Exit Row (9 page)

“You've got it.” Greg gave Dominick a wink that any of them could read as
Don't wait up for me
.

But when he demanded the keys to the Explorer, Dominick shook his head. “I have to go up to Taos tonight.”

“You can use my rental car,” Fiona told Dominick. She was not sure of the legality of that, but he was probably a careful driver. She would not have offered it to Greg.

“You're sure?”

“I'm not going anywhere. There's even a street map of Taos. I'll show you where the house is.”

“Stop in front so you can drop me at the Inn,” Rosa ordered Greg. “My bags are still in the back.”

Fiona smiled at her. “I'm so glad you're here.”

“Well, I have my own selfish motives.” She smiled back but looked weary, older than Fiona had first thought. “Publishing is a different world these days. They make me feel like a relic. If I can show them with Susan that I'm still in the game . . . ” Then she added briskly, “Besides, I haven't been anywhere interesting since my husband died. I can't stand those tours that cater to old people. Anyway, this will make a fascinating story—however it turns out.”

Fiona wasn't ready to admit she was in the middle of a story. She told them what she had planned for that evening with Greg.

A
LTHOUGH IT HAD
been three years since he had been to the farm, Greg found Trucas easily. That movie,
The Milagro Beanfield War
, had been shot there, and the town still looked better thirty years later. Mr. Alvarez had refused to cooperate with the film guys. Stubborn old bastard, yelling at people to stay off his land when they were offering him cold hard cash.

Greg still smarted when he thought of his conversation with Mr. Alvarez on Sunday night after he left the airport. Dimitri had not answered any of his texts, and the farm was the only other phone number he had.

“Hello, Mr. Alvarez? This is Greg Sanderson.”

“Sí
.
”

See what?
“Remember me, from New York? Dimitri and I were going climbing in Maine; he was flying here to meet me. But he didn't come.”

Silence.

“So I wondered what the story was. Is he there?”

“Here? He don't live here.”

“I know that. But you must have heard from him.”
Keep it cool. Why were these people so stupid?

“His mother see him last Thursday.” The voice sounded unwilling to tell him even that. “He come by to pick up his gunnysack.”

Backpack, Greg translated. Mr. Alvarez had been over the border for thirty years but had never bothered to learn his verb tenses or the American names for things. He tried to play dumb, a simple peasant, but Greg was sure it was an act. Dimitri's mother, emigrated from Russia as a young adult, spoke perfect, careful English.

“Did he say anything to her about his plans?”

“That boy don't make plans. He say yes, yes, I go, then he decide to do something different.”

“What kind of something different?” It was Greg's worst fear, that Dimitri would steal the program and cut him out. “You think he got a better offer?”

“Bitter offer?”

Bitter would be exactly right if Dimi did that. And what proof did Greg have, other than the money he had sent him every month? Dimitri promised him that they were nearly there, but refused to let Greg see the program.

“That boy, he don't know what he wants.”

“He didn't, like, say anything about going out to California?” Greg had felt the drops of perspiration on his forehead swell and join forces; it was the effort of trying to be civil.

“To California? To maybe be a movie star?” The old man thought that was funny.

“Look, if he stops by, tell him to call me immediately. Greg Sanderson. I'm at my apartment.”

“Si, señor.”
It was definitely mocking.

S
Í.
G
REG REASSURED
himself again that if Dimitri stopped by for his backpack, it meant he was headed for Maine, not Silicon Valley. He drove past fields of rolled hay bales basking in the late-day sun and thought again how amazing it was, living in a town where the library hours were painted on the building (Tuesday and Thursday 1:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m.), Dimitri had heard of MIT, applied after some prodding from his math teacher, and ended up with a full scholarship. A perfect score on his math SATs and about 250 on the verbal, but someone in Massachusetts had been tickled at the idea of a Russian-Hispanic chili pepper on campus.

Greg picked out the tin roofs of the ranch buildings ahead, the pens that housed a few chickens and goats, and then brought the SUV to a surprised screech along the gravel. Fifty yards ahead of him, loading bricks into the back of a pickup, was the unmistakable dark head of Dimitri. Shit! This guy was becoming a world-class loser. Not even to have the fucking courtesy to call.

He slipped the truck into first gear and let it crawl along the side of the road, narrowly missing a ditch. Dimitri's back was still to him. At least he wasn't in Silicon Valley, spilling his guts. Probably something had gone wrong with the program and he couldn't face Greg.

When he got close, he stopped the Explorer and gave a long, rude beep. Dimitri spun around, dark face stormy, then walked deliberately toward him and around to the driver's side. Greg was forming the words “I want my money back, asshole” when he realized who it was. What was the kid brother's name anyway? Ivor? Ivan.

Greg rolled down his window, jerking back to avoid the dust in the air. “Hey. Remember me?”

Ivan grinned at him. “Sure, man. From three years ago? From New York?”

“You've got a memory like your brother. You working here now?”

“Yeah. I don't got the smarts Dimi had.” He wiped at his forehead with a muddy palm, streaking it sienna. “Maybe I'll come out better though.”

“How's that?”

“
You
know.”

After a brilliant career at MIT, Dimitri had been accepted to every graduate program to which he applied. Shockingly, he had washed out of all of them, drifting back to the farm between acts. It wasn't his fault, he protested; he was put in bogus courses and given advisors who hated his dark skin. As a TA, he was given all the shit work. Dimitri could talk all night about what had gone wrong in his life, and he was pretty damn convincing.

“Is he around?”

Ivan shook his head. “Haven't seen him in a couple weeks. He'll turn up though; he crawls home like a wounded coyote. That's what my father always says.”

“So, where is he? I came all the way from New York. He's not around?”

Ivan squinted. “He, like, knew you were coming?”

“No. He was supposed to fly out Sunday and meet me to go climbing in Maine.”
And bring me the data-compression program he was writing, a program that didn't eat memory and would make us millions.
He believed in Dimitri so much that in the past few months he had sent him over sixteen hundred dollars so he could keep at it. “But he never showed.”

“No? And you came all the way out here to find him?”

“Not exactly.” He didn't like the way that sounded, as if he cared too much. But would Dimitri have told this kid what he had discovered? “So where's your brother living? Where does he keep his computer?”

Ivan pushed at his lip with a grimy finger and shook his head. “I don't know, man.”

Give me a break.
“You don't know where your brother lives? For real?”

“Naw. We just see him when he stops by.”

“You don't know where he keeps his stuff?”

“Wherever he's living, I guess.”

This was going nowhere. Of course he knew his brother's address. Had he told Ivan not to give it out to anyone? It was ridiculous that Greg himself didn't know it. On the rare occasions when he had to use snail mail, he had sent it to a Santa Fe post-office box. “Maybe I'll go say hi to your folks.” They had to know where their son lived.

But Ivan frowned, giving his dark head an animal shake. “You don't want to do that, man.”

“No?”

“My old man's kinda pissed at Dimi right now. Dimi won't work regular, he won't get married, he just drifts around taking people rock climbing and doing computer stuff. My father thinks you gave him bad ideas.” He licked the sweat from his upper lip. “Not just you, man, all those guys.”

“How about a girlfriend? Or his friends. He got friends in Santa Fe?” Surely the guys he hung out with knew where he lived. And once he had the address, even if Dimitri wasn't there, there wasn't a computer he couldn't get into. And there had to be a backup. Even if Dimitri didn't trust the Cloud, he would have kept it on an external drive and in his own machine. Tomorrow he would go to the post office and get his street address. Or why not go to the phone company? Even if they billed him over the Internet, they had to have his address.

Hell, it might even be better if Dimitri was no longer around.

He quashed that thought. They would need each other to get it up and running, to market it right. Besides, Dimi was his friend.

“My brother don't tell me nothing.” But Ivan's face brightened. “But he's gonna buy me a truck, a Ram Big Horn.
Loaded
. And send my mother back home for a visit. My father won't go.”

That was good news. “Look, as soon as he shows up, tell him to call me. Greg Sanderson?”

And don't forget to make something of
yourself.

S
ANTA
F
E WAS
approaching the magical hour when its buildings glowed like a storybook village, the rose-orange light splashing them with gold. Sitting on the porch, Fiona forced herself to enjoy it. Lee would have made it something extraordinary. Was he somewhere right now, taking beautiful photographs? But that thought was horrible. It made her think of those condolence cards for dead pets showing them peacefully on the other far side of the “Rainbow Bridge.”

She wished Greg would get here.

Finally, a little after eight, the Explorer pulled into the parking area, and Fiona jumped up. She debated leaving her leather bag in her room. It might be a hindrance to what she planned to do. Yet having it with her made her feel secure, so she adjusted the strap over her shoulder and went to meet Greg.

As they passed The Old West restaurant, a scent of grilling beef wafted out
and grabbed at her stomach. After the tea and pastries she hadn't felt hungry, but now she wished she had eaten for energy. Street food . . . but the stands they passed were shuttered. Even the one that sold the frozen mocha drink known as Adobe Mud had its striped canvas covers lashed down.

They crossed to Paseo de Peralta, and Greg turned on her. “We're getting out of town! There's nothing going down around here.” Before leaving, he had insisted on going back to his room and changing into a blue-and-white-striped polo shirt and a pair of white duck pants that she would not have imagined him owning. He was darkly handsome, his ponytail pulled back, but she preferred Lee's soft light hair.

“It's a quiet place. But special,” Fiona said.

“Good. I'm parched.”

As they came into the block where the Day Star offices were located, Fiona paused.

Greg looked across the street to where she was looking. “You brought me here? But it's closed.”

“That's the point.”

“Aww,
no.
”
He put his hand on her shoulder as if to force her to keep moving. “You said we were going for brewskis.”

“We will. This won't take long. But Will Dunlea has the passenger list on his computer! Once we have that, we can check on the other passengers and go to the police.”

“Help me with this. You think he's going to save something that incriminates his airline?”

“He doesn't expect anyone else to see it.” She started to cross the street to the front of the building. “The receptionist said something about agents working late in the back of the building. Let's go around.”

But Greg wasn't moving. “Wait a minute. You plan to break into his computer?”

“If we can.”

“How?”

“You know about computers, don't you?”

“I meant how are we going to get to it?”

“I have a plan, sort of.” She started across the street and he followed her, shaking his head. As they passed the front window, Fiona saw the receptionist's desk standing empty in the dim lobby. The whole building seemed dark, but in the back parking lot were two cars, both compacts, one crimson and one white.
Snow White and Rose Red.

Two cars, but there could be other people who had walked there. The solar path lights that were set around the back door had not yet turned on. Their metal gleamed dully from beds of miniature evergreens.

Fiona hesitated. If the door was unlocked and opened onto a hallway, they might be able to sneak past. If the door opened right into the room where the agents were working, she would bring out the voucher from Will and say she had a question about it. And that would be that.

She could feel Greg pressing close to her as she tried the knob. It turned easily, and the carved wooden door swung away from them. Moving around it, Fiona saw that the first room on the left was lit up, but the door was only slightly ajar; there was no way to avoid walking past that room, but there was a chance they could do it. A phone chimed inside and stopped after the first ring.

Clutching Greg's wrist, she moved silently past the room without looking inside.

Nothing happened. Perhaps they were assumed to be security staff or cleaners or had not been noticed at all. But every moment, Fiona expected lights to flash on and someone to come running after them. Weren't there things called silent alarms? Maybe even now a switchboard somewhere was coming alive.

When they reached Will's office, she had the irrational idea that he would be seated behind his beautiful walnut desk, blood oozing from a bullet to his chest, blond head looking down at nothing. All those years of watching
NYPD Blue
. . .

Her heart thwacking hard, she stepped into the office. Although it was not dark outside yet, the narrow blinds had been pulled down over the windows, turning the furniture into dim shapes.

“Don't turn on the light,” Greg said hotly against her neck. She heard the click as he closed the door completely.

“But to turn on the computer . . . ” she whispered back.

“Businesses don't shut their mainframes off when people are still working on them. There'll be enough light from the screen when we activate it.” Grasping her shoulders, he moved her around to the dark bulk of the desk. As her eyes adjusted, Fiona saw a small line of light glowing at the bottom of the blinds.

Greg settled himself in Will Dunlea's chair, leaving Fiona no choice but to kneel on the carpet by his feet. She watched as he clicked in commands. He was frowning, trying various keys, completely intent on what he was doing. There was a beauty in seeing someone so rapt, so given over to the moment, but she was too anxious to appreciate it. The closed door would give them a minute to crouch behind the desk if someone started to open it, but it meant that she could not hear anyone coming on the soft carpet outside.

After ten minutes Greg slumped back in the leather chair and shook his head. “I'm not coming up with any passenger lists.”

Her heart dropped. It
had
to be on there. “Isn't there anything about the flight? Try rosters. I think they call them rosters.”

“Yeah?”

“No, maybe manifests. Try manifests!”

He went back to the machine. With the air conditioning on, the room felt cold. Fiona pressed her palm against a yawn. It was exhausting keeping alert, straining to hear the whisper of a sound. If Will came by to pick something up, they would have no excuse at all. She turned her wrist to stare at her watch by computer light. Already 8:35 p.m.! A black fear seized her that the agents would switch the system off for the night any minute now and get ready to leave. Perhaps she and Greg would be locked in. Passenger list or not, they had to be out of the building before nine.

“Do you need a password?” Fiona whispered.

“Naw, it's a matter of knowing what file name they use. I've gotten this far and that's it.”

“Try Lee! Lee Pienaar.” Frantically she spelled the name for Greg.

“What kind of a name is that?” But he was already at work. “Okay. Got him. But this one lives in Brooklyn.”

“That's him! Was he on the Sunday morning flight?”

He turned to her. “Says so here. In Wednesday and out Sunday.”

“Really? That bastard! Will Dunlea. He sat right in that chair and said there was nothing about Sunday. He made me think Lee was just trying to avoid me.” She wanted to reach up and rip the model plane from over Will's desk. Good news and bad news. Lee had not disappeared somewhere with Sarah instead of flying home, but he was still missing. And what did that text message with no follow-up mean?

“If I can get this to sort, I can pick out the other people on the flight. I
do
know this program.” He returned to pressing keys.

Fiona chewed on her lip. Why did everything take so long?

“Okay. Got it.” He raised one fist in triumph and turned the screen toward her. She stood up and crowded in over his shoulder to see.

The search bar read “Select Flight 101 August 23.”

She fumbled frantically in her bag. “I have to start copying down names!”

“No, just give me a flash drive.”

Damn.
She did have one with her, two in fact, but they were back in her room with her laptop. She had not thought beyond looking at the list and seeing if their passengers' names were on it, but now it seemed important to have a copy. “I didn't bring one.”

“Oh, God. Okay, open that slatted closet door and switch on the printer inside.”

“Oh.” She didn't ask how he knew the machine was in there.

Relying on touch, she pressed a button in the upper left. The printer started up with a hum, and she shoved the door shut, terrified that it would make too much noise. But except for a rising whir, oddly like the sound of a jet accelerating, the laser printer ran quietly and fast.

“Grab it, and let's get the fuck out of here,” Greg whispered. “Breaking into someone's database could screw up my whole career!”

Fiona snatched the paper from the tray as Greg did some last thing to the computer. Then she opened the door very slowly.

The sound of voices made her lurch back. “Hide!” She pressed herself against the wall behind the door. Greg disappeared behind the desk.

The door was ajar now, and she could hear a man's voice, though not what he was saying. Then the door was pushed back, the doorknob pressing into her stomach, and a higher voice protested audibly, “But I didn't see anyone come in.”

“They must have. I saw them go around to the back.”

“Who are they, anyway?”

Instead of answering, he yanked the door shut.

Fiona couldn't get her breath. Either someone had been in a front office after all, or they were being followed. But why wouldn't they be? Will knew where she was staying; they had her car information from the rental company. While she wasn't paying attention, a net had dropped down over her.

“Give them a minute. What time is it?” Greg said very low.

“I can't—” She twisted her watch around to try to see the dial. “Almost nine!”

“Okay. Two more minutes and then we
run
.”

Fiona folded the paper in quarters and stuck it firmly in the top of her purse.

“Come on.” Greg stood up from behind the desk and moved silently to the door. She followed him into the hall, noticing that it was lit by a series of round lights at ankle height. She hadn't seen them before.

They reached the bend to the left that led straight to the back door.

“Now,”
Greg said, and they raced past ghostly photographs of the airline's history, past the lighted room, and into the parking lot. They stopped outside only to take a breath, then ran again along the path, stopping finally on Paseo de Peralta.

Fiona barely glanced at the car sitting opposite the Day Star entrance.