“Please wait here.” He turned around and walked down the hallway, leaving us in the waiting room under the watchful eyes of a man and a woman in House Sherwood uniforms.
Leon winked at them. They remained stoic.
My phone chimed. Cornelius. I answered the call. “Yes?”
“We’ve gone through Brian’s receipts,” Cornelius said. “On December 21st, he stopped at Millennium Coffee House. Brian doesn’t drink coffee or tea. Millennium Coffee House is located near the intersection of Gulf and the 610. He drove fifteen miles. There are sixteen coffee shops that are closer to BioCore.”
It made no sense for him to drive fifteen miles in Houston traffic for a coffee he doesn’t drink.
“Was he alone?”
“No. The barista remembered him because he ordered a fruit tea and then made a fuss because she wrote Bryan with a Y instead of Brian with an I on his cup. He met a man there. They sat outside and spoke for about forty-five minutes. She could see through the window. We showed her some pictures, and she picked Sturm out.”
And the pieces had fallen into place. “Thank you.”
“Does that help?”
“It’s exactly what we needed.”
“Fantastic. Here is Bernard.”
“Nevada?” my cousin said into the phone.
“Yes?”
“Bug and I tracked Brian’s logins. Someone used his credentials to log into his home network on December 21st. According to their emails and Rynda’s Facebook, they spent the evening with her mother-in-law and Edward.”
“Is there any way to trace what was accessed? Did they copy anything?”
“No. To a computer system, opening a file and copying it is pretty much the same thing. It doesn’t record the difference. All I can tell you is someone who wasn’t Brian Sherwood had complete access to his network.”
“Thank you.”
“We’re going home.”
“Be careful.”
“We will.”
I hung up.
The head of security emerged from the hallway. “He’ll see you now.”
Edward lay in a hospital bed, his skin only a couple of shades darker than the stark white of the sheets. Sunlight streamed through the open drapes, falling on a beautiful bonsai tree on the table next to him. A compact woman, her hair pulled back into a severe ponytail, waited discreetly in the corner, watching me and Leon like a hawk. She carried a Beretta. Leon parked himself next to her, looking like he didn’t have a care in the world. She gave him a once-over and dismissed him.
The head of security stood guard by the door and showed no signs of moving.
I pulled up a chair. “How are you feeling?”
“Like a man who dodged a bullet,” he said quietly. He touched the controls on the armrest of the bed, and it slowly moved to bring him into a semi-sitting position. “Have you found Brian?”
“No.”
“How’s Rynda?”
“She’s holding up.”
“She came to see me last night.” He reached out and touched the leaves of the bonsai.
“Did she bring the tree?”
“Yes. Satsuki Azalea, seventy-two years old. Flowers from May to June. The blossoms are beautiful pink and white. They have a really diverse range of flowering patterns, even on the same tree. I’ve wanted one for a while, but I’ve been so busy lately. She remembered.” He smiled, then caught himself. “Thank you for saving her and the children. And me. Us.”
“You don’t have to thank me. Anyone in my place would’ve done the same.”
“I doubt it.”
There was no easy way to say it. “How much do you trust your security people?”
I had to give it to him; even on his sickbed Edward managed a glare. “I trust them.”
“What I’m about to say can’t go past this room.”
“Say whatever it is.”
I kept my voice low. “Alexander Sturm is involved in the kidnapping of your brother.”
A heavy silence descended. Every time Sturm’s name was mentioned, people paused.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. We can’t prove it yet, but we’re certain.”
“But why?”
“Alexander Sturm and Vincent Harcourt are part of a conspiracy that involved Olivia Charles. They belong to an organization of Primes that’s trying to destabilize Houston so they can put their leader in power. They call him Caesar. Adam Pierce was also part of this conspiracy.”
Edward gaped at me.
“Sturm is under the impression that Olivia hid something in Brian and Rynda’s house. Something vital. He wants it back, but he refuses to state clearly what he’s looking for. He wasn’t happy with our failure to find the ransom, so he sent a severed human ear to Rynda to try to convince us to expedite our efforts.”
“Dear God.” Edward tried to rise.
“Please don’t get up,” the head of security said. “Please, sir. We need you to get well.”
Edward lowered himself back onto the bed.
“On December 21st, your brother visited Millennium Coffee House about fifteen miles from BioCore. He met Sturm there.”
I let it sink in.
Edward frowned. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. We found an eyewitness who picked Sturm out of a photo lineup.”
“Brian had no reason to meet Sturm. BioCore doesn’t do business with Sturm Enterprises. And if he wanted to meet him, why go alone? Everyone knows Sturm’s reputation. Why didn’t he tell me about it?”
Those were excellent questions. “Later that night, when Brian and Rynda met you and your mother for dinner, someone used Brian’s credentials to log into his home network.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Brian’s kidnapping occurred in seconds. The people who perpetrated it were efficient and professional. Brian is predictable. He drives the same route to work and back at about the same time every day, along Memorial Drive, which is mostly wooded. There are three cameras along the route Brian takes to work, but only one offers an unobstructed view of the road.”
Edward still didn’t say anything. I couldn’t tell if he had connected the dots or not.
“They managed to force him to stop at the exact spot along his route where his kidnapping was guaranteed to be recorded. Thirty feet in either direction, and the crime would never have been caught on camera. It’s highly unlikely that a crew that efficient hadn’t done their homework and didn’t know where the cameras were located. It’s also interesting that once they tapped his bumper, Brian drove into the guardrail, conveniently marking the location of his kidnapping.”
Edward’s eyes turned dark. It was time to deliver the final blow.
“When Rynda asked Brian if he was okay, after the ear was delivered, he stated that he was in pain. When she asked him if his wound was treated by a doctor, he said it was. We contracted Scroll to perform a DNA analysis on the severed ear. It doesn’t belong to your brother.”
Edward looked up. His face tightened. His jaw set. He stared at the ceiling as if he were going to burn a hole in it with his gaze. His hands curled into fists, crushing the sheets. Edward Sherwood was monumentally angry, and he was doing all he could to contain his rage.
I waited.
He unclenched his jaw. His voice was a low growl. “I’ll fucking kill him.”
The bonsai creaked. Its trunk thickened, its branches thrust up, growing. Roots writhed under the soil.
“I’ll strangle him with my bare hands.”
Buds formed on the branches.
“I always knew he was a coward. But this is . . .” He shook with fury.
The ceramic planter cracked and burst. Pieces of it showered my clothes. Behind me Leon must’ve moved, because the security chief drew his gun.
The azalea spread its roots, grasping the table like some monstrous octopus. It had quadrupled in size, its branches hanging over the bed.
“This is beyond anything he’s ever done before. That scumbag. That cowardly, weak scumbag.”
The buds snapped open. A riot of flowers blanketed the tree, the delicate blossoms in all shades from white to intense pink so dense, you couldn’t see the leaves. A sweet scent filled the room.