Chapter Fifteen
Reluctantly Diana gathered up the clothes Ashley had borrowed and left the apartment. She locked the door, then hung there for a few moments, wondering who had been the last person to lock that door.
Gruder was halfway down the hall. He looked back. “What?” he said.
“I’m just thinking, it’s too bad there’s no surveillance cameras out here.” Then she remembered. “But there are surveillance cameras outside. I saw them. Maybe one of them caught her—”
“If she came in that way.” He continued down the hall to the elevator and pressed the call button. The doors opened immediately.
“There might be cameras in the underground parking too,” she said.
The elevator doors had closed before Diana realized that she’d stepped inside without hesitating.
Gruder pressed the lobby button and the elevator started down.
Diana said, “She must have come back between the time that I talked to her neighbor and when you got here the first time. That’s just—”
“A forty-five-minute window,” Gruder said.
“It’s not like days. It wouldn’t take long to fast-forward through the surveillance video,” Diana said. “And maybe it’ll show the person her neighbor saw in the hall.”
The elevator doors opened on the first floor and Diana stepped out. “He had on a jacket. He must have come from outside.”
“Okay, okay,” Gruder said. “As soon as I get a minute, I’ll get in touch with the management company and see about getting access.”
It was midafternoon by the time Diana was back in her office fortress. The avatar outfit was neatly folded on the floor by her desk. New messages were stacked up on her screen, including several from Jake. There were automated “Out of the Office” messages from Ashley’s office e-mail—replies to the messages Diana had sent earlier in the day. There were more e-mails from Ashley’s friends, all telling her that they hadn’t heard from Ashley, only increasing a miasma of unease that had settled over Diana. She was not at all convinced that Ashley was fine.
The message-waiting light blinked on the prepaid cell she’d left on the desk. She grabbed it. The only person with that number was Ashley’s creepy investment banker, if that’s what he really was.
She listened to his message. “Hello, Diana? This is Aaron. Ashley’s friend. Actually, I’m glad you called. I’m worried about your sister.” Well, that made two of them. “Please, call me back.” Mr. Don’t-Call-Me-I’ll-Call-You left his phone number.
She called back immediately.
“Do you know where she is?” Aaron asked, taking the question right out of Diana’s mouth. “Is she all right?”
“Why do you want to know?” Diana found herself snapping back.
“We had a . . . a misunderstanding. I’ve been trying to reach her ever since.”
“Since when?”
“Friday. We had drinks and I was an a*shole. Afterward, I . . . I wanted to apologize. I followed her but couldn’t catch up. I didn’t want to make a scene, so I left. Besides, she was already talking with some guy.”
“At Copley Square?”
“I was across Boylston.”
Diana’s hand tightened on the phone. Was it the same man Ashley’s neighbor had seen? Or had Aaron crossed the street himself and accosted Ashley? “What did he look like?”
“I don’t know, maybe five ten. He was wearing sunglasses.”
They all had on sunglasses, she wanted to shout back at him.
“And a Red Sox cap,” he added.
Also not helpful. Boston was a baseball-mad town.
Her landline rang. Caller ID told her it was Jake.
“Listen, I’ll tell her you want to apologize,” Diana said. “But I can’t say what she’ll do. She’s not good at following orders, particularly not from me.”
“Or me. Turns out that’s what I like about her,” Aaron said, and grunted a laugh. “Go figure.”
Maybe the guy wasn’t a complete and total jerk, after all. The phone rang again.
“Sorry, I’ve got to take this call,” Diana said. “But I’ll let her know you’re trying to reach her.”
“Hold on a sec. What about your friend?”
“My what?” Her phone rang a third time. “Oh—yeah. The one with the money to invest. I’ll have her call you.” Without waiting for Aaron’s response, Diana disconnected.
“I thought you’d fallen off the grid,” Jake said when she picked up.
“I did. Briefly. It’s Ashley. I thought she’d disappeared. I even called the police.” She told him about going to Ashley’s apartment with the police.
“So, she’s back?”
“Looks like she came back and changed. But she hasn’t returned my phone messages and she isn’t answering e-mail.”
“If she came home in a rush—”
“I’m sure you’re right. When I actually talk to her, then I’ll be completely convinced and completely furious.” Meanwhile worried to death was a more apt description.
Jake didn’t say anything.
“You think I’m overreacting,” she said.
“No, not at all. Your reaction is completely understandable.”
Understandable? She knew what that meant.
“She’s probably busy at work,” he added.
“Then why hasn’t she called me?”
“Diana, your sister’s a grown woman. She doesn’t have to answer to you—”
“Or to anyone else, for that matter. Believe me, I’m well aware. It’s just that . . . I don’t know what I’d do if . . .” Diana couldn’t bear to even finish the thought. “I don’t know what I’d have done without her and you too, Jake. I know I don’t say so, but I appreciate your sticking with me.” She brushed away a tear.
Jake cleared his throat. After an uncomfortable pause, he rushed on. “You did a great job on the Vault proposal. Very impressive.” Diana remembered how hard it had always been for Jake to accept gratitude of any kind.
He continued, “I made a few changes and left it for you. Go ahead and send it. And I invoiced MedLogic. For the hours we worked, plus a little extra for the insult—”
“And time wasted,” Diana added. It seemed like weeks rather than just a few days ago that MedLogic had cut them loose.
“I analyzed that log that came back from their hackers.They’re using a server named Volganet.”
“I saw that.”
“It’s somewhere in Eastern Europe. Probably Russia.”
“Russia? But . . .” Diana remembered Volganet hadn’t been set to Eastern European time. “You sure about that?”
“One of their ports was vulnerable and I got in.”
Jake had been able to penetrate further than she had. Maybe the hackers had adjusted their system clock to mislead outsiders.
“Did you get a chance to check out the stolen data file?”
“I’m working on decrypting it,” Jake said.
She almost blurted out, Decrypting it? The file she’d opened had most certainly not been encrypted.