Cardwell Christmas Crime Scene Read online

  “The man stored electronic copies of these damaging rumors in a Gray Box,” Kathrein said.

  Gray Box. Memories that Lucy would rather have continued to forget emerged, vying for precedence in her troubled thoughts.

  “As outlined in your instructions,” he went on, “you will retrieve every document and then destroy everything in the cloud, removing all traces of the electronic records.”

  Break into a secure Gray Box? Kathrein had no idea what he was asking. Rush Grayson, the brilliant creator of that particular secure cloud storage service, had contracts with the United States military and intelligence agencies. His proprietary Gray Box encryption was that reliable and impossible to hack. To date, there had never been a successful breach. “What you’re asking is impossible, Mr. Kathrein.”

  “You’d best hope not, Lucille. Since the man I contracted was not successful with the password and such, I presume it will require a more feminine ingenuity,” he suggested.

  Her mind caught on his words and suddenly his determination to bring her to France, to give her anything and everything she needed to make the transition became clear. She was as much a pawn as her sister and nephew, caught in a life and death game of speed chess. Dieter Kathrein didn’t need a personal assistant as much as he’d anticipated a need for her to pry open software. He’d selected Lucy based on her past.

  Oh, dear God.

  “If you contact the police or anyone else I will terminate your family,” he said. “If you fail I will terminate your family.”

  Renewed fear tightened her chest. “Mr.—”

  “You have one week.”

  Her heart stumbled. Seven days to break into a Gray Box? He might give her a year and she wouldn’t be able to deliver. No matter what she’d learned during her time with the company founder, she didn’t have any confidence she could accomplish the task in the next decade. “Sir, I’m begging you to reconsider.”

  “Begging does not an ounce of good. Results matter to me. You know this. Retrieve the information or you will never see your family alive again.”

  If someone on Kathrein’s extensive staff had already tried and failed to crack the secure storage site, she couldn’t possibly hope to succeed long distance. The inevitable scenarios played like a house of horrors tour in her mind. “Wait! Please, I need more than a week.” Lucy floundered for a believable excuse. “I’ll have to return to the States.” For the first time in years, the plane trip would be the least of her challenges.

  “One week, Lucille. Not a single hour more.”

  “Don’t hurt them,” she pleaded. Silence was the reply. He’d ended the call. She reflexively redialed Gwen’s number. No answer. Tears rolled down her cheeks. How could he threaten Jackson? Just last week, he’d stooped over the stroller and smiled warmly at the baby during one of Gwen’s walks around the estate. Kathrein must have lost his mind. Clearly a crazy man held the lives of her sister and nephew in his arthritic hand. Damn it. No matter what her insane boss believed, cracking a Gray Box was not possible.

  She upended the envelope and poked through the contents. Along with a substantial amount of cash, presumably to assist with her travel expenses, Kathrein had provided detailed background on investigative journalist Mathieu Garmeaux. How had this one man gathered secrets damaging enough to push Kathrein to such an extreme and irrational response?

  Kathrein probably assumed Lucy could magically derive the man’s username and password from the background. Not likely. She dashed away her tears with the back of her hand, forcing herself to concentrate on solutions rather than the cold dread sinking into her bones. If Garmeaux would be reasonable, if she could convince him to help her, maybe she could avoid a pointless attack on a secure Gray Box and she could get her family back by morning.

  Nothing lost by asking, she decided. She booted up her laptop and did a preliminary search for the man based on the background provided. First she’d send an email and follow that with a phone call. Or not. Her stomach sank at the first search result.

  Mathieu Garmeaux, based in Paris, had died two weeks ago, the victim of a traffic accident just a few blocks from his apartment.

  Dear God. Lucy dropped her head into her hands and flexed her fingertips hard into her scalp, tugging on her hair as the dates lined up in her mind. She’d been with Mr. Kathrein in Paris at the time. In light of the kidnapping it seemed far more likely that the journalist’s motorcycle had lost the fight with a panel truck on purpose. If Kathrein had had Garmeaux killed, what wouldn’t he do to gain control of the documents?

  A shudder racked her shoulders as she brought up an airline website and booked the next available flight to San Francisco. Gwen and Jackson were counting on her and, like Mr. Kathrein, she would do anything to save her family. Oh, she hated having even that much in common with the wretched old man. Air travel and returning to Rush Grayson’s territory were small costs compared to the priceless value of the people who mattered most to her.

  Her ticket booked, she tried not to think of anything but the next step and failed miserably. Knowing she’d be facing the man who’d broken her heart last year had her agonizing over every item of clothing as she packed. Circumstances aside, deceiving Rush went against her nature. Though he’d hurt her, she’d never wanted to hurt him. Saving Gwen and Jackson meant damaging the Gray Box reputation, and that left a sour taste in her mouth.

  “Can’t be helped,” she said aloud. Zipping her luggage closed, she called for the car and driver to take her to the airport. As the estate faded into the distance behind the car, Lucy’s thoughts bounced from past to present and leapfrogged into the near and distant future.

  Starting with a business introduction and a surprising mutual respect, she and Rush had developed a friendship that had become so much more. Chills raced along her skin at the memories she couldn’t suppress. She’d been foolish enough to fall in love and he’d been smart enough to adhere to his personal boundaries.

  Despite the knowledge that their business interests and efforts had served them both well, she didn’t entertain any illusion that he’d be particularly happy to see her on a personal level. What Kathrein required of her would push the mutual professional respect across a bed of hot coals.

  If by some miracle she succeeded in her task, her foolish heart’s persistent, feathery hope to someday reconcile with Rush would be blown out of reach forever.

  Copyright © 2016 by Debra Webb

  ISBN-13: 9781488005947

  Cardwell Christmas Crime Scene

  Copyright © 2016 by Barbara Heinlein

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