Down the Brink Page 19

  What the hell were they shipping out with the next release?

  CHAPTER 51

  First Friday in May, 2022

  Seco, Texas

  Gil checked his GPS as he pulled his truck up to the curb. This was the place. He glanced at the house. Years of benign neglect had taken their toll. Missing shingles. Peeling paint. Cracked, dusty windows. Knee-high grass and weeds in the yard. And that was just the exterior.

  Might as well go introduce himself while he waited for the rest of the crew to arrive. He went up the cracked, weed-choked concrete walkway to the front door, noting the warped porch and ramp boards. He pressed the doorbell. Nothing happened. Add that to the list of repairs. He knocked softly, just enough to be heard, not enough to startle.

  “We’re coming. Give us a minute,” a feeble male voice called from inside.

  A couple of minutes later, the door opened, hinges squealing. A stooped, elderly man stood next to an equally frail and elderly woman in a wheelchair.

  “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Del Rey. Gil Balderas from Mending Lives. A few more men will be joining me shortly to get started on your roof.”

  “Please. It’s Olivia and Sal.” Sal smiled, showing what few teeth he had left, as he squeezed Olivia’s shoulder.

  “We can’t thank you enough for what you’re doing.” Olivia blinked, the white haze of advanced cataracts apparent. “We’ve had a hard time keeping up with things, what with all my medical bills.” She pressed her thin lips together and looked away, fighting back tears.

  “Well, we’ll get things back on track for you. From what I saw in the file, looks like the roof is the first order of business?”

  Sal pointed toward the shadowy hallway behind him. “Yeah. We’ve had some small leaks before, but this winter, with all the rains, it’s gotten really bad. We keep a bucket under the worst spot to protect the floor as best we can, but there’s ceiling damage now.”

  “We can take care of that once the new roof is on.” Gil heard the rumble of a truck pulling up and glanced back out the door. “Ah, there’s the rest of the crew with all the materials. I’ll brief them and then we’ll get started. Now, just so you know, the tear-off’s going to be pretty noisy. Not much we can do about it, unfortunately. Just the nature of it. If it gets to be too much, let one of us know and we can take a break.”

  Sal laughed. “We’re both pretty hard of hearing anyway. Don’t worry about it, just do what you need to.”

  “All right. Well, it was nice to meet you both.”

  “You, too,” they said in unison, like couples do who’ve been together for many, many years.

  Gil and the other crew members each took a section of the roof and worked it, tearing off the old shingles and roofing felt—or at least what remained of them. This roof had to be in the worst condition of any he’d ever seen. At least it made the tear-off go faster than planned. But he didn’t like the look of some of the plywood sheathing. Rot had set in where missing shingles had left the wood exposed to harsh Texas storms. The Del Reys were lucky the thing didn’t leak like a sieve all through the house.

  The other three men worked in silence, each focused on his assigned section. Good workers, they were. All had solid reputations in the local construction industry. Despite that, all of them lost their jobs in the construction bust. After months of frustration, they found their calling at Mending Lives, working on rehabbing homes for folks down on their luck, or elderly folks like the Del Reys who didn’t have the wherewithal to deal with much-needed maintenance.

  Gil yanked away a piece of tattered roofing felt, revealing yet another blackened, rotten patch of plywood. The damage was far more extensive than he’d estimated. No way did they have enough plywood with them to replace all the rotted sheets. He glanced around the rest of the roof, mentally calculating how much more they needed. Maybe he should get over to Lowe’s Depot while there was still time, so they could at least wrap up the day’s work with good sheathing in place. He glanced at the clouds overhead. Might or might not rain during the night.

  He stood up straight, kneading out the tension in his lower back while balancing carefully on the roof. He was about to call out to the crew to let them know his plan when a siren wailed in the distance. He froze. That was a sound he could never hear without feeling the hair on the back of his neck stand up. It was getting closer, louder. He set down his tools, wishing it would hurry up and pass by so he didn’t have to shout over it to talk to the crew.

  Two black-and-whites, red and blue lights flashing, turned the corner and rushed up the street in his direction. Gil stared at the cars, heart racing. The sight brought back memories of the day he was arrested just as fresh as if it’d been last week. He’d never be able to look at a police vehicle again without instantly having a sickening gut-level reaction.

  The cop cars skidded to a stop right in front of the Del Reys’ house. Gil sat down on the roof, knees up to his chin, chest tightening. Why would they stop here? Maybe the Del Reys had some business with them, but why the lights and siren?

  Two uniformed cops emerged from each car. One raised a bullhorn to his mouth. “You. On the roof. All of you. Stand up, raise your hands. Come down off there, one at a time.”

  What the hell? Gil complied, risking a quick glance at his crew members. They all stood, hands raised, mouths open in surprise.

  “You. You’re the closest to the ladder. You come first.” The cop with the bullhorn gestured to him.

  Gil knew better than to argue with armed cops. He silently made his way across the roof to the ladder, placing his feet carefully on the stripped, partially rotted boards as he went. He didn’t need to fall and break his damned neck on top of whatever else was going on here.

  Two of the cops waited at the bottom of the ladder. As he stepped off the bottom rung, one of them slipped plastic zip cuffs onto his wrists, snugged them tight, and led him toward one of the cars.

  “You. Over there. You’re next.” The cop with the bullhorn motioned to the crew member who was next closest to the ladder.

  The cop who’d cuffed him leaned Gil back against the rear fender of one of the cars. “What’s your name, sir?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Your name, sir?”

  “Gil Balderas. What’s going on here?”

  “Your ID, please.”

  “In my back pocket. What is going on?”

  The cop slipped his wallet from his pocket, scanned his ID with a small device from his belt, then slipped the wallet back into his pocket. “You’re under arrest, Mr. Balderas.”

  “What for?”

  The cop gestured toward the old house. “For this. Mending Lives is being shut down. Volunteering, working for free, is illegal. Crime against the economy.”

  “What? I didn’t hear about this!”

  “New law. Presidential order. Surprised you didn’t hear about it. Was all over the news. But ignorance of the law is no excuse. As soon as we get the rest down off the roof and cuffed, you’re all going in for booking.” He opened the rear door of the cop car. “Get in.”

  Gil hesitated, glancing back as another cop zip-cuffed a second member of his crew and started toward the car.

  “Get in. We don’t have all day. Going to be a big line at the station, with all the Mending Lives people we have to process and book.” The cop shook his head and shoved Gil into the back seat. “All those people out flouting the new law.”

  Knees trembling, Gil hunched down in the seat and stared at the zip cuffs on his wrists. This couldn’t be happening. Not again. Over some new law he hadn’t even heard of. And what kind of law was it, anyway? Now it was illegal to help people?

  Everything seemed to collapse in on him at once. The inside of the cop car. His own lungs. Asthmatic spasms seized him and ramped up like never before. Gil gasped, fighting for air, as darkness loomed at the edges of his vision. The cop had stepped away to help with another crew member. No one was looking in his direction. He writhed toward the open door a
nd summoned all his remaining strength to try to call for help.

  But all that came out was a weak little vestige of breath as he tripped and fell face-down on the asphalt.

  CHAPTER 52

  First Friday in May, 2022

  Los Lobos, California

  Roy Benetti guzzled his fifth cup of coffee without tasting it and slammed the empty mug down on his desk. His hands shook so this morning, he could barely control them. Whether it was from exhaustion, rage, or too damned much caffeine, he had no idea.

  He’d been unable to sleep, unable to even think clearly since he found out Winters altered the Payoff module—and that Trumbull refused to recode it no matter how much money he threw at him. Traitors, both of them. But what could he do now? Payoff had been hijacked, the code was out there, and it was killing GSI’s revenues.

  Ironically, state governments and the Feds had accelerated work on passing new laws that should leverage Winters’s Payoff version by criminalizing non-aggressive acts. He hoped that reversed GSI’s disastrous slide, but even if it did, it wouldn’t happen overnight.

  He got up and paced his office, heart racing from the caffeine like it might explode. He hated depending on factors outside his control to save the day—and that’s exactly the situation he was in for the first time in his professional life. He couldn’t think of a damned thing he could do to fix the problem, no matter how hard he tried. His mind spun in circles, frantic to latch onto something.

  There was one thing. He stomped over to his desk and grabbed the phone.

  “Jess? Where is Winters now?”

  “Still in Nampa. I found out he’s been working at some PC repair place. Lives in a motel nearby. Why?”

  “He did it. He sabotaged the Payoff module.”

  “Shit. I thought you had that locked down tight. How do you know?”

  “Long story. The module’s been altered to reverse its effects, no trace of a user ID left behind. It had to be him.”

  “That explains the drop in crime, anyway. Can’t you restore from a backup or something?”

  “No. Can’t get it back, and Trumbull refuses to help.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I want the tweeting stopped. If he reveals more details, it could add to his credibility, enough to tip the Twittersphere skeptics into believers. Can’t let that happen. He’s done way too much damage already by hacking Payoff.” Roy sat down on the edge of his desk. “I want him to pay for what he’s done.”

  “What are you asking me to do?” Jess’s voice took on a wary tone.

  “I want him to go to prison. And never get out. Ever. Do whatever you have to.”

  Jess gaped at his cell phone after Benetti abruptly hung up. Good thing he wasn’t the object of his ire. For a minute there, he thought he was going to ask him to find Winters and kill him. He let out a long breath. He could do a lot of things, but never that.

  The kid must be a real tech hotshot to do what he did. You almost had to admire him for that. But he nearly brought down MoonPop—and GSI—with his clever little sabotage. Jess shrugged. Not like he couldn’t find some soft security guard gig somewhere else if MoonPop folded. Or maybe take early retirement. Despite his connections, he wasn’t wedded to the place and didn’t really care for Benetti all that much. But he could see how Benetti, who lived and breathed MoonPop, would want his pound of flesh out of Winters.

  He frowned and absently rubbed his sore hip. How could he get the job done—with the least amount of effort? Then it came to him.

  “Nampa Police Department. How may we help you?”

  “Hello, I’d like to report a missing person. His name is Zach Winters.”

  “How long’s he been missing?”

  “Oh, about a week now.” Better to make it relatively short, or they’d wonder why he waited so long to report it.

  “Can you tell me more about him?”

  “He’s about twenty-five years old. Slim build, brown hair, brown eyes. He’s one of our employees, hasn’t shown up for work. We checked his file and there doesn’t seem to be an emergency contact in there.” He gave a short, apologetic chuckle. “Don’t know how that got missed.”

  “What makes you think he’s here?”

  “He’s mentioned Nampa before to some of his coworkers. We think he’s from there, or maybe has family there. I know, it’s a long shot, but we thought it might be worth a try.”

  “You say he works for you?”

  “Yes, for MoonPop. We’re anxious to try to locate him.”

  “Well, we’ll see what we can do. But unless he has some vulnerability or health issue, I’m not sure we can do much of anything. We don’t have the resources to track down a healthy adult who might just be on an unplanned vacation.”

  Better up the ante. Jess cleared his throat. “We also have reason to believe he’s sabotaged the company in certain ways I can’t divulge. Trade secrets, that sort of thing. Corporate treason. So we’re anxious to have him back here to look into that properly.”

  “Oh, that changes things. Possible criminal activity bumps up the priority. If you can locate a picture of him and email that to us, it’d sure help. We can put out an APB, send out text alerts. Then the public can call in any sightings and help speed this up if he’s really here in Nampa.”

  “Will do. Thanks so much for your help.”

  Jess set down his cell. He didn’t plan to divulge as much as he had, but Nampa’s finest wouldn’t have played along without it. Corporate treason. Exactly the crime Winters had committed—and the penalty would be harsh. Prison time, mandated by law. No leeway for the courts to lighten the sentence. Benetti would get what he wanted.

  He hoped it was worth it, though. By playing hardball with Winters, Benetti might ultimately expose MoonPop to far more scrutiny than if he’d found some other, more creative way to deal with him.

  CHAPTER 53

  Second Monday in May, 2022

  Nampa, Idaho

  What a pain in the ass! This better be worth it.

  Nampa’s worst traffic jam couldn’t hold a candle to a Boise rush hour. At last, the library appeared up ahead in the waning late afternoon light. Zach pulled into the lot and grabbed the first empty spot he saw. Groaning, he flexed the tension from his shoulders. Frustrating though it may be, Boise’s traffic was the price he needed to pay for a little more safety right now. He’d been seeing some of the same people at the computers in the other library, and if he noticed them, they could notice him. Time to change things up.

  He stepped inside and pulled up short. The place was cavernous compared to the Nampa branch. Two floors of rows and rows of stacks, as far as the eye could see. Where the hell were the computers? Branch this big had to have computers. Bypassing the information desk woman and her curious eyes, he made straight for the floor map. Self-help. That’s the thing. Much better than talking to someone, making an impression. A memory.

  The computer section was relegated to the far back end of the building. Maybe to discourage people from making it their home away from home. He slipped between the stacks and headed back there, grateful to find only one old man slumped, half-asleep, at one of the stations. He’d be no trouble.

  Zach parked himself at the PC farthest from the old man and logged onto TwitterChat with his fake account. He leaned back in his chair and stared off into the distance. Was he being too paranoid with all this anonymous posting and sneaking around different library branches? After all, it had been months since he took off, and nothing had happened. Absolutely nothing. Was he really that good at staying below the radar, or did they just not care? Maybe they never even figured out what he did. And they’d done nothing about his tweets. Weird. Maybe he’d been wrong all along. Maybe they never did suspect him of anything and he’d turned his life upside-down for nothing.

  He hunched over the computer and scrolled through his TwitterChat Notifications page. His tweets had trended strongly—at first. Not so much anymore, though he’d garnered a good numb
er of followers. Unfortunately, the ones who seemed to take him seriously came off as conspiracy nuts, the kind who looked for intrigue in the toasting pattern on their grilled cheese sandwiches. The others seemed to be along for the entertainment factor, watching the nuts go nuts.

  He’d been reluctant to tweet his ace card, the one that would prove his authenticity: admitting that he, the tweeter, had actually seen Payoff—and sabotaged it. He’d been playing with fire as it was, but that tweet would be the clincher. Corporate treason was a felony, punishable by a long, long prison sentence. But no one had taken his tweets seriously so far, at least as far as he could tell. How much did he want to risk to get people to believe the truth about MoonPop?

  Zach started typing, then stared at the screen, finger poised over the Enter key.

  #whistleblow i’ve seen the trojan horse code in #moonpop, changed it to influence good behavior, not violent

  He took a deep breath, then mashed down the Backspace key with a vengeance. Better think a little longer and harder before tweeting that out. After fighting horrific traffic to get to the library on top of a long day at the repair shop, he was too tired and hungry to think the decision through, to analyze all the potential consequences. And that was a good way to do something really stupid.

  Best to play it safe and just keep the trend going for now. Maybe this time his message would reach someone who’d take it seriously, possibly even prompt an investigation. One could hope, anyway. He glanced at his notes and tapped out his usual tweets, then leaned back and ran a hand through his hair.

  But what about Sammy, and that last text she sent? She’d seen his tweets. Sounded like she already figured it out, knew—or at least strongly suspected—it was him. He leaned forward on the table, chin in hands. It had taken all his self-control not to tell her what was going on, not to communicate with her since he bolted. He had to keep her safe, uninvolved in whatever it was he’d gotten himself into. But if she thought it was him, she might say something to someone at MoonPop, or she might try to find him. Maybe he should break his silence this one time, warn her off.