitch, but if it seemed off to you, it probably was. Could it have been another hacker in there trying to communicate with you?”
“I thought about that. But how did they know I’d be there? There are very few safety barriers. Someone would have to be monitoring that space continuously and for what reason? And if they wanted to communicate with me, why type gibberish?”
She had no answers. But she did have a possibly connected question. “If whoever sent that video of Cyrus in the room isn’t connected to the people who arranged his kidnapping, that unknown person would have had to hack into the monitoring camera, right? To be able to post it on the dark web for me to see?”
He nodded. “The police said the monitoring device was in the main room of the cabin, most likely used to watch Cyrus without constantly entering the room.”
“Yes. But could the feed of Cyrus have also streamed to someone else? Say the people that man who brought Cyrus food kept referring to who were on their way? Or even a bigger boss of a kidnapping ring of some sort?”
“Sure. Any of that is possible. You can monitor footage from anywhere remotely if you’re granted log-in access.” He inclined his head backward. “Like the one at your door.”
“So the woman who called and gave me access to the live stream is either a hacker, or someone related to the crime. Someone who maybe went rogue or whose conscience got the better of her.” She thought for a few seconds. “Or someone who wanted to torture me,” she murmured. But something about that didn’t feel quite right, and she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what. Maybe it was that the voice on the phone had been eerie, yes, but now that she thought about it, almost . . . helpful.
“The other question is,” Rex said, “even if any of those guesses are accurate, how did that person know you’re Cyrus’s mother?”
“That I have no idea, unless Cyrus’s full history was known to the people who took him. If Hollis was involved, that might be the case, right?”
He was silent for a moment as he picked absently on the bottle label. “Either way, I don’t believe it was a random kidnapping.”
“No,” she agreed. “It couldn’t be.”
They each focused on their food for a moment, questions bouncing through Cami’s mind, loose strings flying in every direction, which she was trying so hard to weave into a coherent picture. But they were just missing too much right now.
“By the way,” Rex said, “what are the boxes?”
“My dad’s cases, going back five years from the murders. I have no access to the digital files, so that’s what I’ve got.” The thought of leafing through dusty papers looking for who knew what was already giving her a headache.
“You said the police looked into his recent cases,” Rex said. “They looked there first for a connection to the crime, right?”
“They did, and they hunted for any online threats and things like that. They found a few general ones and followed those, but nothing came of that line of research.”
Most of Rex’s bottle label was peeled off now. “What about . . . not the cases themselves, but what happened in the aftermath?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, your dad didn’t just sentence people, he let them off, too, right? Sometimes he dismissed their case entirely and set them free.”
“Of course.”
He tore the remainder of the label off and began folding it, over once and then again. “So what if someone he set free victimized others in a similar way?”
She thought about that, those loose strings still taunting her. But it felt like, because of him, she’d just grasped one. “Okay. Yes. So, he let someone off, and that person victimized a family in the same way we were.” She blinked and shook her head. “And then what? That family, or someone within it, blamed my dad and hired two low-life criminals to come exact vengeance?”
“Blame and hatred make people do really dark things.”
She tapped her chopstick on her plate for a minute. The police had looked for a person or someone related to that person who had felt wronged because of a sentence her father had imposed. Which made sense. He’d taken freedom away from many—years, whole lives. It was a strong motive for revenge. But . . . Rex could be right. This could very well have to do, not with the taking of someone’s freedom, but with the granting of it. Opportunity that was then used to harm others.
“Maybe they didn’t hire those men to kill us,” she murmured. The recollection of their words chilled her, even now. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. I admit things got out of hand, and we made some stupid moves. “Maybe they were just meant to scare us. But it went too far.” Her eyes widened. This felt right. “That would account for the comments about my father seeing his family tormented being the whole point. And the other comments, at the end, about how it wasn’t supposed to go that way. Those two men, Trig and AJ, they went off script, maybe because of the drugs, maybe because they were simply evil and couldn’t control themselves once they got some power over three helpless women.”
He thinned his lips, and she knew he’d tightened his muscles, too, by his sudden stillness. She was beginning to know him so well, not just his mind, but the signals of his body. It scared her. And it thrilled her, too, in ways she was both tempted to lean into and run from.
“As far as researching your father’s cases, that would narrow things down a little, right? We’re looking for a man who your father determined could be let off, rather than convicted for his crime. Once we collect those, we look into what happened after that, and if he committed a similar crime against a different family.”
We. There was that we again that she wanted to cup in her palms like a treasure, afraid that it’d be taken from her if she didn’t protect it. Knowing it wouldn’t be hers for long, no matter what.
“What if it happened the way you described, but the man my father let off wasn’t caught for the crime he committed against that unknown family?”
He folded the label again, and now it was a tiny little square that couldn’t possibly be folded again. “He’d have to have been for the person—his victim—to know his name and why he was out on the street when he perhaps shouldn’t have been. For them to assign blame to your father.”
