“Won’t that show up on my bill? What if they trace me to the room and see that number? It’ll lead them to you.”
“Mom, I’ll be okay. I’m worried about
you.
”
“No, you won’t be okay!” My voice rose. “They would have killed your grandmother, Emily! Do you think I want them to get my daughter too?”
“They hurt Emily?” Mom leaned toward me, face stricken. “No!”
“She’s okay, Mom, she’s okay.” I squeezed her arm. For her sake I had to get hold of myself. “Look,” I said into the cell, my mind fighting to process, “I’m going to turn off my phone now and drive. I’ll call you in an hour or two from a pay phone. Right now I just need to get out of this area.”
“Promise you’ll call.” Emily’s words caught.
“I will.”
“Mom, I’m so scared.”
Me too
, I wanted to say.
Me too.
“We’ll be okay. I’ll figure this out. Gotta go now.”
“I’ll be praying.”
“Thanks. I love you.”
“Love
you
.”
I ended the call and turned off the phone.
My head flopped back against the seat rest—just for a second. Then I threw my car into gear and took off down the dark street. We had to get
out
of there. Rutger had to be somewhere nearby, trolling the streets for my car. Thank goodness I’d gotten gas in Half Moon Bay, and the tank was still almost full.
Heart pummeling, I turned the corner, headed back toward Woodside Road. From there, it would be a quick hop to the freeway. We wouldn’t stop again for a long time.
“Hannah.” Mom plucked at my sleeve. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
E
mily tossed her cell phone on the bed and dropped her head in her hands.
How
could this be happening to her mom?
“She’s crazy for not going to the police,” Emily said to her darkened room.
Or was she? Her mother wasn’t exactly known for being a conspiracy theorist. And she wasn’t all about drama, either.
Emily swung her feet to the floor and stood. What could she do? Not sleep, that was for sure. The minutes would drag like weeks until her mother called back.
What if she never called back?
Emily’s breath pooled in her chest.
Hand pressed to her mouth, Emily paced her small bedroom until her head was about to explode. What was on that video anyway? Her mom should’ve let her see it. Her work days were all
about
videos. Maybe she’d see something that her Mom hadn’t—
Online backup.
Emily stopped.
How long had Mom left her computer on after copying that video? Over half an hour? That would be long enough for the auto backup to their shared online account to kick on. Emily had set up the account a few years ago, after her mother’s computer crashed with no backup.
Parents and technology.
If that video had been sent to their account, Emily could download it to her computer.
She flipped on her bedroom lamp, blinking in the sudden light. Flung herself into her computer desk chair. She woke up the computer and cruised to the Internet. Logged into the account. Her fingers trembled as she checked the time and date for her mother’s last upload.
There was the file:
Morton’s Video.
Real subtle, Mom.
Emily eyed the file name. If she downloaded it, and the man who’d stolen her mom’s computer managed to break into this account, he could track the download to her.
Only one way around that.
With a few clicks she sent the video file to her computer. Then she deleted the account.
Back hunched, Emily leaned forward to watch the video.
It was pretty much what her mom had explained. No sound. A machine shaking, then letting off steam until the whole screen went white. The final sequence of another machine near an electrical power plant. Black smoke came from that one.
Emily sat back, frowning. Then watched it again.
Near the end her eye caught something at the bottom right of the picture. What was that? She paused the video. Some kind of pixelation. In technical terms, “noise.” Was it just poor quality? The end of the video was more blurry than the beginning. Or was it supposed to be there?
She hit “Play.” The noise continued. Then at fifty-nine seconds, it stopped.
Why?
Emily went back to the beginning again and watched a third time. And a fourth. A fifth and sixth. After seven views, she was sure of one thing.
The noise had a pattern.
There was something here, but her laptop didn’t have the software she needed to figure it out.
She snatched her cell phone off the bed and checked the time: 4:15 a.m. If she left soon she’d get to the office by 5:00. She’d have three hours before anyone else showed up.
Emily threw on some work clothes and makeup. She grabbed her computer, stuffed it in her laptop bag with wallet and keys, and headed for the door.
SPECIAL HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE INVESTIGATION INTO FREENOW TERRORIST ACTIVITY OF FEBRUARY 25, 2013
SEPTEMBER 16, 2013
TRANSCRIPT
Representative ELKIN MORSE (Chairman, Homeland Security Committee): Sergeant, I’m now going to turn to the early morning hours of February 25, at the address of 738 Powell Street, San Carlos, California. The home of Hannah Shire. How were you informed of the events that occurred there?
Sergeant CHARLES WADE (Sheriff’s Department Coastside): Throughout the night I’d been in contact with Deputy Williams, who was running surveillance on the property. Sometime after 3:00 a.m. he stopped responding. At about the same time I was informed by the San Carlos bureau on a possible shots-fired dispatch to that location. I hurried to the address. It took me about half an hour to arrive. There I met San Carlos officer Tim Dunmeyer, who’d checked the house through an unlocked back door and discovered it empty. He reported seeing blood drops in the house, leading out that back door. There seemed to be no sign of forced entry. If the house had been broken into, someone had very efficiently picked the lock. Hannah Shire’s car was not in the garage. Williams’s unmarked van was still parked on the street. He was behind the wheel, dead, with a single gunshot wound to the head.
MORSE: An unfortunate, sad victim, to be sure. As for Mrs. Shire and her mother, did you think they’d been kidnapped?
WADE: A neighbor reported seeing Mrs. Shire drive away in her car in the middle of the night. There was no doubt she’d left of her own volition.
MORSE: So what was your assessment of the situation?
WADE: I couldn’t be sure. But here now, in a matter of hours, I had a third homicide. Plus—where were Hannah Shire and her mother? Were they hurt? Or had Hannah Shire shot the deputy and taken off?
MORSE: That isn’t really what you thought, now was it, Sergeant Wade? They were indeed the questions you voiced to the San Carlos bureau, and expected them to act upon. In truth, you knew far more about what had happened that night at the Shire residence, did you not?
Did you not, Sergeant Wade?
WADE: You are mistaken. I did not know the details of what happened.
MORSE: I’m not asking if you knew every detail. I would expect not, since you weren’t present. I am asking: why didn’t the death of Deputy Williams and the disappearance of Hannah Shire and her mother make you believe her story? She’d said she was in danger. Now she was gone, and there was blood in her house. Didn’t you question whether it was her blood?
WADE: Of course. But as I began questioning neighbors, I learned more.
MORSE: And a deputy had been killed. One of your fellow law enforcement officers. How could you not face your own culpability in his death?
WADE: I object to the term
culpability.
MORSE: Really. Just what would you call it, sir?
Monday, February 25, 2013
My head swam.
I felt like a refugee—so near to home and yet so far. The night seemed to close in around our car. Mom informed me two more times she had “to go,” and I knew that meant now.
I didn’t have time for this. But there was no choice. I had to find an all-night grocery store. It would have a bathroom.
At Woodside Road I turned left toward town, away from the freeway. My own hands wanted to fight the turn. If nothing else I could go to the Safeway at Sequoia Station in Redwood City. The one where I shopped. But my car and license plate felt like glowing neon as I drove down the almost empty road. How long before the people who were chasing us discovered I wasn’t dead? How long until Harcroft and Wade learned I’d bolted?
I so needed my computer. If I could find a hotel we could hide in for awhile, I’d want to get online, learn more about Morton Leringer. Who was in Raleigh? Someone who could help me out of this mess?
Without my laptop, I felt more helpless than ever.
My brain churned and churned—until I realized I was already nearing El Camino. Had I passed an open grocery store? Too late. Turning north on El Camino, I headed toward the familiar Safeway.
“I have to
go
.” Mom’s face pinched.
“I know. We’re almost there.”
“Why don’t we just go
home
?”
“Mom, please—!” I bit down on my frustration, fingers curling into my palms. This was not the time to lose patience with my mother.
Not the time for her to lose it either.
I would have to think of something to tell her. Something to keep her quiet and make her just . . . go along with me.
We reached the store and the near barren, huge parking lot. I pulled into a space and turned off the engine. Mom pulled her hat from the pocket of her coat and put it on.
“Mom, you can’t wear that right now.” Weren’t we easy enough to spot already? The two of us looking disheveled, Mom in mismatched blue and green? What store employee wouldn’t remember us if she sported her purple hat?
“Of course I can.”
“No, you
can’t
.”
Her face started to crumble. “Why are you being so mean to me?”
Tears bit my eyes. I couldn’t do this. Not with Mom. She’d fight me every minute.
“Listen.” I touched her cheek. “We don’t want people in the store to remember us, okay? And if you wear your hat, you’re always so pretty in it, people will remember.”
Her eyebrows knit. “What does it matter?”
“Remember that man in our house? He had a gun. He was going to kill you. If he comes looking for us, we don’t want people remembering they’ve seen us.”
“Oh.” Confusion twisted my mother’s face, then her eyes caught a glimmer. “Was he trying to find out about Morton’s daughter in Raleigh?”
“Yes, Mom. He was.”
My mother’s lips firmed. “Well, we just won’t tell him.”
“That’s right. So we don’t want him—and the other men he’s working with—to know where we are. Because if they find us, they’ll try to pull the information from us.”
“They’re bad people.”
“Very bad.”
“But they acted so nice when they came to visit.”
So she’d recognized Samuelson. “They were just trying to trick us.”
“Oh.”
“Do you see why you can’t wear your hat?”
“I do.” Mouth set, Mom placed her hat on the floor of the car. Chin held high, as if she held back the forces of evil, Mom allowed me to herd her into the store, bare-headed.
After we’d hit the bathroom I thought about food. Mom would be hungry in a few hours. Hustling her around as best I could, I grabbed some donuts—not very nutritious, but Mom loved them—and crackers and cheese. And two large water bottles.
At the counter, we were both silent. Mom refused to even look at the checker, as if the man were a personal spy for the “bad people.” Still, there were very few customers in the store. And we didn’t look like typical night-shift shoppers. How easy it would be for someone to remember us.
I hustled Mom to the car, placing the food in the backseat. One water bottle remained up front for us to share.
We headed south on El Camino. Back up Woodside to 280, then south. I didn’t know where I was going or where I would stop. But we would at least be a little closer to Emily. Not that we could see her, but I couldn’t bear to flee in the opposite direction.
“Hannah.” Mom’s voice quivered. “We’re in trouble, aren’t we?”
“I’m afraid so.”
She pondered my answer. “‘Lord, be gracious to us. We wait for You. Be our strength every morning and our salvation in time of trouble.’”
With that, Mom leaned against her door and soon fell asleep, her mouth open.
Around San Jose, I-280 ended. I took Highway 101 south and in time turned east on 152 toward I-5, the long, flat freeway to Southern California. Every car that neared us made me tense. Was it them? Would they try to run me off the road? Before long my back and neck ached.
I tried to sort things out but came up with the same questions. Again and again I searched for the ability to trust the sheriff’s department so I could call them for help. I so wanted to believe they hadn’t told the “FBI agents” I’d copied that video. But I kept returning to the picture of Samuelson clutching my computer and
backup drive even as he staggered out of my house.
I hit I-5 and turned south.
The time neared 6:30 a.m. My scratchy eyes fighting to stay open, I took an exit that led to a chain hotel. No way could I drive any longer. And the sun would rise all too soon, making our car all the easier to spot. I pulled into a parking space and cut the engine. Mom slept on. I aimed a dull gaze at her, biting my lip. Leaving her in the car was risky. If she woke up alone, she’d be frightened and might wander off. If I took her inside she’d be safe, but together she and I would be much more identifiable if anyone came looking for us.
I started the car again and moved to a space I could watch through the hotel door. With any luck, the employee behind the counter couldn’t see the car as well as I.
Holding my breath, I opened the car door, purse in hand, and slid out. Then I remembered the large gun in my tote bag, lying on the backseat. Couldn’t leave Mom with that.
Couldn’t take it inside, either. What if somehow I was caught with it? Plus I had my own gun in my purse. They’d think I was out to rob the place.