Blind Rage (27 page)

She didn’t answer.

Let him figure it out. If I can get around without eyesight, he can find his own way to the kitchen
.

The stillness returned, not even broken by Oliver’s footsteps or the sound of the SUV outside.

“Alice?” she said again, softly this time, already knowing there would be no answer.

Nervous now, she took a step and stretched out her hand in search of the center island. She heard the soft tread of a footstep behind her. Before she could turn, an arm snaked around her throat. Adrenaline flooded her system, jump-starting her heart and jolting her muscles into action. Instinctively, she latched onto the arm with both hands and turned, thrusting her hip out. She rolled her shoulders, nearly doubling over, and felt the weight of the person behind her shift onto her hip and off again as her motion propelled the body up and over.

The body thudded on the floor in front of her. Still holding the person’s arm, her hands slid up until she felt a wrist. She grasped it, fingers quickly finding pressure points. She pressed down hard and bent the hand back, dropping onto one knee. She heard a
whoosh
of breath as her knee landed on the person’s chest, and she forced the hand back even farther, angry and frightened enough to break it if she had to.

“Who are you?” she screamed. “What do you want?”

Someone gently tapped her wrist. “
Aieee
, missy! Enough!”

“Yoshi?” she said. As soon as she said it, she recognized the earthy scent of loam and mulch mixed with vanilla and green tea that was uniquely Yoshi’s.

“
Hai
, missy. You remember.”

“Holy crap, Tess! Do you know what you just did?” Oliver’s voice this time.

“What? Oh, Yoshi, I’m so sorry.” Confused, Tess struggled to keep her emotions in check as her heart pounded. A strong hand grasped her upper arm and helped her up.

“That was awesome,” Oliver said. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

“I don’t know . . . What do you mean? Do what?”

“She remember the jujitsu I teach her,” Yoshi said, on his feet now, his voice level with her ears. “We spend many long hours practicing out in the garden when she was a little girl.”

“Not that little, Yoshi,” Tess said. “And don’t forget, I went to a dojo during middle school when you were too busy to teach.”

“Ah-so, not too busy. Just thinking you should learn from different sensei.”

“But why did you do that? Why did you pretend to choke me like that? Unless you’re one of
them
. . .”

“No, no,” he said hurriedly. “I not like those bad men. I want you to remember, to know you are not so helpless as you feel.”

“My god, Tess. I wish you could have seen yourself,” Oliver said. “You were amazing.”

She flushed. It
had
felt good, even if Yoshi had nearly scared her to death.

“What about stones?” Yoshi said. “You use stones I give you?”

“What stones?” She frowned. “Oh, right, the ones you gave me before school yesterday. I think I put them in my backpack.”

“You be good to use them, missy.”

“What kind of stones?” Oliver said. “What do they do?”

“Some people call them worry stones,” Yoshi said. “But they have special powers. You see. And now you see you still know jujitsu, we practice every day after school.”

Tess groaned. “Not
every
day. Besides, how do you know I can really do it? If I can’t see you coming, I won’t know what to do.”

“You see me coming that time? I not think so. You practice. Every day.”

“Maybe.” She drew the word out. “I’ll think about it, Yoshi.”

“You not think too hard, missy or you hurt your head.”

“Ha, ha! Very funny. Get a little closer and maybe I’ll show you how much jujitsu I
really
remember. Then we’ll see who’s laughing.”

“Ah-so, welcome back, missy. Now excuse, please. I work.”

Yoshi shuffled out almost as silently as he’d come in.

“Is he gone?” Tess said.

“Yes. Why?”

“We need to get to work, too.”

“I’ll get your book bag.”

“I’m not talking about homework.” She reached in her pocket and took out the iPod they’d retrieved from the Range Rover. “We need to see what’s on this.”

“Are you sure you want to do that? Instead of homework, I mean.”

Her heartbeat had just started to slow from the initial fright and exertion of her encounter with Yoshi. Now it sped up again.

“Better than thinking about having no friends.” She reached out and felt for the island, found a stool, and sat down. “You’ll have to do this for me.”

Oliver sat next to her and gently lifted the iPod from her grasp. “What am I looking for?”

“I don’t know. The most recent song? We might have to hook it up to a computer and see what files are on it.”

Tess chewed a fingernail in the ensuing silence. She forced herself to pull it out of her mouth and placed her palm flat on the counter. She concentrated on the feel of the smooth, cool stone under her hand. She could see its colors in her mind—black with streaks of hunter green and flecked with bright crystal facets beneath the surface that reflected silver or gold, depending on the light. She pressed hard, willing her fingers to tell her which colors they touched.

“That was pretty cool how you pulled one over on your uncle,” Oliver said after a moment. “You know, with the thumb drive. You sure you should have done that?”

“Look, if Uncle Travis was supposed to get whatever we’re looking for, then my dad would have sent the e-mails to
him
, not me. So if my dad didn’t trust him, why should I?”

“We still don’t know for sure it’s your dad. Could be someone is getting you to steal something that
belonged
to your dad.”

“I thought you wanted me to do this,” she said. “Besides, who else would have known about the puzzle book?”

“Your uncle?”

“He was in Afghanistan most of the time I was growing up.”

“Alice?”

Tess chewed on that notion for a moment. Alice had never been warm and cuddly, but she’d always been there, helpful and efficient. While Alice was no substitute for her mother, Tess didn’t know what she would have done without her for the past year.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “Why would she save us from Rosa, then? She’s been with us since I was little. I just don’t see it.”

“Hey, I’m just trying to look at this thing from all angles. What we don’t know
could
hurt us, you know.” He paused, but before she could say anything, he went on. “Okay, I’ve looked through all the music files, and there’s nothing very new. But in the video files, there’s one that’s a lot more recent than the rest.”

“Come on! What is it?”

“It’s a clip of you snowboarding.”

A chill ran through her like cold IV fluid. It brought back memories of her long stay in the hospital—and something else, too. She heard her father’s voice as clear as blue sky in August yell, “Atta girl! Nice air!” Her mother’s whoop of encouragement echoed a moment later through the speaker, the sound tinny and so much smaller than life. The embarrassment she’d felt at the time had lit up her face like a torch, but the shame she felt now burned white-hot and deep inside.

She managed no more than a whispered croak from her constricted throat. “It’s from the last time I saw them.”

“This was taken the day of the accident? Never mind. Dumb question. I’m sorry, Tess.”

As much as she dreaded it, Tess forced herself to remember that day.

What had been so special about that day that Dad would now want me to pull something relevant, something important, from a video clip? Everything, of course
.

It had started out as a celebration of her SAT scores. A surprisingly crisp and clear spring day. As much as she hated to admit it, she’d had fun, too, with her parents. She’d thought that without her friends the trip would be a drag, but it had been the opposite—a relaxing respite from the grind of schoolwork and the drama of junior year. She hadn’t even allowed herself to be flustered by her father’s lame jokes or her mother’s attempts to baby her—until her father had brought out the iPod to shoot her coming down a run. She’d suddenly become self-conscious, as if the other kids on the mountain would think she was showing off for the camera. As a result, she’d almost missed a big mogul entirely. But she’d managed to catch it at the last second and twist into a nice corked cab 360. That had been on their last run. Afterward, of course, the day could not have gotten worse.

She ran through the scene again in her mind, pulling up images that her eyes could no longer see. She watched her father get out ahead of her on the long run, carving sweet turns and occasionally catching some air. She and her mother had followed, Tess the faster of the two. Her father had disappeared around a bend, and by the time Tess had reached his spot, he’d stopped far down the slope and was getting ready to video her run. Other than her discomfort, though, she couldn’t think of anything else out of the ordinary.

“What do you see?” she said.

“You snowboarding. That’s it.”

“Go through it again. See if there’s anything strange. Other boarders or skiers. Voices.”

She waited while Oliver played the clip again. It was short, less than a minute. She heard nothing different the second time through.

“Nothing,” Oliver said when it ended. “It’s nothing special. I mean, I’m sure it was a special moment for you, for your folks . . .”

Oliver’s embarrassed barely registered as she puzzled. “There must be something. Or else it must be another file.”

“That’s the most recent. There’s nothing else on here that isn’t at least a few months older.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m not a complete idiot, Tess. I think I can figure out how to work this thing.”

“Okay, okay. I just . . . There has to be something there!”

“Well, if there is, it’s really well hidden.” Oliver sounded peeved.

“Of course it is,” Tess said, pressing a hand to her forehead. “Why didn’t I think of it before?”

“What? What is it?”

Busy digging in her pocket for her phone, Tess didn’t answer. She pushed the voice recognition button on the side. After the prompt, she said, “Call Matt.”

“It’s a hidden file,” she said to Oliver while Matt’s phone rang. “It has to be.”

“Yo,” Matt’s voice said over the speaker, “Better be someone I know. If not, hang up. If so, you know what to do.” After a pause, Matt’s voicemail beeped.

“Matt, this is Tess. Call me. I need to—”

“Tess, it’s me,” Matt said, breathing hard. “Sorry, I was driving.”

“Can you come over? We really need you.”

“I can’t, Tess. I’m on my way to work. Can it wait till later?”

Tess’s shoulders slumped. “I suppose.”

“Is it something I can help with over the phone? I’ve got a few minutes now.”

“Maybe. We’ve got my dad’s iPod. The last file on it is a video clip. I think there might be something hidden in it somehow.”

“An embedded file? Sure. That’s fairly easy. There’s software on the web that can help you find it and isolate it. Is this another one of those mystery files?”

“I think so,” Tess said. “Can you tell Oliver what to do?”

“Sure,” Matt said. “But before you do anything with it, e-mail me the video so we have a copy. Remember what happened last time?”

“Right. Okay, we’ll send it now. And here’s Oliver.”

She held out the phone, and Oliver took it from her.

“Okay, Matt,” he said. “What am I looking for?”

Oliver had taken the call off speaker, and for the next few minutes Tess heard nothing but “uh-huh” and “got it” from him. She wondered what sort of hoops Matt was making him jump through.

Finally, he said, “Did you get the e-mail? The video clip? Okay, then I’m going to run this program . . . No, I copied the clip to my laptop. I’ll run it on that . . . Yeah, hang on a sec.”

“Oliver . . . ?” Tess said.

“Working on it. Here it goes. Yes! Another file, embedded in the video. Matt, you’ll want to look at this when you have a chance. More code . . . Okay, we’ll talk to you later. Thanks.”

“He hung up?” Tess said.

“Had to go to work,” Oliver said. “But we got it, Tess. Another piece of the program. Have you checked your e-mail lately?”

Tess pressed the voice activation button on her phone and said, “E-mail.” The phone responded in that robotic voice, “You have one unread e-mail.”

“Open e-mail,” Tess commanded.

“E-mail, sent today at 10:48, from Dad. Bitly slash seven-eight-four-Q-X.”

“Bitly . . . ?” Oliver said. “What’s that?”

“It’s a link to a web address,” Tess said. “Here we go again. Guess you better upload the file and see what happens.”

She waited while Oliver pecked the keys on his laptop.

“There it goes,” he said. “And, yes, it’s really gone. Took the file on the laptop with it, but I still have the original video clip.”

Tess frowned. “He made a mistake. That’s not like him.”

“No,
someone
made a mistake. Which suggests it might not be your dad. I mean, come on, Tess, you can’t really believe he’s still alive.”

A man’s voice came from across the room. “Believe who’s alive?”

Tess heard footsteps on the tile floor and caught the strong scent of men’s cologne, something with notes of coconut, hazelnut, and caramel. She recognized it, but couldn’t remember where she’d encountered it or who’d worn it. A second whiff triggered a memory from middle school. She must have been in seventh grade. Bert Shirovsky had sat next to her in earth science. Big for his age, when so many girls were so much more developed than boys, he’d cornered her in the hall one day and had tried to kiss her. She might not have minded, except for the major crush she had on Toby Cavanaugh—and the fact that Bert’s breath had smelled like Yoshi’s compost bin out in the greenhouse. She’d managed to slip out from under his grasp and had shied away whenever the strong scent of his deodorant appeared close by.

“No one,” Tess said, thinking furiously.

“We were just talking about the boy who was killed last night,” Oliver said quietly. “Tess is having a hard time accepting the fact that he’s dead. I don’t blame her.”