Chapter 13

Caroline continues the case without Oliver and receives some distressing news

Chapter 13

It’s been a few days since Caroline touched the drive or even thought about the case. What was the point? Oliver ran away and Malcolm never got back to her. The case was over, Archie won, she saw the press conference. The park is gearing up for the Fiftieth Celebration and the whole world will be watching his stupid movie. This must have been what Devon was trying to avoid.

D****t, she thought, why couldn’t he have just come out and said that instead of hiding everything in cryptic messages and broken puzzles?

The world seemed to move on and so will Caroline. To fill the time left vacant by getting back to her classes. If any good were to come out of this waste of time it would have been the knowledge that she was meant to be a cop. People like Archie can only get away with horrible things for so long before someone finally rises up and stops them. She might not have been that person for Archie, but she was damn sure going to get the next one.

Her finances restricted her to one class at a time. She chose to take Interrogation because she thought it would be useful and because the class started at noon. The classroom looked like a generic classroom with enough posters and equipment to satisfy the requirements for any course. However, it was clearly a lab at one point. The room was broken up into six flat black lab tables scratched and scuffed from years of wear.

The class was full, about thirty students, all sitting around one of the benches some chatting amongst themselves, some sitting quietly trying to shake off last night’s hangover. Caroline grabbed a seat next to a man and a woman�"probably mid-twenties�"trying to hide the fact they were flirting with each other. The guy would lean over and whisper something into his companion’s ear, she would giggle and move her hand up his thigh another quarter inch.

Caroline didn’t notice what they were doing when she sat down and by the time she did every seat was full. She checked the time on her phone and confirmed that the professor was late. Caroline looked around the room at nothing in particular, go bored and opened her laptop. Even a week later the news was still covering the Howell Press Conference. They weren’t saying anything new, mostly they repeatedly stated that it happened using various words tones and inflections. That’s the twenty-four-hour news for you.

The hand of the woman next to her moved up another few inches and still no sign of the professor. Some of her fellow classmates had begun to talk about leaving and others had already taken action. Caroline thought about joining them when her phone went off. The message was from a random series of characters and numbers, must be Malcolm.

Class got out early.

Meet me @ White Sands

Caroline’s heart leaped at the prospect of finding out what was on the drive, but new, louder part told her to stop. Then Caroline remembered where she was and what she was trying to do and collected her things.

White Sands was a semi-popular beach for tourists. It was the kind of place you could go to in the middle of May and still find a spot to sit. Caroline went there a few times back when she first moved to the city, it was nice, but not the kind of place one would expect to find a lot of computing equipment or whatever it was Malcolm would need to fix the drive.

A screwdriver, maybe? Definitely a computer of some kind.

The beach was mostly empty when she got there, a few dog walkers, a snowbird or two collecting shells, but no Malcolm. She wandered down the beach in an attempt to find any sign of Malcolm. The water was vitreous, perfectly reflecting the noonday sun with only the occasional wave hitting the beach to break the illusion.

On the beach ahead of her was an odd, square white structure. As she got closer the white became darker and patchier where the paint had cracked and faded. She realized that it was an old changing room and bathroom that had been permanently closed for what Caroline could only assume had been health reasons.

She made a few cautious steps towards the door which was ex-ed out with two yellow pieces of caution tape. She looked around and gave the door a light knock.

Nothing.

“Malcolm?” she asked.

She checked her phone. Nothing.

Caroline reached for the rusted handle and opened the door when she was met with another door. This one was made out of some heavy metal mesh on a thick metal frame. A single square bar stretched across the middle of the door and pulled double duty as both a structural piece and a handle. She pushed the door and found it was locked. This had to be the right place, she thought. Who the hell else would do this?

She pounded on the gate, fence thing sending a metallic rattling noise echoing into the darkness.

“Hey,” she called out, “Malcolm, open up! I thought we were over these games?”

A few seconds passed and he appeared out of the darkness without a shirt. Even in the low light, Caroline could tell he was tan and oddly in shape given his recreational activities. His blonde hair which was previously slicked back to maintain some semblance of class now hung down in a sun-bleached curly mess.

“Whoa, whoa, hey.” He said, “Cool it with the ‘M’ word. Who knows who might hear you.”

“I’m not calling you that ridiculous name,” Caroline said plainly.

Malcolm didn’t hear her, “Welcome to Casa Deeaaadalus…” he trailed off, looked at nothing and blinked a few times, “Name’s still a work in progress.” He added.

Caroline asked, “Were you trying to make a pun?”

“I don’t know, maybe,” He said with a dismissive head shake, “C'mon in, I have to show you something.”

The metal door opened with a piercing metal screech and closed behind her with an echoing clang. It took Caroline’s eye a few seconds to adjust to the darkness. Once they did she could make out at the glow from three computer monitors arranged in a semi-circle along with the familiar blinking lights of a server. In the light of the screens, Caroline could see a plain office chair that looked suspiciously like the chairs they had at Yonder. The computers were sitting on cheap card tables.

“What are you doing here?” asked Caroline, “Don’t you have, like, an apartment or something?”

 Caroline heard Malcolm’s footsteps trail off to one end of the former changing room.

“You’re standing in it.” The second he finished speaking the lights flipped on with a loud thunk and revealed Malcolm standing in the far left corner of the room hand on one of those massive sci-fi levers complete with a bright red handle, and a huge smile on his face. The lever was connected to a makeshift fuse box hanging on the wall.

“Y’like it?” he asked, “I added it myself. When I got this place it had plain light switches�"so boring�"so I added this baby.” He rapped on the fuse box, the lights flickered as he did, “It’s…very unsafe but cool!”

Now with a full view of the space, Caroline could see that Malcolm’s computer set up sat in the center of the room. The same metal mesh material on the door wrapped around the space. The walls matched the exterior and the floor was concrete. The space itself was divided into two sections, the bathroom, and the changing area, by a wall that butted against the back of the computers. The changing area broke down into two smaller areas using a set of ten lockers to delimit them. In the smaller left-hand section, there was another set of five lockers that sat against the dividing wall, a scuffed wooden bench, and the locker wall. On the other end, there were five changing stalls for the more private beachgoers. The bathroom half looked like any other public bathroom one might accidentally stumble into.  

The half of the space where Caroline stood was largely empty, there was a small cot tucked in the right-hand corner next to her and the left contained the jerry-rigged electrical system Malcolm had made. “How do you live here?” she asked, somewhere between disgusted and surprised.

“You’d be amazed what people won’t question when you slap a few pieces of dollar store caution tape over something.” He said.

“No, I mean physically how do you live here, it’s terrible.” She corrected looking around at the metal cage, “What’s this cage all over?”

“Faraday Cage!” he answered proudly.

“That doesn’t really help me, what does that mean?”

“It blocks electromagnetic waves, keeping what goes on in here, in here and vice versa.”

“Okay,” Caroline said before changing the subject, “So, you managed to fix the drive?”

Malcolm made his way to the computers, “Shouldn’t we wait for your better half?” he asked, “I messaged him the same time as you.”

“Better half? Oliver and I were never and will never be a thing.”

“Yeesh,” said Malcolm throwing up his hands, “Sorry. So, is he on his way or something?”

Caroline walked up next to the computers and folded her arms, “Oliver isn’t a part of this anymore.”

“Wait!” said Malcolm, “Even after all that s**t about correcting his life? Damn, if I’d known all I had to do was just not fix the drive for you to leave me alone I would have done it.”

“It’s not just that,” started Caroline, “Howell, knows about him. They brought him in and grilled him about Devon and the break-in. They know Devon wasn’t alone and they’re looked for his accomplice�"for me.”

Malcolm leaned back in his chair, which squeaked as he did, and wrapped his hands around the back of his head, “And he called me a p***y. At least I’m doing something. Y’know, he probably already sold you out.”

“That remains to be seen.” Replied Caroline, “Is the drive fixed? There’s still time to take down Archie.”

Malcolm started rummaging around his desk which was covered in all manner of junk and random electronics and retrieved what looked like the guts of the drive--Malcolm must have discarded the outer shell when he was working, she thought�"and plugged it into the side of the closest computer. He turned to face Caroline, “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

“Bad.”

“I’ll give you the good news first.” He said, “I think I found the smoking gun you were looking for.”

“That’s great!” Caroline exclaimed, “Wait, what’s the bad news?”

“Well…” he started, “It’s actually a two-parter. The drive is completely broken…and I kinda lost everything on the drive.”

“What about the smoking gun?” asked Caroline, trying to hold back the panic in her voice.

“It was the only thing to survive.”

“Then what was it?”

“That leads me to the second part. It’s a video and you should probably sit down before you watch it.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Caroline, “just play it.”

“Alright.”

Malcolm opened up a file and video appeared on the screen. The screen was dark, and Caroline could hear the shaking and squeaking of a car’s suspension bouncing down a bumpy road and the sound of an engine revving. A few seconds past and Caroline heard a familiar voice say, “Am I good, everything rolling. Awesome. Yes. Good.” Then the camera shook and spun around as the voice adjusted the shot. When it settled, Devon appeared on screen sitting behind the wheel of his van. The camera was propped up on the dash and awkwardly angled toward him, the shot was a little high and a little too far to the left so Devon was squashed in the right side of the screen.

“Uh, hey, Caroline. It’s me, uh, Devon.” Devon said gesturing at the screen, “but you already knew that. No no, wait.” The camera slumped down, Devon quickly grabbed it put it back in place, only slightly fixing the shot. “There, better.” he said satisfied, before jerking the wheel hard, “Whoa, s**t! That was close. Message received: watch the road, not the camera.”

Devon did his best to keep his eyes on the road as he spoke. “As you can see,” he said with a nervous chuckle, “things aren’t going great. I’ve got a s**t load of Sheep behind me and this is…well…a van so there’s no saying how much longer I can keep up this chase. I don’t want this to sound too much like a goodbye, but goodbye. I know you weren’t happy with the way things were going with the case and I could feel you pulling away, and that’s fine, hell, I’d do the same thing in your shoes. The time we’ve spent together has been some of the happiest of my life and I’ll cherish it for as long as I live which should be…” he checked his watch and made another nervous chuckle and looked out the driver side window, “oh another twenty minutes or so. I hate to say it, but Archie might win this thing. If he does, then, I’m sorry, you’re boned. I wanted to have a partner in this so bad that I put you in danger. My best effort to keep you out of Archie’s eye won’t be enough, I know that now.  I thought about dragging Oliver into this instead of you, but, well, I’m sure you’ve met him by now.”

Caroline let out a derisive snort.

Devon continued, “You might not get the chance to take down Howell and they might find you. Until that happens I want you to fight like hell. Do everything you can to make Archie’s life hell. If he’s going to kill you, make him work for it and if you take that f****r down in the process then fantastic. Just don’t lie down and accept it.” Devon paused and looked at the road then he laughed to himself and shook his head. He took a second and looked directly into the camera, “I love you, Caroline, I always have, and I can’t believe it took me this long to say anything. I think I just assumed you knew and you didn’t feel the same way�"maybe you don’t, who knows�"it doesn’t really matter now, does it? You were the best thing that ever happened to me and I pissed it away.” He went back to the road.

“Do me a favor, when this is all over, forget about me. Find someone new, someone better. Do something stupid and reckless and fun. Cherish every moment, don’t get cocky, stay gold blah, blah, blah…That got pretty cliché, huh? Normally, I love s**t like that but this is serious so just be ha�"“

There was a sound of twisting metal and Devon lurched forward and bashed his head on the steering wheel. “Ow, f**k.” He rubbed his forehead, a thin stream of blood started to trickle from his wound. Devon when back to driving when he was hit a second time this time Devon couldn’t recover he fruitlessly jerked the wheel to the left and right and hit a light pole which sent the camera flying onto the passenger seat. The view shifted to high angle shot of Devon’s body, his head resting on the steering wheel. He laid there unconscious for a few seconds when a man in an orange polo and silver watch approached the driver window. 

Caroline turned away when she saw the man draw a silenced pistol and did her best to cover her ears but the metallic spit of the gun drilled its way into her brain regardless.

Malcolm wordlessly shut off the video.

Caroline took some time to process the video and bury the emotions before wiping her eyes.

“H-how did you get this?” she asked, “I saw what they did to his van. How could anything survive that?”

Malcolm shook his head, “Must have been a backup server somewhere. When he made the video it must have gotten sent there. Devon might have hidden a special recovery program in the drive after I gave it to him and when I started messing with the drive it got sent to the drive.”

Caroline turned away from Malcolm and the video, “What do we do with this?” she said, “It’s hardly conclusive. Neither Archie nor Howell are mentioned in the video, right now all we have is a video of Devon being murdered. If we were to turn this over to the cops the ones going to jail would be us.”

“If I were you,” started Malcolm, “I’d find out who murdered Devon and work from there. It’s all connected, you just have to find the first link.”

“Then what?” asked Caroline, “That guy killed him, not Archie, they’d never convict him.”

“Yeah, but Archie knows he gave the order, and that might be enough to blackmail him.”

“Are you saying we blackmail Archie to resign? That would never work, no one would believe Archie would do something like that.”

Malcolm leaned back in his chair, “I'msaying look outside. Have you seen the news lately? This s**t happens all the time! Babe, we are living in a time were a******s like Archie get what they deserve.”

“First, don’t call me ‘babe’. Second, you seem to have had a change of heart.”

“Absolutely not, I still think you’re going to fail, but the quicker I get you out of here the quicker I get my life back…but I am right about the black mail.”

Caroline thought about what Malcolm said, it wouldn’t be easy, but it’s the only option available to her. He turned and left saying, “Thanks, Malcolm. I’ll come back if I need anything.”

“No you won’t!” Malcolm called back.