Owen, Detective Mathews and Lester greeted her.
“How’s Dave? Will he be okay?”
“He’s here with a head injury,” Detective Mathews said. “They operated last night.”
“Is he awake? Can I see him?”
“Not yet. Let him recover. He saved your life. The skid marks showed someone yanked the steering wheel hard to the right. Dave was handcuffed to the safety handle but he tore it off.”
“It was horrible.” Jen covered her mouth. “I saw him get thrown from the windshield. Thank God he’s not dead.”
“Actually Sherry’s dead,” Owen said. “She was the one thrown. She wasn’t wearing her seatbelt.”
“Sherry?” Jen was confused. “I thought that was Patty Brown in the car, but Dave kept calling her Sherry.”
Mathews cleared his throat. “Sherry Miller and Patty Brown swapped names in the mental hospital. Your roommate is the real Patty Brown. But she took her ex-husband’s last name, Montoya.”
“Where’s my roommate?”
“She’s been arrested as an accessory,” Mathews said.
Jen clasped her chest. “The little girl! Is she okay?”
Mathews smiled. “Emily was returned to Vera Custodio. Alex and his sister are with Child Protective Services. We caught Bruce trying to drive away with them.”
“But Patty er… Sherry says Emily is Abby, is that true?”
Mathews shook his head. “Vera insists Emily is her niece. Bruce had tied up Vera and Lola and picked up Emily after school. We’ve taken swabs from all the children and DNA from the deceased and the adults in custody. We’re missing Mr. Jewell’s because he wasn’t awake to give consent.”
“Wait. I have his blood on a sweater, and my sister, Christy is his sister.”
“Not needed.” Mathews scratched his goatee. “Mr. Jewell’s father drove in early this morning and has given a sample. We’ll know soon.”
“I’m so glad I found you,” Lester said. “You stopped responding to my instant messages. So I called my uncle.” He grinned at Detective Mathews who nodded.
Jen looked from Mathews to Lester. “He’s your uncle?”
“Yes,” Lester replied, “and he knows how much you’ve mentored me. I told him you had stopped responding to my messages and there was this massive provisioning of virtual servers. So we got worried and drove to your apartment and saw a bunch of fire trucks. Uncle talked to the fire marshal who said a crazy man pulled the alarm and escaped from the scene. So we drove back to Shopahol and Eddie said you were at a church activity.”
“Church activity?”
“That’s what Mr. Jewell told everyone,” Mathews said. “He left in the middle of a crisis. I figured it was a code word. I remembered seeing you and Mr. Jewell at Marina Baptist one Sunday, so Lester and I hopped into the squad car and headed over.”
“And you know who else was at the parking lot?” Owen interrupted. “Nick, the SnotOgler, was video streaming the entire incident. I saw it on the internet and called the police. Of course by then, Mathews had already called it in.”
Mathews took out a notepad. “But, since I’m here, I suppose I should take your statement.”
“Her lawyer is present,” Owen said with a chuckle.
Mathews pulled on the tops of his trousers and sat on the edge of the bed, and Jen gave him all the events from her point of view.
Half an hour later, the detective tucked his notepad away and stood. “Thank you for your cooperation. I’m happy to tell you that Bruce and your three attackers were all over themselves turning in state’s evidence. Any other questions?”
“Sure. Who killed Rey Custodio?”
“Right now, every one of them claims it is the one you thought was Patty Brown who turned out to be Sherry Miller, but I’m not sure it’s that simple. The memory stick is a wealth of information, and we need to also follow the money trail. Rodrigo was hitting some big pockets, and there’s a list on the stick with codenames. It’s going to be a long investigation and some big wigs are going down. We also think Craig Pearson hired Rey and his buddies to steal code to prove Dave infringed on their patents. And then there’s the harassment, extortion and impersonating the kidnappers.”
Jen shuddered. “I wish Dave’s awake. Sherry accused me of some pretty wild things. I hope he didn’t believe her.”
Owen said, “You can’t worry about it right now. There’s stuff on the stick that might implicate you as an accessory to the kidnapping.”
Mathews cleared his throat. “I thought you’re her attorney. That’s the only reason I let you look at the stick, not to suggest charges.”
Owen’s face reddened.
“It’s fine,” Jen said. “I’m prepared to take the punishment. I owe it to Dave for losing his daughter.”
Mathews lowered himself to the edge of her bed. “I’m probably out of line here, but I spoke to the D.A. this morning, and she’s not going to prosecute.”
Jen stared at him, unbelieving. “But why? I must have committed a crime somewhere in there.”
“Sure, she could throw the book at you.” Mathews put a stern look on his face, but couldn’t hide the twinkle in his eyes. “Lying to the police, withholding evidence, even possible accessory to the kidnapping. Put you away forever. But the real kidnapper is dead, and the D.A. has a heart.”
“What? How do you know?”
“Cuz I broke it long ago.” He leaned over and patted her hand. “Take good care of Mr. Jewell, and we’ll call it even.”
* * *
Jen returned to her apartment with Owen. She waited while her landlord unlocked the door. The remains of crime scene tape were scattered on the floor.
“There you go,” he said. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
“She’d like the locks changed,” Owen said.
“Yes, of course.” The landlord shook his keys and handed her a spare.
The tuna fish and apple juice had been cleaned up, but dirty dishes still sat in the sink. The smell of dirt and gunpowder twisted her stomach. Back to the dump. She had tried to see Dave before leaving the hospital but was told his mother refused all visitors.
She scanned the kitchen. “My laptop and purse are gone.”
Owen picked up a trash bag and stuffed in the debris. “The police took them as evidence, but I can get your things back this afternoon. Care for some takeout?”
She picked up a lollipop stick and tucked it into a plastic bag. “Looks like they missed this one.”
Perhaps she could still prove Emily was Abby somehow. Vera could be lying.
“Uh, Jen? What are you doing?” Owen eyed her quizzically.
“Nothing, it’s just a lollipop stick.” Jen patted his shoulder. “How much do I owe you for this ordeal?”
“I’ll have my office figure it out.”
“Office? You have an office now?”
“Yep. I’ve decided to go into Criminal Law. Forget old fogies and their wills. Bo—ring.” He mocked a yawn. “But actually the bill will be zero. You helped me decide.”
“Oh, thank you.” She kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll be in the poorhouse when our company goes bankrupt from the faulty upload.”
Praveena, Lester, Satish, Wei, and Holly barged in with baskets of food.
“Whoo hoo! It’s party time!” Satish whooped.
Praveena’s cheerful voice rang. “You’re the queen of OgleNet. Everyone’s blogging about you and the video of that car trying to run you over.”
“Yeah, that was some acrobatics, girl.” Satish pumped his fist. “You were really moving.”
“Wait, wait!” Jen gaped at them. “What about the code? Did it crash the Mississippi network?”
“No, nothing at all,” Holly said. “Satish and I looked at auto-update again. Bob is so stupid. He only read the message that said it completed successfully, when in reality nothing happened.”
“Yeah, Jen, and we know why,” Lester said. “When Holly mentioned nothing happened, I went back to the source code change log and found that you had commented out the code. You’re in serious violation because build engineers are not supposed to touch the code.”
Praveena wagged her finger. “And no one code-reviewed your changes. You snuck it in right before the Black Friday build.”
Wei held his cell phone and recorded everyone.
Jen clapped her hand over her mouth. “I totally forgot about it. That means everything Sherry Miller made me do was for nothing. The code never updated!”
Owen clapped. “You’re a genius. I know nothing about computers and stuff, but I’d say you just saved the company again.”
Gloom settled over Jen. “But Dave’s still in a coma. He doesn’t even know.”
Everyone fell silent as Jen twisted the ring on her finger. So much had happened she didn’t even know where to start. Sherry accused her of blackmail, extortion, aiding and abetting the kidnapping, having an abortion and killing Jocelyn. Her heart ached, and she slumped onto a chair.
“Hey, hey,” Satish put his hand on her shoulder. “You’re still the hero. If you hadn’t commented out the update code, the entire shopping network would have failed last night and our stock would be worthless. I’m sure Mr. Jewell will thank you when he wakes up.”
If he wakes up.
* * *
Jen entered the storage room to retrieve the backup memory stick. Rodrigo must have left a clue about what he'd done with Abby. She picked up the green memory stick and put it in her pocket, then opened a box of photos.
This time, she saw the tall, thin man with the rolled-up shirtsleeves planting trees in the schoolyard. Her mother held the shovel while the man dropped in the root ball. A group shot at a restaurant showed the volunteers and the teachers. Mami was sitting next to him, Dave’s father. And she actually looked happy.
She flipped through more photos. As Mami’s pregnancy progressed, the man disappeared. Jen’s father looked at her with undisguised happiness, holding hands on the beach. How his heart must have been broken when he eventually found out the truth.
Jen wiped her eyes and put the photos away. She picked up a cheap netbook from Best Buy and stuck the memory key in. Sure enough, poems appeared with names taken from Greek mythology.
His interpretations were off the wall. Perseus received showers of gold. Callisto was impregnated by a bear and her condition revealed in a bath. Orpheus looked back on Eurydice too soon and was granted a little image bearer, but not his true love.
She typed, “meaning of Emily” into the search engine. “Emulation.”
That’s it!
Jen called Vera and Lola, and they invited her over for dessert and to talk about their ordeal. In half an hour, Jen knocked on Lola’s door. They welcomed her with
lumpia
, a Filipino eggroll, and
puto bumbong
, a glutinous rice cake. Lola was only too happy to pull out Emily’s baby pictures. Emily pointed to the pictures. “My daddy, my daddy in Heaven.”
The images flipped in front of her eyes while Lola and Vera oohed and tickled Emily for being so cute. December 2006. Abby and Rod posed with Santa Claus at the mall. April 2007, Abby and Rod celebrated her first birthday, even though Abby was born in March. The cake and banner said ‘Emily,’ but the baby girl in the photo kissing Rod was Abby.
Jen’s scalp prickled with realization. Rod had masqueraded Abby as his niece, Emily. Did Vera and Lola know? What about Rey? He had to have suspected, but he seemed to have played along. Maybe he confronted Rod and threatened to expose everyone. Then Sherry realized Rod would squeal about Jocelyn’s death. Jen shook off a chill. She’d let the police figure out who killed whom. The important thing was she found Abby.
Vera and Lola twittered until Emily’s bedtime. Jen was treated to a continuous saga of Emily from the time she was Abby until both her fathers were buried. Rod first, and then Rey. Jen asked for an extra wallet size of Emily’s first visit with Santa, and they gave it to her. She kissed Vera and Lola goodbye while they pushed a box of
puto bumbong
on her to take home.
She hated to see them hurt, but the truth had to come out. If she hadn’t been so easily duped by Rod, she would have solved this years ago. Dave would never have been separated from his daughter and suffered all of the pain and torment, and Vera and Lola would not have been misled. Now, they’d all hate her.
She had to set it right, though. So, despite the late hour, Jen called Detective Mathews.
“I have proof Emily is Abby. Can I show you?”
“Sure, there are a few items on the memory stick I wanted to run by you. Come by your place?”
It was close to midnight when he knocked on her door. She showed him the photo immediately.
He held it to the light and whistled. “You’ve got it. Hidden in plain sight. Can I take this as evidence?”
“Sure.” Depression set in now that she found Abby. It really had been her fault. All along, a little part of her had hoped she’d be exonerated, that Abby was hidden in the Philippines—that a stranger, other than Rod, took her. Everything crashed over her head like a giant sucking tsunami wave.
Mathew placed the photo in an evidence bag. “Don’t worry, he’ll wake up. I’m praying for him.”
“Will you tell him about Abby?”
He arched his eyebrow. “What’s going on? I figured you’d want to tell him.”
Jen held back a sob. “His mother won’t allow me into the room to see him.”
“She’ll come around.” Mathews glanced at the printouts. “All she knows is her son is in a coma because of you and what she read on the internet isn’t pretty. But we found out who killed Rod. Sherry Miller’s prints were on the key to the metal compactor. We also unearthed the Ghost Rider shrouded inside a storage shed. It was registered to Sherry Miller. There’s evidence of human hair and tissue in the grill of the car and on the wiper blades. Half of Sherry Miller’s trust fund was transferred to Rodrigo a few months after the kidnapping despite her lawyer’s objections, and there have been a few lawsuits questioning her competency, but in the end, the judge decided she was old enough to decide who she wanted to give her money to.”
“Double blackmail?” Jen gripped the sides of the table.
“From what I figure, Rod confronted Sherry about Jocelyn’s death, and she helped him with the kidnapping. That’s why the police didn’t find any trace of Abby. Sherry dropped Abby off at Vera and Lola’s house a few months later when the coast was clear. But, there’s a problem… The DNA results came back. Alex is Dave’s son, but Emily is not his daughter.”