Eventually she took out her phone and scrolled through her texts, including a long one from Stu, which she found especially informative. Before her departure for London, he had installed a temporary duplicate of Frigg’s text-vanishing software on her phone so that any text messages sent while Cami was overseas were all of the vanishing variety. They were readable only once, after which they disappeared, leaving no trace behind.

  It’s looking more and more like Hal Holden was the target instead of B. Frigg thinks she’s on the trail of the people behind the attack. Local cops still have their eye on Ali.

  Okay on B.’s shoulder, but Hal’s closed head injury could have him on the vent for months.

  Getting glowing reports on your performance with B.’s presentation. Good for you, but I’d still like to know where that damned tech blogger, Adrian Willoughby, is getting his info.

  As Stu’s text vanished into the ether, Cami sent an immediate reply:

  I’d like to know that, too, but in the meantime, I’m coming home with letters of intent from two new customers.

  Just then the barman approached bearing Cami’s salad along with a napkin-wrapped bundle of silverware. She rested her phone on the bar and stared at the food in front of her. A filet of perfectly cooked salmon lay on a bed of brightly seasoned green peas. The mint flavoring on the peas was accentuated by two sprigs of mint arranged like crosshairs on top of the salmon.

  “Buon appetito,” the barman said with a cordial smile, keeping his words properly aligned with Il Bar’s Italian-themed ambiance.

  Focused on the food, Cami hadn’t noticed that the person next to her at the bar had moved on until someone said, “Excuse me, is this seat taken?”

  Cami glanced up to see none other than Adrian Willoughby himself, rocks glass in hand, lurch onto the stool next to hers. She had known all through the conference exactly who he was from the dossiers Frigg had created. During sessions and breaks, she had observed him from a distance, wondering if and when he would make an approach. Evidently now was the time.

  “It’s not taken,” she said, giving the somewhat-tipsy newcomer what she hoped was a believably welcoming smile. “Let me get this out of your way,” she added, picking up her phone and slipping it into a pocket. “I don’t believe in taking calls or answering texts while I’m eating.”

  “Good idea,” Willoughby muttered. “My mum’s old-fashioned. Whenever a dinner guest pulls out a phone at the table, she hits the roof. She claims bringing phones to the table is bad manners, but then again, chewing out your guests isn’t exactly behaving yourself, either.”

  “Your mother and mine would probably get along famously,” Cami said, raising her glass of wine, “so let’s drink to mothers, especially ones who are always peering over our shoulders.”

  Willoughby had arrived with an almost-empty glass in hand. After touching his glass to Cami’s, he polished off the remainder of his drink, and then pushed the glass to the edge of the bar in search of a refill. When the barman appeared, Willoughby ordered a double and put the drink on his tab. Cami had thought from the outset that the man was inebriated. A double would make things worse.

  “You’re from the States, right?” he asked, noticeably slurring his words.

  Willoughby had been in the back of the room when she’d done her presentation, so clearly he already knew the answer to that question, but Cami played along.

  “Yes,” she answered. “I’m from Arizona.”

  “That’s where you live now,” he said, “but where are you from originally—China?”

  “California,” she responded.

  “How’s the conference been treating you?”

  If he was going to make some kind of play for her and push came to shove, Cami still had her wasp spray handy, tucked away in the pocket of her blazer. In the meantime, however, it suited her purposes for Willoughby to think she was something of a dim bulb, and that was how she answered.

  “Pretty well, I guess,” she said with a noncommittal shrug. “It’s my first, though, so I don’t have much to compare it to.”

  “When do you head home?”

  “Right after the closing luncheon tomorrow.”

  “Not hanging around to do a little sightseeing?”

  “We’re a bit shorthanded at work right now,” she said. “I need to get back.”

  “Too bad,” he said. “I’m single. You’re single. I was going to offer to be your tour guide.”

  I’ll bet you were! Cami thought.

  Very few females had been in attendance at the conference. Of those, Cami was by far the youngest and most attractive. No wonder he was trying to put the moves on her.

  “Sorry,” she said, “no can do.”

  “Shorthanded because of B.’s injury?” Willoughby asked.

  Cami wanted to ask how he knew about that. Instead, she merely nodded.

  “How’s he doing?” Willoughby inquired.

  Cami could tell he was trying to act as though he and B. were great pals, but Cami wasn’t falling for that line of bull, and she avoided answering the question by taking a long sip of her wine.

  “Can I get you a refill of whatever you’re drinking?” he offered.

  He was smarmy. Cami understood smarmy. At that point she was almost hoping Willoughby would pull some kind of groping stunt that would give her an excuse to deploy her wasp spray. On the other hand, she was curious. Clearly the man was already drunk. Once he had another one or two, maybe he’d spill the beans about what was really behind his very public grudge match with B. Simpson. She also knew that a second glass of wine wasn’t going to hurt her.

  “Sure,” she said. “Why not? I’m having Pinot Grigio.”

  Willoughby ordered wine for her and another scotch for himself. When their drinks came, Cami’s was delivered with a head shake from the barman and a disapproving glance in Willoughby’s direction. She wanted to tell the bartender that she was more than capable of taking care of herself, but she didn’t. When it was time for another round, the bartender cut them off. Willoughby was prepared to argue the case, but Cami talked him out of it.

  “Let’s just pay and go,” she said. He made a bid to pay for her dinner and her first glass of wine, but the barman made sure that didn’t happen. The fact that he signed his tab to his room told her he was staying at the hotel.

  As they left the bar, Willoughby was clearly having difficulty walking, and Cami took his arm to steer him toward the elevator.

  “What floor?” she asked.

  “Third,” he slurred, shambling to the back of the lift and leaning against the wall. Once the car began to move, Willoughby swayed dangerously and once more Cami was forced to steady him. “What’s your room number?”

  “Three thirty-four,” he mumbled. “At least I think that’s what it is.”

  When they reached the door to his room, he tried the key several times but was unable to slip it into the slot. “Give me the key,” she told him. “You’ll never be able to make it work.”

  “Thanks,” he said, handing it over. “I may have had a tiny bit too much to drink.”

  You think? Cami wondered.

  Willoughby leaned against the wall for support while Cami slid the key into the slot. Once he let go of the wall, he would have fallen if Cami hadn’t been there to grab him. She guided him inside and over to the bed. Once there, he toppled face-first onto the bed and instantly began to snore.

  Cami stood there for an indecisive moment, looking down at him and considering her next move. She could have just left him there, but she still wanted to know more about his vendetta against High Noon in general and B. in particular. Rather than leaving, she walked over to the door and pushed it shut. Returning to the bed, she carefully eased Willoughby’s cell phone out of one pocket and his wallet out of another.

  Adrian Willoughby might have been a world-renowned cybersecurity expert, but his cell phone password was pathetic. Cami’s third iteration of his birthday—3121984—opened the door to his entire life, and it turned out that wasn’t pretty. Scrolling through texts and email, it didn’t take long for her to suss out that George Smythe himself, the guy who passed himself off as a gentleman’s gentleman, was paying the freight for Willoughby’s publicity campaign against B., and knowing who was behind it would make it possible to put suitable countermeasures in place.

  But that was only half of it. Using her cell phone to take screenshots, Cami spent the next two hours continuing to scroll through his texts, emails, and contacts, and copying the ones she considered to be most pertinent. It turned out that Willoughby was being paid to supply information on B. Simpson’s operation to not one but two different firms, both of them known to be among High Noon’s fiercest competitors. But that wasn’t all, not nearly.

  Adrian’s personal life was in shambles. Frigg had already uncovered the fact that his wife, Marissa, had filed for a divorce, but texts and email correspondence revealed that she was playing hardball in terms of alimony, child support, and child custody issues. Marissa didn’t care how long the divorce negotiations took. Adrian did because he just happened to have a very pregnant girlfriend who wanted to be married before her baby arrived in two months’ time, to say nothing of a brand-new female acquaintance, one recently selected from a dating site where Adrian was still passing himself off as single.

  Feeling sorry for the three different women who’d had the misfortune of becoming entangled with such a scumbag, Cami decided to do something about it. In the email correspondence dealing with the pending divorce proceedings, Cami located an email address for Marissa’s attorney. Then she went back through all of Willoughby’s texting and email history, taking a second set of screenshots dealing with him and his current crop of lovebirds.

  Then she wrote a long email to the attorney.

  To Whom It May Concern:

  I recently had an encounter with Adrian Willoughby in a hotel bar here in London where, after attempting to pass himself off as single, he ended up inviting me up to his room. I accompanied him upstairs because by then he was too inebriated to make it on his own.

  Once in his room, he immediately passed out, and I decided to take a look at his phone to see who he really was. As a public service to his wife as well as to the other women involved with the man, I am attaching jpegs of what I found there. You’re welcome to use the material as you see fit.

  I would like to remain anonymous in this matter. To that end, the address used to send this message will no longer be valid once you have read this message, and the email itself will also disappear within a matter of minutes. I suggest you immediately download and copy any of the attached information which you feel might be of use.

  Sincerely,

  A Concerned Friend

  After attaching the jpegs, Cami pressed Send, hoping as she did so that the material she’d just provided would make Adrian Willoughby’s life far more complicated than it already was, maybe enough so that he’d be obliged to pay more attention to his own business and less to whatever was going on at High Noon Enterprises.

  Finished with Willoughby’s phone and wallet, Cami returned both items to his pockets without disturbing him in the least. Then, after leaving the room key on his dresser, she exited the room.

  On Saturday morning when Adrian woke up, Cami suspected he would be seriously hungover, but ultimately that would be the least of his problems.

  CHAPTER 36

  COTTONWOOD, ARIZONA

  Friday, January 3, 2020, 4:00 p.m. (MST)

  All day long Stuart Ramey had operated under a dark cloud, second-guessing and regretting his earlier decision to allow Frigg to install that keylogger on Frank Muñoz’s computer. Telling Ali he’d been ignoring the AI’s messages was a little white lie. In actual fact, he had put Frigg on a time-out when he left for work, telling her he’d let her know when he was ready to hear from her, and he still wasn’t, primarily because he had yet to land on his next course of action.

  On the one hand, Frigg’s way of tracking down the killer had been nothing short of inspired, but using a keylogger to do so was strictly illegal. If law enforcement learned about that, there was a good chance Stu would end up in jail. At the very least he’d be fired. High Noon couldn’t afford to have someone with a conviction for illegal hacking on the payroll. But Stu also knew that once Ali showed up at the house, he was going to have to tell her that he had stepped out of line, because what he had done affected not only his future but maybe High Noon’s as well.

  That spurt of late-afternoon texting with Cami had raised his spirits for a time, and he was especially gratified to know that she’d be returning from the conference with letters of intent from two new customers, but as the time for him to head home and face the music approached, Stu’s sense of unease returned. Trying to settle his nerves, before leaving the office, he put in a pickup order for some comfort food from his favorite pizza joint. When it came to pizza, Stu’s all-time favorite was the meat-eater’s special. Ali’s was pepperoni. As a peace offering, that’s what he ordered.

  After a short stop to pick up his pizza order, Stu hit the road. That was when he finally checked in with Frigg, and when he learned that earlier in the day the two suspects in the I-17 incident had been found shot to death outside Blythe, California. That was big news, of course, but not enough to relieve his anxiety. And arriving home to find Ali’s rental car already parked in his driveway didn’t help, either. As she exited her vehicle, the appraising look she aimed in Stu’s direction made him think she already knew what he needed to discuss.

  “Come on in,” he invited. “I brought pizza,” he added unnecessarily. Ali followed him into the house, threading her way through racks of humming CPUs in both the garage and family room that kept Frigg’s formidable brainpower up and running.

  “How are things at work?” Ali asked, once they arrived in the kitchen.

  For once Stu was grateful for small talk. “It hasn’t been easy,” he responded, “but we’re getting by.”

  He cleared a space on the island wide enough to hold the box. Looking around the kitchen, he was ashamed by how messy it was. Had he known he was going to have company right after work, he would at least have done the dishes.

  Over pizza, without mentioning the keylogger, Stu filled Ali in on everything Frigg had so far been able to glean about the various investigations, including the early-morning bombing in Beaverton, Oregon. He finished by explaining how all of the incidents seemed to lead back to a single individual, a guy named Frank Muñoz.

  “What do we know about Frank Muñoz?” Ali asked.

  That question went to the heart of the matter. “A lot more than we should,” Stu admitted ruefully. “I’m afraid I had Frigg install a keylogger on his computer.”

  Ali was aghast. “Are you kidding?” she demanded.

  While they’d been talking, Stu’s cell phone had been sitting quietly on the kitchen island next to the pizza box. Before Stu could reply, the device began buzzing in place. With a sigh, Stu reached over and picked it up. “Frigg,” he barked, “I told you I didn’t want to be interrupted.”

  “Sorry, Stu,” Frigg replied. “I thought this was too important to wait. And good afternoon, Ms. Reynolds, I hope you had a pleasant journey.”

  There was no point in asking how Frigg knew Ali was in the room. She simply did, but Ali was still too dumbstruck by the unwelcome news about the illegal hack to bother responding.

  “Should I put this material up on one of the screens in the family room?” Frigg continued. “That way you can both see it.”

  “I suppose,” Stu conceded. “Give us a minute.”

  Taking their plates along with them, Stu and Ali moved to the family room sofa.

  “All right,” Stu said. “Go ahead.”

  What the hell?

  Sorry. Someone screwed up.

  Do you think? Someone screwed up AGAIN! Hal Holden is still in the land of the living and so is Sylvia. I think it’s time for two refunds instead of just one.

  I’ll take care of it.

  Which, give me my money back or finish the job? You’d better do something about this, or I’ll blow the whistle on your whole damned operation.

  Are you threatening me? If I go down, you go down.

  Then you’d better figure out how to deliver that refund. By my calculations I’m out twenty thou with nothing to show for it. And you’d better make it fast. Sometime soon, I may be heading out of the country.

  Ali was mystified. “What are we seeing here?” she asked finally.

  “This is Frank Muñoz communicating in an email draft file with someone named Salvatore Moroni, a guy who appears to be running a murder-for-hire operation and who has likely been arranging and managing this whole series of hits.”

  That was when Ali got it. “The only reason we’re able to see this conversation is because of your keylogger?”

  “Yes,” Stu answered. “I had Frigg install it earlier this morning.”

  Ali reread the words on the screen, letting them sink in. “That sounds very much like a confession,” she said at last.

  Stu nodded. “Yes, it does.”

  “And totally inadmissible!”

  “That too,” he agreed.

  Just then the words vanished, and the screen went blank. “Where’d that go?” Ali demanded. “Frigg, did you do that?”

  “I did not,” Frigg replied. “Mr. Muñoz simply closed the file, but I took a screenshot. By the way, that’s how he and Mr. Moroni communicate—through draft files on an email account to which they both have access. The two of them are able to log in on it, as can Mr. Moroni’s daughter, Rochelle, who, according to her IP address, also resides in Las Vegas.”

  “Who exactly is Salvatore Moroni?” Ali asked.

  “He’s supposedly ex–organized crime, currently doing life without parole inside the Lompoc Federal Correctional Complex for murdering four of his former associates. It would appear that he’s up to his old tricks—arranging hits for a price, and doing so from behind bars.”