Caught Off Guard Read online

  A splash nearby disoriented me. Above me was the light and air, and I opened my mouth to take in the lifesaving air, but all I got was a mouthful of water.

  Instantly, I was in a worse situation than a second before. What do I do with the mouthful of water?

  In desperation, I kicked and reached for the light and rose toward it, surprised to find nothing holding me back.

  Dread consumed me as I waited for the pull I knew would be coming any moment. Being so close to air was the worst sort of torture. And my brain’s oxygen deprivation was making me consider calling it quits. To let go and stop fighting would be much easier.

  When my head broke the surface, I coughed out the water, sputtering as I tried to take in air as well. I took in a second breath, then a third, and air filled my body.

  With air came awareness, and survival once more became my priority.

  More splashing at my side pulled my attention, and I scanned the lake around myself, searching for the diver. A struggle appeared to be going on below the surface, and though everything in me screamed to get out of the water and run, a tiny niggling of uncertainty, of wondering why the diver hadn’t pulled me under again, pushed me to dive under to learn why.

  Another person was struggling with the diver—Leo.

  I pushed to the surface to take in three deep breaths, bracing for a fight. Nothing was on the deck that I could use against the diver. I was two arm’s lengths away from the dock, so I swam to it. Having gone without oxygen, I was depleted of energy. I would need a boost.

  I pushed off the deck with my feet, projecting me toward Leo and the diver. As I closed in, I thrust my arms downward, trying to come down against the diver in a striking motion. But the water slowed everything.

  I realized I was getting nowhere, and he and Leo were in a power struggle, each holding on to the other. But like me, Leo didn’t have air, while the diver had an unlimited supply.

  The tank.

  The diver had his back to me as he fought Leo, which gave me an advantage. I started yanking at hoses, pulling them from the tank.

  The diver let go of Leo to reach over his shoulder. Again, a skilled diver would have solutions. We needed to get out of the water.

  Leo was swimming to the surface, and I followed. We broke through seconds apart.

  “Get out of the water,” he said and moved toward the dock.

  We pulled ourselves up onto the wooden platform, and I scurried back, away from the water, like a crab on the run. I glanced at Leo, who was holding a shoulder. Red-stained water seeped between his fingers.

  “What happened?” I crawled on my hands and knees to him.

  “He had a knife. Just nicked me.” He looked over my shoulder. “My phone is here somewhere. We need to call the police.”

  I scanned the deck for our phones. I’d dropped mine when I was pulled in, so it likely went into the water.

  From next door, Lil’ Megalodon yelled, “What are you two lunatics doing? That’s private property.”

  “Call the police!” I yelled back. But my voice was raspy from the water, dimming my volume.

  I spotted Leo’s phone lying next to a planter, under a deck chair.

  “Just get out of there,” Megalodon said. “No one wants any trouble.”

  “I’m serious! Call the police!” I scrambled to the phone, snatched it up, and handed it to Leo. Then I saw mine near the edge of the dock, where I’d pulled myself up and out of the water. I went over to find the face cracked and wet.

  “Don’t threaten me! Because I just might!” Megalodon shouted.

  “I got it,” Leo said, pressing his phone to his ear.

  A winter breeze came off the lake, and I shivered. With one look at Leo, I knew he was cold too. His lips were pressed tight, and goose bumps covered his arms.

  He stood and held out a hand to me while talking to the local force’s dispatcher on the phone. He pulled me up and guided me to the stairs. When he hung up, he said, “We have to get out of these clothes. It’s forty degrees out here.”

  We shuffled to the front of the house and Leo’s truck, shock and cold settling in.

  “Stay with me, Sam,” he said.

  I nodded again.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  My teeth chattered as I told him about finding the nail before the head popped out of the water and the man pulled me in.

  Inside Leo’s truck, we stripped out of our wet clothes. He had a change in the back, and while he donned the jeans, I slipped on his oversized sweatshirt. He wrapped one scratchy wool blanket around my shoulders and another around his.

  “You’re prepared,” I said in admiration. I kept a spare set of clothes, water, and granola bars in LC as well.

  Leo stared at me then came to stand in front of me.

  I touched his blanket where a red stain was slowly growing larger. He lifted a strand of hair from my forehead.

  He said, “All I keep thinking is what would have happened if you’d come here alone.”

  I’d had the same thought. “But I didn’t.”

  He dropped a kiss on my forehead. “Thankfully.”

  I closed my eyes, leaned into him, and gave thanks that he’d once again come to my rescue.

  The police took our reports and description of the diver and my thoughts on the possible connection to the black SUV with the silver detail skirt. But no diver was found, and the SUV was gone as well. Nothing would come of the assault unless the diver decided to surface or attack again. I hoped he would try.

  The EMTs had been called and had bandaged Leo at the scene.

  Lil’ Megalodon joined us and listened to our report, sighing and shaking his head throughout. While the EMTs were stitching Leo’s upper arm, he told me, “I’m sorry. I thought you were joking when you said to call the police.”

  “Can you think of anyone who might want to kill Keith McVay?” I asked. “Because the trainer is dead, and now someone has come after me, I assume to stop me from continuing my investigation.” I had nothing to lose by asking; though, I wasn’t sure the rapper had a hitman on call to do work on short notice.

  He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “I’m beginning to think nothing was like it seemed.”

  “Watch your back,” I told him. I was still going to find out what his lie was.

  Leo and I rode halfway home in silence, the heat blasting.

  “The one thing I wish LC had was heated seats,” I said, curled up with my legs under myself.

  “Weird question, but I’m starving. Do you want anything to eat?” He gave me a sheepish grin.

  Still numb from the shock of the day and the cold water, I said, “Does a bear poop in the woods?”

  I was always ravenously hungry after an attack. How terrible that I had experienced such things enough to know that.

  We drove through a popular burger joint and got large everything.

  “I’m so glad my phone didn’t get ruined,” I said, texting Lockett and asking him to walk Simon.

  I’d cleaned it the best I could, and though the screen was jacked, the phone was working. I didn’t dare remove the case as I believed that its compression was holding everything in place. By habit, I scrolled through my emails as I stuffed fries into my face.

  “Yeah, getting a new one is a pain. At least all you need is a new face.”

  I stopped on an email with the sender name Samantha True and the subject “We see you, but you don’t see us.” The subject line reminded me of one from way back, when all those college students found spyware on their computers, and videos of them were splashed all over the internet. Clicking on such an email was likely asking for virus trouble, but I did it anyway.

  A video popped up. The first scene was my mom working in her office, doing the everyday tasks of her job, then the scene switched to a short clip of her and Cora walking down the street to her office. The next clip was of Dad and Stella at the paper. Then Dad was at home, working in his home office, Cora riding a broomstick
horse around him. The last was my apartment, showing Lockett playing with Simon and us talking about the case. The video ended after the words “We see everything” scrolled across the page. The cracks in the screen distorted the video, which made it even creepier.

  “Dear Lord,” I said and began to tremble all over again.

  22

  Friday

  Both my dad and mom also got the threatening video. More than anything, Cora was the one we worried the most about. The fact that whoever had done this made sure to include her scared me to my very core, and I was unable to sleep.

  Early the next morning, I drove out to Mrs. Wright’s house. She was my go-to gadget lady. Her husband was a retired cop, and she’d picked up a few things from him.

  I knocked on the door with trepidation, afraid she might be a late riser.

  She flung open the door and surveyed me. Wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt and jeans, Mrs. Wright looked fresh and ready for the day. Her blue eyeshadow was heavy and glittery.

  “What’d ya do now?” she asked in the Jersey accent I’d come to love. She took a bite of the toast she had in one hand and waved me inside the house with the other.

  The house was silent.

  I looked at her, wide eyed. Her husband usually had the TV blaring so loud that a person couldn’t hear herself think.

  “Where’s Marv?” I reared back slightly. “Did you have him taken out?”

  Mrs. Wright laughed. “Nah, he went to the VFW,” pronouncing it vee-eff-dub. “What kinda trouble you in now?”

  From my bag, I pulled out a handheld bug scanner. When my husband died, I’d discovered his home security business had also done PI work… with my name on the PI license. And I’d been totally clueless. Apparently, he did the PI work to get the goods on locals, which he could use later in a land grab. That produced a shame that was taking me a long time to live down.

  But one bonus to inheriting the business was inheriting Toby too, and I’d found a secret room full of gadgets. I’d taken a few home, like the bug detector I was holding, a stun gun, and a hot spot. The rest had been destroyed in a fire.

  “I need to know how to use this. It can’t be as easy as sweep the room and let it beep.”

  She waved for me to follow her into the kitchen and gestured at a mug. “Coffee?”

  “Yes, please.” I sat at her table.

  She poured me a cup then sat across from me. “It is that easy. Here’s what you need to know. Detectors come in all shapes and sizes, like men’s ding-dongs. And like men’s ding-dongs, they do the same thing. Only some do it a little better and are a little more skilled.”

  I didn’t dare ask which she was specifically referring to, the devices or the ding-dongs.

  “The one you got there is decent. What happened?”

  “I was sent a video of us being filmed unknowingly.”

  “And you don’t think a man was doing it from afar?”

  I shook my head. “No, the videos were of my dad working at his desk. He doesn’t have a window in his office. Or me in my house, after the blinds were closed. But more than that, they filmed my niece. She’s only six. I have my IT guy scanning my stuff for spyware, but I need to know if there are bugs in my house and in my parents’ home and offices. I turned this on this morning, and it started beeping like mad.”

  She nodded knowingly. “And you got scared and freaked out and came here.”

  “Yeah, my friend is being charged with murder. My other friend is his lawyer. If they’ve recorded our conversations, they know exactly where we are in the defense process and have been one step ahead of me the entire time.” That would explain a lot.

  “There are camera bugs, mic bugs, and motion bugs.” She pointed at my device. “This handy guy uses wideband radio frequencies, infrared probes, line-drive probes, and microwave RF probes. Only thing you’re not scanning is for GMS. That’s ‘global systems for mobile communication.’ It’ll scan all cellular devices and look for Bluetooth spying. I got one in my closet. I’ll get it for ya.”

  She was back in a flash and showed me how to use both gadgets.

  “Listen to me, Sam. Wear the headphones when you’re scanning. Know where the bugs are first. Take note and map them. Do not take them out because this is your chance to strike back, using their tech against them.”

  I hadn’t thought of that, and feigning ignorance might be a moot point as I’d called Toby on my cell phone on the way over and already told him what had happened. I told Mrs. Wright that if my phone was bugged, then I’d blown it.

  “Gimme your phone.”

  I handed it over. She put on the headset and moved so that I could look over her shoulder and watch the screen on the scanner. Nothing.

  “Can I take this off?” She pointed at the case.

  I saw no point in keeping the phone together if it was being used to spy on me, so I nodded.

  She took off the case and gently turned the phone over in her hand then pressed the home button. She scrolled through my apps. Following a heavy sigh, she set my phone on the table.

  “They know you know. This app here is how they’ve been listening in on your phone.”

  “But it’s a weather app.”

  “You ever pull it up to look at the weather?”

  I shook my head. “I like a different one.”

  “Then why don’t you delete it?”

  I paused. “I thought I had.”

  “And yet here it is.” She attempted to open the app, but it did nothing but spin in a perpetual state of not opening. “You need to factory reset your phone.”

  “Will it still act as a bug if it’s turned off?”

  She shook her head. Her eyes were narrow, her lips pressed into a thin line. “This makes me damn mad, Sam. You go home. Find all the bugs and strip them out. And you sweep every day. You hear me? From now on, you move forward as if there are ears everywhere unless you’ve checked and double-checked.”

  “How did they get access to all this?” I’d asked myself that a million times since seeing the video.

  Mrs. Wright shrugged. “They break into your house while you’re gone. You put your phone down for a second, and they add the app. They tap into the cameras on city streets or use an email with your IP address to tap into your computer camera.”

  Toby had said essentially the same thing. I was hoping Mrs. Wright could give me something I could fight. Toby said that sort of expertise was readily available for hire on the dark web.

  I left her house, having replaced my fear with anger—a deep, vibrating anger that gave me a taste for revenge. I just needed a target.

  My first sweep was at my parents’.

  After I removed all the bugs we could find, the family went out into the yard for a discussion… just in case.

  Mom gave me a hug. “I don’t want you to take this wrong, but your dad and I decided that we’re going to take Cora on a trip.”

  I said, “That’s a good idea. Why would I take that wrong?”

  Dad said, “Because we don’t want you to come. Rachel’s ship will be in Greece over Christmas. We’re going to meet her there so she can spend Christmas with Cora.”

  Mom rushed to say, “It’s not that we don’t want you there or that we don’t want to spend Christmas with you, but in light of the videos and the spying, we thought maybe it would be good to get away from all this.”

  “And trouble follows me,” I mumbled.

  Dad squeezed my shoulder. “Maybe more that this will give you time to get to the bottom of this without having to worry about us.”

  I asked what had been nagging at me since having watched the video. “What if I never get to the bottom of it?”

  My mother rolled her eyes. “As if that would ever happen. We have faith in you, Samantha. And if there’s one thing I know about my daughters, no one messes with their family. I see doubt in your eyes, but that’s because you’re scared. More than the doubt, I see determination. I saw that same look when they said you’d need learn
to read and we knew you’d been trying but couldn’t.” She put an arm around my shoulders and gave me a side hug.

  “I’d never bet against you.” Dad joined us and folded me into a hug with my mom.

  “Just be careful,” Mom said, running a hand down my hair.

  Dad squeezed us both and sighed.

  “When do you leave?” I let them be the ones to pull away as I needed the hug far more than I’d thought.

  “Tomorrow,” Dad said. “Call it an extended vacation.”

  “And you’ll be back?”

  Mom said, “The twenty-seventh. We’ll do Christmas with you then.”

  I nodded. I wanted them to leave. Doing that felt like a safe move. And they were right—I would worry less. But I was bummed about not spending Christmas with my family. Perspective, right? If they stayed and something happened to one of them, I would never forgive myself.

  We decided I would check the house and be sure to bring all the packages in and wrap them so that they would be ready for Cora when they returned home.

  Then I drove to my apartment and did a sweep there. Lockett was in Portland. I left him a note about checking his phone for the spyware app I’d had. Then I loaded my stun gun, the bug detector, a bottle of water, and my lock-picking kit into my backpack. I needed to replace my phone’s face, but I had another errand I wanted to run first.

  I drove by the police station and caught Leo clocking out after ending his shift. He was dressed in his typical jeans, Henley, and Carhart coat.

  I pointed at his shoulder. “How is it?”

  He rolled it a few times. “A little tight but good.”

  “Want to go back to McVay’s house with me?”

  He looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “What could you possibly want to go back there for?”

  I told him about the bugs at my parents’ and my house. “I want to sweep his house too.”

  “And what’s that going to tell you?” he asked as he reached for LC’s passenger door.

  “It’ll explain the privacy stuff he was freaked out about. I think McVay knew someone was listening in on him. If I can figure out who, then I might just have caught my killer. I think it’s the same person who’s spying on me.”