Masked Prey (Lucas Davenport #30)(71)

Coil picked up her purse, which she’d dropped on the floor, and said to Lucas, “You’re clearly convinced about this. I’m not. I’ll go home and talk to Audrey, and I will get the truth out of her.”

She turned to Henderson. “If somebody gets shot, what are the chances that it’ll all come out?”

“Depends on whether we spring a leak. The likeliest way we’d do that, spring a leak, is if Audrey keeps talking and if somebody decides they’d like to get in on all the publicity. So Bob—get her out of here.”

“I’ll call you tonight,” she said. She stood up.

“Dave McCall from the Post was wandering around the restaurant a while ago. Be nice if he didn’t see you,” Henderson said.

“I’ll take care.” She looked again at Lucas, said, “Come on. Let’s go.”

Lucas looked at Henderson and back to Coil. “I wasn’t planning . . .”

“Bullshit. You’re coming. Get your car.”

Henderson said, “Go.”



* * *



—

LUCAS FOLLOWED COIL across the river, trailing her right up to the house, parked in the driveway as she rolled her car into the garage. She waited until Lucas was inside before she dropped the garage door, saying not a word as she opened a side door that led to a stairway to the main floor.

Once there, they could hear music from the next floor up. “Sit down,” Coil said, “I’ll get her.”

Lucas sat and Coil climbed the stairs, disappeared down a hall. Lucas heard a harsh exchange without being able to make out specific words, and Coil reappeared, trailed by Audrey, who saw Lucas, stopped at the head of the stairs, and asked, “What?”

“Get down here,” the senator said.

Audrey Coil came slowly down the stairs, her eyes fixed on Lucas. Her mother pointed at a chair, and said, “Sit.”

When Audrey was sitting, nervous, playing with the ends of her hair, Coil said, “Audrey: did you make up the 1919 website?”

“What? No! What are you . . .”

Coil said to Lucas, “Ah, God. She’s lying. I’ve been able to tell when she’s lying, ever since she was a small child. She’s lying now.”

“I am not,” Audrey wailed. “I don’t know where—”

“You don’t protect your laptop from outside intrusion,” Lucas said. “You leave it plugged in, turned on and running. Overnight sometimes. The photos you took with your RX100 camera are still on your hard drive.”

Audrey stared at him for a minute, with something that looked like pure, unadulterated hate, sniffed, then started to cry: “All this wasn’t supposed to happen. I thought it might get me on TV, but I never thought . . .”

“Ah, God,” Coil said again. To Lucas: “All right. We know she did it. What’s next?”

“Like Senator Henderson said . . . she’s got to go away.” Lucas turned to Audrey, who was sobbing, but trying to suppress it by pressing her knuckles to her teeth. “Audrey . . . who else have you told about this? Is there anyone else we have to shut up?”

“No . . .”

“How about Blake Winston?” Lucas asked, throwing a head fake. “He must’ve known.”

“No, I didn’t tell anyone . . .”

“How did you do this?” Roberta Coil asked. “I know why, but how?”

Audrey explained that she’d gotten the idea from a story on Ars Technica, a website that covered technology and computers, about how websites were used to create whole fictitious stories for political and monetary reasons. The techniques, she said, were simple enough.

“How did you avoid the cameras around that Starbucks, where you set up the website?” Lucas asked.

“Easy. I never went there,” she said. “I walked in from the back and uploaded my stuff from the alley.” Then she asked, “Are you saying there’s somebody in my laptop?”

“Not anymore. When I found out about it, I shut it down,” Lucas lied. “I also shut down the people who were doing it. The computer penetration—and they were going after a lot of people besides you—is illegal. If this blows up, they’re going to prison. I made that very clear to them.”

“Jeez, are they in my computer?” Roberta Coil asked.

Lucas shook his head. “They say not. But what do I know? I’d have it checked, if I were you.”



* * *



—

ROBERTA COIL SNAPPED a couple of more questions at her daughter, her voice climbing in volume, until she was just shy of shouting: “I could lose my Senate seat. I wasn’t planning to stop at the Senate, and now you’ve put everything at risk . . .”

Lucas said, “Senator Coil . . . I’m going to leave you two alone. You figure out the rest of this. Maybe talk to Senator Henderson some more. Let’s all hope that there aren’t any more crazies out there who took the website seriously.”



* * *



—

BACK AT THE WATERGATE, Lucas called Weather, swore her to secrecy, and told her what had happened. She was properly appalled. They spent ten minutes speculating on possibilities, then a few more talking about the kids, and Weather told him about an intricate surgery she’d be doing in the morning.