Chapter 3
Julia studied the compound as Devlin led her toward what looked like an office building. There were a couple buildings that looked like apartments or barracks, a long low building that could be a mess hall, and a large building with windows near the top that might have been a gym. No one was outside, and she wondered how many people lived or worked here.
Once inside the office building, Devlin led her toward a corner office. He knocked on the door, and when a woman said, “Come in,” he pushed the door open and waited for Julia to enter.
It was a bare-bones office, with a large desk that held three computers and reminded her of Zoe’s desk. Two file cabinets stood against one wall, and a bookshelf was against another.
The woman behind the desk had darker red hair than Zoe, but the same intense expression on her face. She stood up with a smile and held out her hand. “Hi, Julia. I’m Zoe’s sister, Mel.”
“Nice to meet you, Mel,” Julia said, studying the woman behind the desk. She was taller than Zoe, but had the same slender, wiry build. Her hair was wavy instead of Zoe’s curls, shoulder length to Zoe’s longer hair. But she had the same confident, competent manner as Zoe. As if she could solve your problems with a snap of her fingers.
“Have a seat, Julia,” Mel said, indicating a chair in front of her desk. “Dev is going to sit in while we talk, because he always has good insights and he sometimes sees things I don’t.” Her mouth curled into a smile. “Which is why he’s my partner.”
“Okay,” Julia said, hating how weak her response was. She cleared her throat. “How do we start?”
Mel leaned back in her chair and said, “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”
“I’m here because Zoe told me to come see you,” Julia said, pressing her fingers into her thighs. “And I trust her completely.”
“Zoe’s already filled me in on what she did for you. Told me that you called her after someone broke into your house. Can you start at the beginning? Tell me in your own words?”
Julia nodded. Swallowed. “The first incident was about a week ago,” she began. “A busy weekend night at my restaurant. Our stove suddenly wouldn’t work.”
She went on to explain how her pizza cook had looked at it and found that the ignition wires were all loose. He’d fixed it and they’d been cooking again in less than a half-hour.
Mel leaned toward her. “Your pizza cook knew about stoves. How they worked. Could he have disconnected those wires?”
Julia frowned. “I never thought of that. I suppose he could have, but I don’t think he did,” she said slowly. “Diego is a model employee. I’ve never had any problems with him, and he does a great job with our pizzas. We have a steady stream of pizza orders to go almost every night. On weekends, we’re busy enough that we have a second guy helping Diego.”
“Has he asked for a raise recently? Had any fights with another employee?”
“No. I gave him a raise recently, without him asking for it. He gets along with everyone,” Julia asked. “The kind of guy who’ll jump in somewhere else if he’s having a slow pizza night.”
Mel asked several more questions about the stove situation, then said, “Tell me about the break-in. Why you knew someone had been in your house. And why you called Zoe.”
Julia described what she’d found when she got home that night. Talked about the police officer, who hadn’t believed her. Finally she shrugged. “I couldn’t think of any reason why someone would break in and not take anything. Or vandalize anything. Especially the computer. It’s an expensive computer, and it was right there in the open. Easy to tuck under your arm and walk away with it. So I began to wonder if he’d done something to it instead. That’s why I called Zoe in the morning.”
Mel had been taking notes while Julia talked, and finally she looked up. “Now tell me about the bus.”
“I had just left Zoe’s office, headed for the parking garage. I was standing on the curb, waiting for the light to change, when a bus moved toward the intersection. It felt as if someone shoved me, and I stumbled into the street. Right in front of the bus. An older guy yanked me back.”
Mel bounced a pen on her yellow pad of paper as she studied Julia. “Zoe is really concerned about you. And I trust my sister’s instincts. She said the spyware on your computer was serious stuff. Like someone wanted to pry into every part of your life. You have any idea who might want to do that?”
“None at all,” Julia said, swallowing the ball of dread stuck in her throat. “I own a restaurant. I’m in competition with other restaurants, but the way restaurant owners deal with that is to make better food. I can’t imagine any of my competitors hacking into my computer.”
“What about your family? Are you on good terms with them? Would any of them have any reason to try to cause problems for you?”
Julia was shaking her head before Mel finished speaking. “I don’t have any family. My parents were only children, and they and my brother were killed in an explosion at our house when I was sixteen.”
Mel sat up straighter. “Were you injured?”
“I wasn’t home,” Julia said, twisting her fingers together in her lap and staring at her hands. “I’d snuck out of the house to see my boyfriend. My parents…” She swallowed, the sadness overwhelming. “They didn’t like Denny. My father thought he wasn’t a serious student, and was a distraction I couldn’t afford. He wanted me to get into one of the best business schools. My mother didn’t want me to date. She suspected anyone who was interested in me was after my money.”
“Was your family wealthy?” Dev asked, leaning toward her.
“I thought they were,” Julia said in a low voice. “But after the explosion there was only two million dollars in their accounts. Which is a lot of money, but far less than I thought they had.”
“How much did you think they had?”