Black Oil, Red Blood

Chapter 27



Miles wanted to stop by his house to pick up some fresh clothes and his special designer shaving cream, but Cameron and Nash convinced him that probably wouldn’t be a good idea.

In the end, we decided to set up shop in Gracie Miller’s root cellar. Since my client was M.I.A. and probably wasn’t returning any time soon, it seemed like as good a place as any. Plus, if she did unexpectedly return, I’d be able to deliver Dorian’s settlement offer the minute she walked in the door.

Gracie had her root cellar pretty well equipped as a storm shelter. Canned food was stashed everywhere, and there were even cots for when hurricanes came through and spun off tornadoes. The door to the root cellar was hidden behind a wood shed and wasn’t visible from the street. Anybody who might be looking for it would have to know it was there. The only reason I knew it was there was because Derrick had been working down there one day when he collapsed. Gracie had called the hospital, then she had called me.

We got electricity from an old generator Gracie had in the shed above-ground. Of course, Cameron knew how to turn it on and make sure it kept working. He set up his computer network, hacked into PetroPlex again, and we were back in business.

“Check this out,” Cameron said, pulling up a string of documents that had my name scattered throughout. “PetroPlex was corresponding about you, which is why I thought you had the tapes.”

I scanned the documents. Chloe Taylor. . . evidence. . . Schaeffer. . . threat. . . recover. . . eliminate. . . all words that didn’t bode well for me.

“What about me?” Miles asked. “Anything about me?”

Cameron ran a quick and dirty search for Miles’ name. Nothing came up. Then he ran a search for “Taylor’s paralegal” and got all kinds of hits.

“Great,” Miles said. “I never knew my name was ‘Taylor’s paralegal.’ I feel like I have a whole new identity now.”

I patted him on the back, jovially. “Look at it this way. At least you still have your house and your car.”

“Yeah, but not my hair,” he said. “I maybe would trade my house and car for my hair. Especially right now, seeing as how I’m not using either of them.”

“Well, nobody’s looking at your hair right now either except for us, and we like you anyway.” I stuck my hand out and massaged his crown. “Even though you have that really weird bump right there that makes you look like a conehead.”

Miles moaned. “Don’t hate on the bump. That’s brain in there. A big brain.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think you might just be a bonehead.” I punched him playfully in the arm, and he went over to lie on a cot and sulk. Lucy followed him and curled up on his stomach.

Nash was concerned with more important things. He leaned over Cameron, staring into his computer screen. “Can you pull up anything that might relate to the tapes?”

“I’ve been reading through stuff for days,” Cameron said. “The amount of documents these guys generate on a daily basis would suffocate a horse. They know Schaeffer had something on them, but they’re not sure what, and they don’t seem to know about the tapes. I don’t think they’re aware of the mole or that any recordings were made at all.”

“What makes you think that?” Nash asked.

“There are no hits on a search for ‘recordings’ or ‘tapes,’ and I’ve been reading all the executive level correspondence for weeks. I haven’t noticed any kind of obscure references to any recordings of any kind. The only thing I can find is a few references to Schaeffer’s files.”

“Anything that specifically orders a recovery?” I asked.

“No,” Cameron said. “But I didn’t know about the connections with all the local officials until you guys told me your story today. The good news there is that PetroPlex uses a digital IP PBX phone system.”

“Okay,” I said, feeling like I should know what that meant, but again, I had no clue.

“That means I can hack into the phone system and retrieve the phone records,” Cameron explained.

“Cool.” Sounded good to me, even if I wasn’t exactly sure how it worked.

Nash sat down in front of another computer. “Let me see if my login to the City of Kettle’s system still works.” He typed a few characters, paused, and typed some more. “Yep,” he said. “They never were very good at staying on top of their computer network. Most of the guys at the department wouldn’t know a computer from a hole in the ground.”

“It could be a trap,” Cameron said, alarmed. “They could be waiting for you to log in so they can trace your IP address.”

“Trust me, not gonna happen,” Nash said. “I’ve seen the way they operate down there, and it takes a week to get a new email account set up. They are simply not equipped.”

Cameron didn’t look so sure. “Just hurry up and log out as soon as you can. Maybe nobody will notice a little activity blip.”

Nash did some fast typing, printed out a list of phone numbers, and logged off.

He handed the list to Cameron. “Here are the phone numbers for the mayor, the police chief, and Judge Joe Bob Delmont. We know for sure they are involved in some kind of local conspiracy. Can you cross reference them against PetroPlex’s database?”

Cameron nodded eagerly and went to work. Before long, he had a list of times and dates pulled up. There were at least a hundred calls to and from Delmont and the refinery president in the last week. There were half as many to Mayor Fillion, and a handful to Chief Scott. The calls to Chief Scott were all placed within the last three days, which was interesting.

“Can you pull up the actual phone calls?” Nash asked.

Cameron shook his head. “I’ve already scanned for sound files and didn’t find anything relevant.”

“So how does this help us?” I asked. “From where I sit, all I can see is that we’ve confirmed what we already knew before—PetroPlex is dirty, and so are Delmont, Fillion, and Scott. So what? Now what? What about the mole? You said Schaeffer had an inside guy. Haven’t your scans turned up anything on this guy or any other leads on the tapes at all?”

Cameron shook his head again. “No. As far as I can tell, PetroPlex is not aware they have a mole. And like I said, I’m not sure they know about the tapes either. I only know what I read on the network, so if they don’t know, I don’t know. “

“One more reason why Schaeffer was key,” I said.

A snoring symphony wafted from the cot in the corner. Lucy and Miles were both sleeping up a storm.

“How can he sleep at a time like this?” Nash asked.

I shrugged. I couldn’t say I blamed them. I knew I, for one, was plenty tired. “Losing hair is stressful,” I said. “Maybe he just needed some rest.”

“It’ll grow back,” Nash said. “It’s not the end of the world.”

“Yeah, but you’re a straight guy,” I said. “You wouldn’t understand. Anyway, back to the problem at hand. To sum up, a bunch of people are dead, my house is gone, my car is destroyed, we’re in hiding, and PetroPlex is hunting us all because they think we have something we don’t. And to top it all off, there’s no one to call for help, thanks to the APB our friendly local law enforcement put out. Where does that leave us?”

“With two options,” Cameron said.

“Find the mole or find the tapes,” Nash finished.

“Yep.” Cameron leaned back from the computer, interlaced his fingers, and stretched his hands over his head. “That means some of us have to leave the hole.” He looked pointedly at Nash and me.

“I’m not going back out there,” I said.

Typically, I don’t think of myself as a coward, but the thought of more car chases, more bullets, more potential torture, and more killings had me scared. I had already lost so much. I didn’t want to lose the only things I had left—my health and my life. And if I never witnessed another shooting again, well, that would be okay with me, too.

I forced myself to ignore a wave of nausea as visions of the two men I had killed finagled themselves onto my mental movie screen. I wondered how long it would be before that particular film stopped showing in my mind.

Nash put his hand on my shoulder. “Chloe, we have to find the tapes. It’s the only way forward. We can’t stay in Gracie’s root cellar forever.”

“I can stay here and continue scanning the network,” Cameron said. “Maybe something will turn up. In the meantime, it would be a good idea to go search Schaeffer’s house. Maybe you’ll find something.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve been over it pretty thoroughly before and didn’t find anything.”

Nash’s grip on my shoulder tightened.

“Hypothetically, I mean.” I sighed.

“Hypothetically my arse,” Nash said.

“So are you arresting me?” I looked up into his eyes. Instead of finding the usual unreadable mask, I saw something akin to affection. Or was that my imagination? My heart skipped a beat.

“Not today,” he said.

“Well, that’s something, I guess.” I turned to look at Miles and Lucy sleeping on the cot. It was past 11:00 P.M. I would have given my right arm to sleep right now, too. It had been a very long twenty-four hours. “Should we wake them up?”

“No,” Nash said, looking at his watch and yawning. “I think we can handle this one on our own.”