The Lost Key (8 page)

N
icholas put a finger across his lips. “Sophie, did you lock the door when we came in?”

Sophie nodded. She was staring upward, her eyes fixed.

Heavy steps now, clumping on the hardwood, moving toward the back of the store.

Both Nicholas and Mike moved in front of Sophie, their Glocks at the ready. Mike whispered, “They were supposed to call me if they saw anything. Something's wrong.”

Sophie now looked frightened, even paler in the odd reddish light. “There's no cell service down here.”

Nicholas jerked his head at Mike, then started slowly up the stairs.

Mike whispered to Sophie, “Stay here,” she followed Nicholas.

When they reached the top, Nicholas used the reflection of his mobile's screen to see if anyone had come into the back office. It was empty, the door still closed. They eased their way out of the staircase.

Nicholas held his Glock against his leg. There would be no more surprises, like this morning's debacle.

When they reached the door, he mouthed a
one, two,
three
to Mike, and they went into the bookstore, Nicholas high, Mike low, perfectly coordinated, as if they'd been doing this together for years.

No one was there.

They went silent, walked slowly through the stacks toward the front of the store, guns up, clearing each stack as they went. Nicholas saw the front door. It was closed, but the hand-lettered
OPEN/CLOSED
sign was twisted halfway between the two.

Three stacks to go now, two, one, and Nicholas stepped around the last bookshelf to see a young man, a kid, maybe, no more than early twenties, blond and brown, sitting at the front reception desk, his hand literally in the till.

Nicholas said, “FBI. Stop what you're doing and show me your hands.”

The kid saw the guns aimed at him and froze. He raised his hands slowly, his face a blank mask, his eyes on Nicholas, a twenty-dollar bill still clutched in his right fist.

“Don't you move an inch. Who are you?”

The kid merely shook his head. When Mike moved to get behind him, he exploded from the chair, leapt over the counter, and headed toward the door.

A bad move, that. Nicholas was ready for him. He slammed into him, then landed a solid punch to the kid's stomach, stopping him in his tracks. The kid's eyes went wide and terrified because he couldn't breathe. Mike pulled him to the ground, her knees against the middle of his back, her hand in his back pocket for his wallet, but it wasn't there.

The kid took a deep breath. He was clearly panicked, terrified,
his legs churning to get away. Mike cuffed him and hauled him to his feet.

She shook him. “Who are you? Tell me or I'll sic Superman on you, and believe me, you don't want that to happen.”

Sophie pushed her way past Mike. “What are
you
doing here?”

Nicholas was looking at the young man. There was something familiar about him, but he couldn't nail it. “Tell us who this is, Sophie.”

Sophie said, “Yes, of course. This is—um—Kevin Brown. He's a family friend. He used to work here at the store. But he left a few months ago.”

Mike eased back a bit. “Well, your family friend was trying to rob you.”

Kevin Brown shook his head. “No, no, I wasn't. I was leaving Mr. Pearce a note. He called me last week, told me I could come back to work part-time, weekends only.”

Sophie stared at him. “Really? I thought you were in school.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Well, it didn't work out. I contacted your dad and he told me to come back. Look, can I go now? Like I said, I stopped to leave Mr. Pearce that note. I gotta go have lunch with a friend. Really, I need to be getting on.”

“I don't think so,” Mike said, and pushed him into the chair behind the register. “First things first, Mr. Brown. Where is your wallet?”

“I left it in my backpack, in a locker at Grand Central.”

“Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. How did you get in? The door was locked.”

“I still have a key.”

“Then why did you have the register open?” Mike asked him. “And why did you try to run?”

His chin came up. He gave her a cocky grin, despite the uncomfortable cuffs around his wrists. “Hey, I was making change for a twenty. I knew Mr. Pearce wouldn't mind. Suddenly you two Feds are sticking your guns in my face. What was I supposed to do?”

Sophie rolled her eyes. “Maybe, Kevin, you could have simply done what they asked you to do.”

Kevin shrugged. “I don't bow to the man, Sophie.”

“You're an idiot. Get out of my store.”

“Hey, I only wanted to let Mr. Pearce know I could come back to work. I, well, things aren't going the way I thought in school, so I came back, and I could use the coin.”

Nicholas watched Sophie draw a deep breath. “Listen, Kevin, my father is dead. He was murdered this morning.”

Kevin Brown's face seemed to leach of color. He leaned toward Sophie, almost as if he was going to hug her, but she stepped back a foot and Nicholas could have sworn she shook her head slightly. Brown stopped and eyed her, as if she were a bomb that might explode at any moment.

“You're not kidding, are you? What happened?”

“I would never kid about something so horrible. They don't know what happened yet. Why do you think they're here?” Sophie pointed to Nicholas and Mike, then said to Mike, “Can you uncuff him, please? He wasn't doing anything wrong. He's right, my father wouldn't mind.”

Mike's cell phone beeped. She ignored the request to uncuff Brown, and instead answered her phone. Nicholas listened with one ear to the conversation until he saw Mike tense. She said, “Channel two? Okay,” and hung up, pulled out the walkie-talkie she carried in her pocket. She adjusted the walkie to the right channel, handed
it to Nicholas. “The man they saw casing the store earlier is coming. He's a block away.”

Sophie said, “Who's coming?”

Mike quickly uncuffed Brown and gave him a little shove toward Sophie. “You two go to the back office. Now. And lock the door.”

Ariston's

12:20 p.m.

Sophie knew they had to hurry. She slammed the door to the office, threw the deadbolt, and ran to the circular stairs. When they were safely belowground, she faced him.

He'd grown some more, at least a couple inches. Now she had to look up at him. But right now she was so mad at seeing him, so afraid for him, that she didn't know whether to hug him or hit him.

“You're supposed to be in California. Caltech wasn't to your liking? Did the brains there catch on to who you really are? Tell me the truth now, why are you here?”

“You know why I'm here, Sophie. We have a major problem. Someone in the Order has betrayed us.”

She slammed her fist into his shoulder. “The grand search again? Adam, when will you and Dad give that up?” Her voice caught. She looked stricken. “Oh, no, no, Dad's dead.”

Adam Pearce ran a hand through his too-long hair. “I know, I'm sorry, Sophie. But this is so important, the most important thing in Dad's life. And now that they killed him, I've got to keep on with it.

“Sophie, listen to me, I found it, I found the sub. I called Dad last night and told him, and he was going to share the news with a few members of the Order. And today he's dead. Either the Order has a traitor or there's something even worse going on.”

“Really? You actually found the sub, after all this time? Nearly a hundred years? You actually found the
Victoria
?”

Adam nodded. “I'm ninety-nine percent sure this is it. But now, Dad . . .” His voice trailed off and he simply stood there, looking at her helplessly, tears trickling down his cheeks.

Sophie pulled her brother against her and held him, crying with him, and let the pain come.

Their lifelong search for the lost World War I U-boat was really over? She said, “Was it worth Dad's life?”

He shook his head against hers. “No, no.”

She said against his neck, “The FBI agents asked me if I knew who EP was. I didn't tell them anything.” She slowly pulled back, took her brother's young face between her palms. “You did it, Adam, if anyone could find it, you could. I'm so proud of you. Dad was, too, wasn't he?”

“Oh, yes. But you know Dad, he said something like, ‘Well, it's about time.'” Their father had known his son would find the sub when Adam's genius had burst forth at the age of eight, and he'd hacked into their bank's checking-accounts system. He'd been caught that one time and everyone had marveled and laughed and given the little genius a pat on the shoulder. It was the last time he got caught. Soon he'd been able to dig deep into computer networks, circumvent firewalls and other security measures. At fifteen, their father had given him the mission: find the
Victoria.

She tried to smile, seeing her father speaking, but she couldn't.
“The FBI agent said Dad had some satellite specs on his computer that were classified. I take it you know how he got those?”

He swiped away the drying tears on his face, waved his hand. “That's irrelevant.”

“Adam, it is not irrelevant. The FBI are pissed, and looking in to who sent the info to Dad. I think they knew I was holding back. Those two, they're not going to go away. I know they'll keep after me. And they want Adam Pearce very badly. And they saw a photo of us as kids, you know, the one in Dad's bedroom.”

“I look different. Don't worry, I'm Kevin Brown—quick thinking, sis. I've put hundreds of layers in to protect us both.” He grabbed her shoulders, made her look him in the eye. “I narrowed down the location of the sub last week. Last night I took command of a private satellite that was passing over Scotland to take a look. Dad and I always thought the
Victoria
was lodged deep somewhere, under an outcrop of rock or land. It's only been in the last year that the satellite technology is to the point where it can see past underwater shelves. I mean, it can see right through the land under the water. And that's where I found it, nestled up under a huge rock ledge in northern Scotland. Like I said, I told Dad last night, and we were supposed to meet today so I could show him. I couldn't tell him where it was over the phone, it was too dangerous.”

“Why didn't you show him last night?”

“Because I was still in California. I took the red-eye from L.A. I got here as quickly as I could. And then this morning, when I got the text, I headed straight from JFK to meet him here.”

Sophie sat down on the floor, taking it all in, trying to make sense of the story. “You're telling me Dad was killed
because
you found the sub? Why? Isn't that what the Order wanted? I thought
they'd be thrilled at the news, not homicidal. They're supposed to be united on this matter.”

Adam's lean face was etched in misery. “They are. That's why I need Dad's phone, so I can see who he called last night. At least we can narrow it down. But there's more, Sophie. I told you Dad texted me this morning and told me to meet him down at Wall Street. I did, even though I thought it was weird. But when I got there, he was already dead. So—I knew before you told me upstairs.” His throat clogged with tears. “I knew.”

“Why Wall Street?” she asked. “Why there? It makes no sense.”

“Because it's away from Dad's territory. I think the man who killed Dad sent a text to me from Dad's phone, and one to Dad from mine. To draw us together.”

“So the murderer was after both of you.”

Adam nodded, chewing on his lip. “Yeah. Maybe. The minute I saw what was happening, I got out of there, headed up here. I was careful, took a couple of cabs, the train, to make sure I wasn't followed.”

“You weren't followed. At least not by the man who killed Dad. The FBI got him, he's dead.”

Adam's voice was hard. “Good. That's good. I'm glad the bastard's dead.”

Sophie asked, “How would he text you and Dad? Did your phone get stolen?”

“No, not mine, but it's possible to spoof a phone number, you know that. Kid's play. If someone broke into Dad's and got their hands on his cell, they could do it easily.”

He reached out a hand, squeezed hers. “Your hands are like ice.”

“It's all right, it's nothing.”

“Don't shut me out, Sophie. Please. Not again.”

“I'm not.” She began to pace, winding around the vitrine case in the middle of the room. “I'm trying to figure all this out. The two FBI agents are acting really strange, like there's something they know but aren't telling me. And they don't trust me, not that I blame them. I'm not a very good liar. But you know I couldn't tell them the truth, it's far too dangerous, and since every cop in the known universe is after you—” She paused, then added, “They showed me a picture of the man who killed Dad.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“No.”

“Well, you know as well as I do there's lots they aren't telling you. If they found Dad's hidden SD card, then it won't take them long to figure everything out. They haven't had time yet. I have to get out of here before they come back, see if it's too late to access Dad's files remotely and delete them. I already got into his e-mail account. I didn't see anything unusual, no outgoing messages.”

“Could he have sent an e-mail, then deleted it?”

“Yes, but I'll have to break into his e-mail client's server to see what they have, and we're running out of time. Soph, get me Dad's phone. Whoever he called, whoever he wrote, that's who had him killed.” His voice cracked, and suddenly he was a little boy, and she his big sister, there to protect him. “I can't believe he's dead.”

Again, she held him close for a moment. Could he, nineteen years old, barely a man, could he fix things? She didn't know. “Adam, if the Order killed Dad and want you dead as well, then you're in danger. I don't want you hurt.”

“You know we can't stand by and wait to see what they'll do, Sophie.”

“I know, I know, we have to find out who did this. I'll see if the
FBI will give me Dad's phone, or at least tell me who he called last. You need to disappear.”

His face was pale in the red-tinged light. “Now that I think about it, I don't understand why they'd want to kill me, since I'm the only one who knows where the sub is located and could tell them. And they want that sub. Yeah, if they got that info, then I'd no longer be necessary to them, and whack.”

They would kill him, but she didn't say it aloud, no need. She couldn't, wouldn't, lose Adam, too.

“Tell me where the sub is. Exactly.”

“No, no way, not until we figure out what's happening. You didn't know yesterday, and you don't know today. It's safer that way.”

She saw he wouldn't budge. He was more stubborn than she was. “Fine. We have to get you out of here. Use the back door, out into the alley. I'll contact you if I find anything out, and you do the same. But don't come back here, and don't go to the house. You hear me? And watch your back.”

He thought for a moment, then nodded. “I'll be in the Village for a while with Allie. You know how to reach me.” He turned to go, but she grabbed his arm.

“Wait, wait. There is something else. Dad said something before he died, they have it on video. It's nonsense, really, but maybe it will make sense to you. ‘The key is in the lock.' Do you know what that means?”

“Well, sure I do, but—”

She heard the voices of the FBI agents and cut him off. “Damn, they're coming back, you have to go. Now.”

She opened the fire door and waved him away, but he stopped,
looked back, and gave her a rakish grin. “‘The key is in the lock'—it's not what you think, sis.”

“Adam, where's your wallet? Really?”

“In my shoe.”

Then he was out into the alley, up the stairs, and out into the bustling New York streets.