Long Road to Mercy (Atlee Pine, #1)(27)

She closed the door, sat at her desk, and stared at her computer.

Hacked?

By who and why?

Her friend had told her something else. That whoever had done this could have easily done it remotely. In essence, taking control of her computer and making it do things the hacker wanted without ever entering the premises.

“If he’s infiltrated your computer, he can see every keystroke you perform,” her friend had told her.

Pine yanked the power cord off the computer at the same moment Blum opened the door with her cup of coffee.

“Problem?” asked Blum.

“I’ve been hacked.”

Blum raised an eyebrow and then set the coffee down in front of Pine.

“Should I pull my cord, too?”

“Probably.”

“I’ll call the support services folks in Flagstaff straightaway. They’ll send somebody up.”

“Thanks.”

“Does this have to do with the website I showed you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Blum closed the door behind her as she left.

Pine took out her phone and studied it. Was this compromised, too?

She looked at the landline on her desk. To bug that they would have had to break into her office, or at least the telecommunications box. But that was in the underground garage in a locked room with video surveillance, courtesy of ICE’s presence here. She doubted they had accomplished that.

When the IT people came from Flagstaff she would have them check everything. Until then, Pine decided to just not call or email or text anybody from her office or her personal phone.

She left her coffee sitting on her desk and exited her office, rushing past Blum so fast the woman could only say, “Agent Pi—” before she was out the door.

She took the steps two at a time to the garage, got into her truck, and sped out into the sunshine.

There was a convenience store about three blocks away. It had something she really needed, something that was almost impossible to find anymore.

Pine pulled into a free space in front, hopped out, and made a beeline for the pay phone hanging on the outside wall next to the machine containing bags of ice. Shattered Rock actually had several public pay phones for two reasons: As hard as it was to believe, not everyone here had a mobile phone. And cell reception here could be really crappy.

She dropped in some coins and made the call.

Park Ranger Lambert picked up on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Colson, it’s Atlee.”

“What number are you calling from?”

“Never mind. Look, has anything weird been happening on your end with respect to the Priest disappearance?”

Pine had still not told Lambert, or anyone else, that the man calling himself Benjamin Priest was not, in fact, Benjamin Priest.

“What do you mean ‘weird’?”

“Out of the ordinary. Like have you gotten any inquiries from further up the food chain?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“So, any progress on the case?”

“Cadavers turned up nothing, like I already reported. We’ve searched everywhere we can think to.”

“Will agents from your Investigative Services Branch become involved now?”

“Above my pay grade.”

Pine frowned into the phone receiver. This did not sound like the Colson Lambert she knew.

“Did Edward Priest ever send you a picture of his brother?”

“Look, Atlee, I don’t mean to be rude, but I gotta go. Stuff at the office. Talk soon.”

And he clicked off.

Pine slowly hung up the receiver. Well, he had indirectly answered her question. There was weird stuff going on, on his end.

She stuffed more change into the machine and punched in the numbers.

The phone rang and rang and then Edward Priest’s voice mail came on. The mailbox was full, so she was unable to leave a message.

Frustrated, she hung up the phone, got back into her truck, and drove off. She checked her rear and side mirrors to see if any stealth vehicle was taking an overt interest in her SUV.

On the way back to the office, she pondered what to do.

Lambert was obviously stonewalling her. Edward Priest’s mailbox was full. Her computer and possibly her phone had been compromised. The Bureau’s National Security Branch was in the loop. Her supervisor’s boss had called her, made inquiries about only this case, and then gave her a not-so-subtle warning to watch her back.

And on top of that she had a missing man who was supposed to be someone else, only wasn’t. And where was he? And where was Benjamin Priest?

And who had killed and mutilated the damn mule and why? And what did an over-a-century-old, probably bogus story of Egyptians in the Grand Canyon have to do with any of it?

She ran a hand through her still-damp hair and decided now would be a good time to return to the scene of the crime.

She turned in the opposite direction, heading west.

Thirty-five minutes later she was at the South Rim of the Canyon. Her federal badge gained her free admission to the park. She slid into an empty space near Park Headquarters in a section reserved for the Park Police. Her ride had federal plates, so she didn’t expect that to be a problem.

She got out and looked around. The place was filled with tourists. Most would simply walk along the South Rim path admiring the views and taking pictures. Some would stay overnight at the various lodgings. Others would head back to wherever they had come from. Still others had taken mules down or would hike down into the Canyon.