Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) by Jack Lively (reading well TXT) 📕

the corridor and into her office. Then I closed the door.

Ellie sat at her desk wiping her hands on a napkin. I walked over and leaned past her. Put a hand on the cruise ship brochure and slid it in front of her. “Back page, crew list.”

She opened up the leaflet and studied it, found the relevant page and scanned. A few moments later she looked up at me and made eye contact. “Your man, Walter M. Deckart. Deputy Head of Security. Oh my. I wonder what the M stands for. You know who owns that boat?”

I said, “I just came from the Emerald Allure. Had a little talk with Mister Walter M. Deckart. Boat’s partly owned by Mister Lawrence. And here’s the kicker: Mister Lawrence isn’t a person, it’s a company.”

Ellie raised her eyebrows. “I’m guessing that Mister Deckart didn’t exactly volunteer the information you extracted.”

“No, there was significant pressure applied.”

“No shit. Thank you for not mentioning the visit in front of Smithson. I’m not sure how that would have gone down.”

“I thought it would be best to keep it on a need-to-know basis.”

“Indeed, so who’s the little hairless bald guy everyone sees around town?”

I said, “Apparently he’s an actor.”

Ellie covered her mouth, suppressing a surprised smile. “Gosh.”

She stood up and walked to the white board. I unclipped the bronze police badge from my belt and slapped it on her desk. Ellie was writing the words ‘Valerie Zarembina’ next to the J. Abrams circle. She turned at the sound.

I said, “You really deputizing me?”

“No. There’s no such thing anymore.”

“But you’re not angry that I took the badge.”

“No. I think it’s entrepreneurial, and that’s what this country’s all about.” She turned back to the whiteboard. “The other thing we got from Smithson. Zarembina is an employee of the United States Federal Government, Department of Energy.” She wrote ‘Energy Department’ on the board, and drew a line from Zarembina to it. Then she linked the Mr. L circle and the Deckart circle with the words ‘Emerald Allure’. She stood back and looked at the board. “They didn’t say what Valerie Zarembina’s job was at Energy.”

I lowered myself into Ellie’s desk chair and agitated the mouse, which had the effect of bringing the computer back to life again. I jabbed ‘Valerie Zarembina, energy’ into the keyboard with two stiff fingers. Then I punched the return key. A blink of an eye later the results populated the screen. Not too many women named Valerie Zarembina, just one. The photograph was correct. She was different. For one thing, she was alive, but also younger and smiling against a neutral gray background. Behind her right shoulder the stars and stripes were perfectly furled on a flag stand. I clicked deeper. No job title, no office number, no phone number, or any other contact details. Just the name, Valerie Zarembina, on a white web page with US Department of Energy logos above and links at the side to other sections and areas and features of the official web site.

Ellie said, “What does that mean?”

“Maybe she doesn’t work there anymore.”

“And they forgot to take her off the web site?”

I said, “United States Department of Energy. Imagine the size of it, how many people work there. How long would it take for HR to trickle that information down, all the way to the guy who updates the web site.”

Ellie whistled. “Years. Decades. Who could know, maybe forever. It’s like those people who die but remain alive on the internet because there’s nobody to take them down. As if you can live forever electronically.”

“Bureaucratic immortality.”

Ellie was chewing on a knuckle. She dropped her hand and said, “Okay. If she wasn’t working at Energy anymore, where was she?”

I said, “There is one way of finding out more, without going through the official channels.”

She said, “Amber Chapman.”

“Correct. I think I saw her on the cruise ship.”

Ellie’s eyes widened and her eyebrows went up a notch. “You think.”

“Yes. In a swimsuit, with a bunch of other women at the pool. I said ‘I think’ because there was no clear view of her. The windows were steamed up.” I looked at Ellie, she was looking at me, forehead creased.

She said, “Weird.”

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t speak to her, didn’t verify?”

“I was on my way to brace Deckart. I tried to verify after, but not hard enough.”

“Hmmm.”

I said, “Chapman told me that George Abrams was her boyfriend. Before he disappeared. Which means it’s likely that she lied. Which puts things in an even more interesting light.”

Ellie said, “Maybe she didn’t lie. There is a way that she could have been in the dark about Zarembina. George tells Chapman that Zarembina is rich mommy Abrams. But if Chapman was in the dark, this goes deep.”

I said, “There’s another way in which Chapman doesn’t lie. If the George guy disappears, and then Zarembina pops up as mom.” I leaned back and cupped my head in two clasped hands. I had an idea. I sat up. “Valerie Zarembina showed me a photo of George. It matches what I found on the internet. Which means that George Abrams is a legitimate existing human being. We need to check that he’s actually missing, and known to be in Port Morris, Alaska. For all we know George Abrams could be back east in Boston.”

Ellie looked surprised. “Oh god, you’re right. Why didn’t I think of that?”

I brought my hands once again to the keyboard and mouse. I had George Abrams’ MIT profile page open on the computer. I clicked on the name of his PhD supervisor. A new web page appeared with a picture of a guy in his late thirties. There was an office phone number.

I said, “What’s the time difference?”

She drifted over to the desk. “Boston is going to be four hours ahead of us.” Ellie looked at the computer clock. “It's 10:30 a.m., which makes it 2:30 p.m. in the afternoon back east.” She looked down at me sitting in her chair.

I said, “That works.”

Ellie perched on the desk, reached