Dan Robie started to say something but then stopped. He snorted and looked away, shaking his head.
“I’m not leaving,” Robie said quietly. “I did remember one lesson you taught me. Never leave a job unfinished.”
His father glanced at him. “You really servin’ your country?”
“Yes.”
“You good at it?”
“Yes. Some might say one of the best. So is Jessica.”
“That’s interestin’. A girl doin’ what is traditionally a man’s job.”
“She might be even better than me. And I recently ran into a woman from another country about half my size who could take on five veteran jarheads and kill them all before they even knew what had hit them.”
“Seriously?”
“Very seriously.”
His father fell silent and Robie watched him closely.
He said, “Why the change in attitude? Where’s the fighter inside you?”
“Need somethin’ worth fightin’ for.”
“And your life isn’t?”
His father shrugged.
Feeling he was going in circles over this, Robie decided to change the subject. “Whatever happened to the Barksdales?”
Dan Robie glanced up. “The Barksdales?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Just wondering. I’m staying at their old home.”
His father nodded, his look wary.
“What is it?” asked Robie.
“You and Laura. That was a mistake, you know.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
His father said, “You came from different walks of life. Never would have worked out.”
“You don’t know that!”
“I do know that. And it didn’t work out, did it?”
“I’m not going to waste time discussing this with you,” snapped Robie.
“You just won’t listen, will you?” said his father in disgust.
Robie barked, “What happened to the Barksdales? I know you didn’t buy the Willows from them.”
“I didn’t. They were long gone by then.”
“Gone where?”
Dan Robie shrugged. “Don’t know. They just up and moved out one night. They were just gone.” He added, “Like you.”
“When?”
“I don’t remember exactly. It was a long time ago.”
“How long after I left?”
His father thought about this for a few moments. “Not that long, actually.”
“So you didn’t see them before they left?”
“I wasn’t that close to them. They were the aristocracy of Cantrell. I was just a lowly lawyer. I was surprised that they let you date their precious daughter. Henry Barksdale was so damn proud of his ancestral roots. He thought his family walked on water. That his shit didn’t stink. I thought he was a pompous idiot.”
“They had a lot of money,” pointed out Robie.
“Goes to show that money doesn’t buy class.”
“So you didn’t do their legal work?”
“Hell no. I wasn’t established enough. They used Parnell and Longstreet. Been here forever. The founding partners have long since died. Stuart Longstreet is still here, though. He handled their affairs when they were livin’ in Cantrell.” His father studied him. “Why all the questions about the Barksdales? What’s going on?”
“It’s pretty simple. Regardless of what you thought, I loved Laura. And I just would like to know what happened to her.”
“Well, good luck with that. Not that she’d care. You just up and left all of us, didn’t you? Her included?”
Robie rose. “Hey, Dad, keep your spirits up. You never know, you might just beat this rap.”
Chapter
42
IS LITTLE BILL here?” Reel asked Angie Faulconer, as the two women stood on the front porch of the Faulconers’ home. “I’m a friend of Will Robie’s. He wanted me to give him something.”
“He’s at work right now.”
“Can you tell me where?”
“What is this about?” the woman asked suspiciously.
“Robie said that your son is really good with computers. He has a job for him to do. A paying job,” Reel added, eyeing the poor state of the woman’s house.
“Oh, okay. I can do that. He works over at the mall. At a video game store.”
“Didn’t know you had a mall here.”
“It’s just a strip mall. Half the stores are closed, but kids like their video games, I guess.”
She gave Reel directions and also told her she would call her son so he would be expecting her. Reel drove there in about twenty-five minutes, mostly on winding back roads that weaved in and out of forested land interspersed with swamps.
As Angie had said, the strip mall was half boarded up. The sidewalks were cracked, with grass growing in the crevices. The parking lot’s asphalt was lumpy and she could count the number of cars at the mall on two hands. But they were all parked in front of the video game shop, which seemed to have a lot of activity.
When she walked in a bell on the door tinkled. Reel looked around approvingly. The shop was clean, the displays sharp and eye-catching, and the games neatly racked. There were about twenty customers in the shop, mostly teenagers but some adults, too.
A tall, burly young man came up to her. “Are you Jessica?”
“Yes, you must be Bill.”
“Mom called. She said you had a computer problem?”
“Will Robie does. Which means it’s my problem, too.” She looked around. “But you look pretty busy. Is this a good time?”
“Oh, yeah. They all know what they want. They’re just wastin’ time, playin’ games. And the longer they stay the more they tend to buy. And there’re two other people on duty. Come on back.”
He led her into the rear of the shop where there were some desks and shelves and stacks of boxes. On each desk was a shiny Apple computer.
“So what’s the problem?” asked Little Bill.
Reel pulled out the flash drive. “There’s information on here that we need, but it seems to be in code. I know that’s not exactly a computer problem, but we thought we’d ask.”
“Can I see it?”
She handed it across. Little Bill sat down and popped the drive into the desktop’s USB slot. With a few clicks he brought the file page up.
“Uh, Mom said you were goin’ to pay me?”
“How about two hundred bucks?”
“Damn, sounds good to me!”
“You know about codes?” asked Reel, who was staring over his shoulder.
“I know how to code. Which isn’t the same thing, I realize. But a lot of the games we sell here have codes you have to break, so I know some things about that.”
He studied the files and keyed up one.
“Looks like gibberish to me,” said Reel.
“Where’d this come from?” asked Little Bill.
“I’d prefer not to say.”
He stared up at her. “Why?”
“I’d also prefer not to answer that.”