The Final Twist by Jeffery Deaver (free ebooks romance novels txt) 📕

to do business in the state. Shaw turned next to the BlackBridge entry, thinking that would be a logical place to hide something or to leave a message about where the material was. Nothing. Shaw read the listing. The company was merely mentioned by name, without any other information. The headquarters was given as being in Los Angeles, which Shaw already knew, with offices in San Francisco and other cities.

He examined the hefty volume page by page. No evidence, no notes, no margin jottings. He probed into the spine too.

Nothing.

Hell. He re-shelved it and returned once more to the computer.

More searches. The councilman who’d been killed by BlackBridge: Zaleski, Todd. No hits there. Had Gahl been clever with anagrams or other subtle clues? He typed in variations on the search terms.

He tried UIP and Urban Improvement Plan.

Without success.

He deleted his search history then swiped the computer to sleep, deciding that it was likely the library wasn’t a possible hiding space for Gahl’s materials after all. Maybe Shaw’s other theory was correct. His father simply had used the library’s computers to do online searches.

So, a waste of time.

Colter Shaw, however, corrected himself. No, that wasn’t true; eliminating a possible lead is never a waste; the visit had gotten him one step closer to his goal. He’d learned to embrace this attitude in the reward-seeking business. Step by step by step.

It was time to get to the warehouse in the Embarcadero and the home in Burlingame, the last best chances for finding the evidence.

Before he left, though, he pulled out his phone and called up the tracking app, receiving data from the device he’d hidden in the copy of Walden, which Braxton and Droon presumably still had with them.

He was disappointed to see that the tracker was malfunctioning. The map that popped up showed Shaw’s, not the book’s, location. Well, he hadn’t believed the device would last forever. He then frowned and noticed that the pinging circle indicating the whereabouts of the tracker was coming not exactly from where Shaw sat but about thirty or so feet away.

A refresh of the system. The ping remained in the exact position it had been a moment ago.

No, impossible . . .

His breathing coming quickly, pulse tapping hard, he sent a text to Mack, including the code they used for immediate attention, asking her about the library.

In sixty seconds—the woman seemed always to be on duty—her response was:

Library has no affiliation with Stanford or any other university. Owned by an offshore corporation. CEO is Ian Helms, head of BlackBridge. R U there now?

He texted:

Yes.

Two seconds later his phone hummed with her reply.

GTFO.

This was a variation on the emergency plan all survivalists have, to escape when an enemy is coming for you. The more common, and less coarse, version is: Get the Hell Out.

9

The library was a cover.

It was the members-only portion of the building and not the high-rise on Sutter Street downtown that was BlackBridge’s base of operation in San Francisco.

Shaw gazed in the direction where the tracker indicated the book was, and he realized that Irena Braxton and Ebbitt Droon were the very people whose backs he’d noted through the glass door that opened onto the other side of the building.

He glanced once more that way and saw a fourth man in the conference room. He was pacing, arms crossed, as he appeared to be debating something. He posed a question, it seemed—his hands were raised and his face appeared irritated. Then, when someone must have answered, he nodded and he paced some more, gazing absently into the public side of the library.

It was the CEO, Ian Helms. The athletic, handsome man wore a well-tailored suit and a Rolex on one wrist, a bracelet on the other, both gold.

This was the first time Colter Shaw had glimpsed the man responsible for his father’s death.

Helms would probably have no idea what Shaw looked like but it was not the time to take any chances. He slipped from the workstation and disappeared into the far reaches of the stacks.

GTFO . . .

He started to circle around the perimeter of the library to the front door. He kept his head down, moving steadily but not too fast through the stacks.

Only twenty feet later he stopped.

He’d been busted.

From the shadows of the rows of books, Shaw saw a large security guard in a dark suit enter the public side of the building from the lobby. The well-tanned man’s head was cocked and he appeared to be listening to the Secret Service–type earpiece with a curly wire that disappeared into his jacket. He walked to the librarian at the central station. They shared some words, both of them looking around. The guard’s jacket parted and the grip of a pistol showed. A second guard joined them. He was slimmer and more pale than the first, but tall too. Also armed. Shaw noted his hand was near his own pistol.

How would they have learned about him?

Then he got his answer:

The taller guard, more a bouncer than your average rent-a-cop, strode forward to the terminal where Shaw had sat and gazed about. The slimmer one joined him.

Shaw had just typed in a smorgasbord of words that would turn the bots within the system into frenzied hounds.

Shaw . . . Gahl . . . BlackBridge.

Some software had been programmed to report in when keywords were searched. The computer had dimed him out.

And it got even better, Shaw thought sardonically. Peering through the stacks, he noted that right above the volume in which he’d found BlackBridge’s name was a security camera. The book might’ve been placed there for that very reason: to get a picture of anyone with an interest in the company. The bigger guard was now looking at a monitor at the librarian’s station. Both security people turned to the spot where the volume had been shelved.

Okay, escape plans.

Toss a book in the opposite direction and when the guards moved toward it, just sprint out the front?

No, that wouldn’t work.