Wrong Number (25 page)

But why? Why was she such a danger? Not just because of his voice. There had to be another reason. Aubree massaged her forehead in her hands and glanced at the notes scribbled all over her notebook. There was something more. She had already decided that, so she couldn’t get hung up on Chief Ferrin. The pages of her notebook rattled as she flipped through them. She paused on the transcript of the original conversation from Devin’s cell phone.

“What if there’s something I’m missing in this conversation?” she mumbled to herself. She looked up to see Wyatt grinning at her with raised eyebrows. She shrugged, and he saluted her and turned back to the window to keep watch.

It was a long shot, but Aubree decided to perform a keyword search on the Internet. The FBI had used several decoding programs to do the same thing, but Aubree wondered if there was something she had missed that would have affected their search. She could enter some of the words from the conversation to see if it helped trigger her memory in case she had missed a meaning somewhere.

She separated each word and typed it in capital letters into Google’s search engine. It was tedious at first, but she was determined. She scanned through page after page of search results, not really knowing what she was looking for. Nearing the middle of the handwritten conversation, Aubree leaned her head in her hands. Was she just wasting her time? She thought about skipping the next line. It didn’t seem important that the man had said,
“By the time they find him, we’ll be in the green.”
But then she looked at the sentence again.

It was odd, but she didn’t remember placing any significance on the word “green,” and now it seemed to be jumping from the page as if it didn’t belong.

“In the green” meant money, didn’t it? That’s what Aubree reported hearing—something about money—but he hadn’t said the word money.
In the green
. Could something so simple be the reason for this madness? Her finger rested on the phrase she had written in the battered notebook. Why had she never examined that part of the conversation before?

Aubree entered the phrase “in the green” and scanned through the hits the search engine brought up. Then she decided to focus on just one word,
green
, and she combined it with
conspiracy theories
. She opened another page for a Google search and typed in “green government programs.” Her hands shook as she clicked back and forth between the two searches, scrolling through the first page of results.

The search for “green conspiracy theories” didn’t bring up anything interesting—instead it concentrated on why people weren’t going green to save the earth. Clicking back over to the search for green government programs, she saw several pages with titles such as:
A green government, environmental programs, and legislation. She scrolled through pages of Google searches trying to find something that made sense.

Deciding to modify the search a bit, she switched the words around and typed “government programs green” in the search bar.

The search was redirected, and a new page popped up. At the top, underneath the colorful Google logo, Aubree read, “Did you mean: Government programs GREANE?”

GREANE was hyperlinked, and so she clicked on the strange spelling of the word to see where it would lead. The next page caused her throat to constrict, and the tension made it hard to breathe. She scrolled down the list, and let the mouse hover over the link to a blog. One click displayed
www.rachellewrites.blogspot.com
with an entry titled, “The New Governor of Nebraska is in the GREANE.”

Aubree scanned the contents of the blog, reading faster and faster as her mind tried to process the words. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She clicked on a few other areas within the search and read all about the new GREANE deal. There were also several reports bad-mouthing the new governor of Nebraska and his single-minded campaign to be part of the GREANE program.

Aubree looked at her battered notebook again. Her thumb brushed against a smudge of dirt beside her writing and she concentrated on delving into her worst memory. The day Devin was killed had been a terrible day. The FBI had questioned her over and over during the course of the following months, trying to help her remember every single word in the conversation she had heard. She had pieced together fragments of the memory and tried to tell them word for word the entire chilling conversation—at least she thought she had.

Looking at her notebook, Aubree realized her mistake. In the transcription process, she hadn’t reported hearing one word because it didn’t add any meaning to the gist of the sentence. In fact, she had actually replaced it with the word that fit the meaning she had understood. When she gave the initial report, she had been traumatized. But now, almost a year later, the conversation had come back to her crystal-clear, and she remembered every
single
word.

She realized why the voice had been so easy to recognize when she heard Governor Ferrin speaking on the TV back in Omaha. He’d used
the one word she hadn’t remembered, and that word had triggered a memory. Flipping back through her notes, she found what she had written about the day she heard Governor Ferrin speak. He talked about a new program, a green program to bolster the state’s economy. He said, “The state of Nebraska has a green future.” But now Aubree realized that he’d meant a GREANE future.

She looked around the café, and the room seemed to close in on her. Wyatt waved a French fry at Scarlett. Another couple ate their lunch and talked about boating later. She tried to steady her shaking hands as she jotted down notes. She didn’t dare speak aloud the one word that she now understood was the reason Devin had been killed. An acronym—
g, r, e, a, n, e
.

After clearing the Internet browsing history on the computer, Aubree picked up her notebook. She walked over, picked up Scarlett, and kissed her cheek. She put a trembling hand on Wyatt’s arm. “I’m ready.”

He grasped her hand and gave her a concerned look. “Okay. We’ll talk in the truck.”

They hurried outside, and Aubree buckled Scarlett into her car seat. “I’ve been looking at this all wrong the whole time.” She locked the door and looked over her shoulder again as Wyatt pulled onto the road.

“Aubree, there’s no way someone could know where you are right now. Relax.”

“But I can’t! I just found out the reason my life is in so much danger. It’s because of one word—one word, Wyatt!” Aubree pushed her fingers through her hair. “Someone is trying to kill me, not because I heard a voice and could maybe recognize it, but because I heard a word that would identify him.”

“What’s the word?”

“It’s an acronym, and the FBI doesn’t even know about it.”

“Are you sure? Maybe they’ve solved the case by now,” Wyatt said.

“They never heard the word because I messed up. I thought I remembered what the killer said. “
By the time they find him, we’ll be in the money. The intruder will clear the way
,” is what I reported.”

“Well, that shouldn’t matter—”

“But it does, because he never said ‘money.’ ” Aubree glanced at Wyatt and shook her head. “He said ‘GREANE.’ ”

“Green, like the color?” Wyatt asked.

“No, it’s an acronym. GREANE stands for Government Regulated Ethanol: Agriculture for New Energy. It’s a new program being developed to create fuel with a higher percentage of ethanol that will be used for a military grade fuel.” Aubree pushed the hair back behind her ears and kept talking. “Those areas allowed to participate in the GREANE program will be able to build new ethanol plants to support the demand and bolster the economy of their state.

“The entire administration was for it, but the secretary of defense was talking about putting a cap on the number of ethanol plants built. He was pushing for only one state at a time to run a pilot of the new program to see if it would work.”

Wyatt glanced at her with raised eyebrows. “And so you think someone killed the secretary of defense because of this program?”

“I don’t know, but I do know that it’s more than coincidence that I first heard GREANE from someone who sounded a lot like Governor Ferrin and that his state was awarded a GREANE deal shortly after Robert Walden was assassinated.”

She tapped her finger on the dashboard. “I found something on the GREANE program and then I found a post from a blog. It was some blogger spouting off about our corrupt government, and the post wasn’t recent.

“At the time, the article said the engineers were continuing to run tests in order to persuade the secretary of defense to reconsider his decision.” She glanced at Wyatt, who listened closely as he drove. “I tried to search more on the subject and only came up with a few fragments here and there. The recurring fragment was that Governor Ferrin allegedly bribed someone to award Nebraska the pilot program GREANE. That decision was probably worth a chunk of change to the state of Nebraska and its governor, don’t you think?”

Wyatt breathed out a low whistle. “Now you’re starting to make me nervous.” His face twitched, and he furrowed his brow. “People will do anything for money. But do you really think the governor of Nebraska had something to do with it?”

“From what I could find on him—at least from those who aren’t members of his fan club—he’s newly elected because he owns some of the ethanol plants in Nebraska and had plenty of campaign money to spare. He wanted
to be governor so he could push forward with ethanol production using the excuse that the tax revenue was good for the state, which it was, but he was also lining his pockets. He needed the GREANE deal to pass to further his business. He’s the governor, but first he’s the owner of several ethanol plants.

“I’m just not sure if the San Diego chief of police is really involved,” Aubree murmured.

“The chief? Who’s he?”

The breeze blowing through Wyatt’s window ruffled the hair near his forehead, and Aubree could smell the scent of pine and charcoal briquettes as they passed an RV camping site. She inhaled and then shook off the fear of speaking the name that might be connected to her case.

“Jared Ferrin. His brother is the governor of Nebraska, and I’m willing to bet my life they sound very alike on the phone.” Aubree watched the road in her side view mirror. “I never dreamed of how this would end, but I think I have an idea now.”

“What do you mean?” Wyatt gripped the steering wheel. “We can call someone and get this over with. They can get their guy.”

“It won’t be that easy, or it would’ve been done already,” Aubree said. “If the chief of police is really involved, I’m sure he’s covered everything well.” She bit the end of her fingernail. “I’m not going to wait for the FBI to figure this out. I think it’s time for Scarlett to visit her Grandma.”

“But I thought you said they knew where your mom lives,” Wyatt said.

Aubree glanced back at Scarlett snug in her car seat. “They do, but my mom is going to take a much-needed vacation.”

“I don’t think I like where this idea is headed.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll help me think it through.” Aubree reached over and squeezed his arm. “It’s time for me to stop running.”

Wyatt was extra cautious when they picked up their supplies at the grocery store and hurried up and down the aisles. He kept glancing over his shoulder. Once Aubree poked him, and he jumped.

“Just who do you think you’re going to see?” Aubree teased. “A guy with a ski mask and a gun?”

Wyatt frowned. “I think I’m starting to understand how you feel, and I don’t like it. Let’s hurry.”

“Well, we should be pretty safe,” Aubree said. “No one knows
we’re here . . . yet. But let’s talk about this later. How about after dinner?”

“Hmm. What’s for dinner?”

Aubree held up a box of macaroni and cheese and a package of hot dogs. “My specialty.”

“Then I’ll bring my specialty.” Wyatt picked up a can of green beans and chuckled.

After the groceries were tucked away in the trailer and they had consumed their gourmet meal, Aubree tucked Scarlett into bed. Then she pulled out a mixing bowl and a whisk. She ripped the tab off a box, and Wyatt looked up. “What are you doing?”

“Making brownies,” Aubree said. “I love brownies, and I never make them.”

“How come you never make them, then?”

“Because I would eat them.”

“What’s the downside?”

“The downside could become the upside.” Aubree pulled at the waistband of her jeans and giggled. Wyatt rolled his eyes and reached his arm around her waist.

“Fat chance of that happening. You’re beautiful.”

Aubree laughed so hard that she slumped back into the ugly vinyl seats around the kitchen table.

“What?” Wyatt held up his hands.

“Shh.” Aubree pointed to Scarlett and then covered her mouth as another giggle burst forth. “Fat chance.” She wiped a tear from her eye and kept laughing. Wyatt slumped down beside her and muffled his laugh.

“It is a fat chance. Now let’s get these brownies in the oven.” Wyatt tried to help her mix up the brownies, but they both ended up doing more laughing than stirring. Finally, when the dessert was baking, Aubree sat next to Wyatt. “It feels good to laugh. It’s been too long.”

Wyatt put his arm around her and pulled her close. “It feels good to kiss too. Let’s give it a go.” He kissed her, but Aubree giggled.

“I’m sorry. Here, let me try again.” Looking into his eyes, she leaned closer and blew softly in his ear. Wyatt squirmed and then grabbed her and tickled her until she shrieked.

“Shh, you’re going to wake up Scarlett. Let me cover your mouth.”
He kissed her until she stopped laughing and relaxed against him. He breathed softly on her neck and left a line of kisses reaching up to her forehead and then back down to her mouth. Aubree ran her fingers through his hair and kissed him until the smell of brownies brought a smile to her lips. “What are the chances we’ll eat that whole pan of brownies tonight?”

She felt his mouth smile against hers, and he mumbled, “I think the chances are pretty good—er—fat, I guess.”

A few minutes later, Aubree told Wyatt her plan over a pint of Ben and Jerry’s vanilla bean ice cream and hot fudge brownies. “I need to report what I’ve found about GREANE to the FBI, but I’m still afraid there’s a leak somewhere, and I can’t trust anyone. When I reported recognizing Governor Ferrin’s voice, I only talked to Jason via his cell phone, and they found me within a week.”