Secrets in Death (In Death #45)(73)

“When you want to dig, an e-shovel’s an excellent tool.”

“I pulled Phoebe into my office, started asking her a few questions. She broke in two minutes. I’m good,” Nadine said, “but not that good. She was ready to break. She’s terrified, Dallas, has been terrified.”

“What did Mars have on her?”

“You can ask her yourself. She’ll be here in about five minutes. I think it’s better if you hear the rest from her, and I’m counting on you not pushing for an arrest. She’s going to resign from Seventy-Five, or I’ll have to tell Bebe and she’ll be fired. No way out of that. But she’s not a criminal. She’s another victim.”

Nadine’s house computer gave a quiet ping.

Your visitor Phoebe Michaelson has arrived in the main lobby.

“Clear her up. She’s a little early.”





15

Phoebe Michaelson trembled as Nadine led her into the room with an arm around her waist. Her brown eyes, swollen and reddened from weeping, dominated her ghost-pale face.

She looked at Eve as if Eve routinely kicked little puppies off a bridge into a roiling river.

If Eve could have generated the classic picture of a patsy, she would have Phoebe’s face.

“Phoebe, this is Lieutenant Dallas and Roarke. You just have to tell them what you told me. You just have to answer their questions, tell the truth.”

“I know.” Her voice gave a little mouse squeak.

“How about a glass of wine?”

“I … I … Can I?”

“Sure. I’ll just—”

But Phoebe clung to Nadine’s hand, as if being kicked off the bridge into that roiling river along with the puppies, and stared fearfully at Eve.

“Why don’t I get that?” Roarke rose. “Nobody’s here to hurt you, Phoebe,” he said, before leaving the room.

Tears plopped onto Phoebe’s cheeks. Nadine steered her toward a sofa, sat with her.

“I’m going to record this,” Eve began, “and read you your rights.” At Phoebe’s broken gasp, Eve let out a breath. “It’s procedure, and it’s to protect you. Nadine’s right about telling the truth. It’ll help us, and you. You have the right to remain silent,” she began.

She finished as Roarke stepped back in, pressed the glass into both of Phoebe’s hands.

“Do you understand your rights and obligations?”

“Yes.” Phoebe took a deep gulp of wine. When she spoke again, the mouse squeak was gone. Now there was abject despair. “I don’t deserve an attorney.”

“It’s not about deserve. It’s your right.”

“I don’t want one. I just want to get this over with. I knew it was wrong, I knew, but I didn’t know what else to do, so I did it, and I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“You knew what was wrong?”

“Hacking into people’s personal information. Into their correspondence and their private data. Cyberstalking them.”

“Why did you?”

“She said I had to. Ms. Mars.”

“She forced you?” Eve spoke mildly. “Held a weapon to your throat?”

“Sort of,” Phoebe said as Nadine shot Eve a hard look.

“What was the weapon?”

“Okay.” Phoebe drank again, took two long breaths. “My father is Larson K. Derick.”

Eve drew a blank, but Roarke jumped on it. “Black Hat Derick?”

Phoebe nodded, stared at her wine. One fat tear popped into it.

“Black hat hacker extraordinaire,” Roarke explained. “Twenty-five years ago or so, he used his considerable skills to drain financial accounts, briefly turned Wall Street inside out. While he could have bought his own country and retired by the time he was done there, he turned to politics, you could say. I’m sorry,” Roarke added to Phoebe, “this is difficult for you.”

“It’s easier if you tell her.”

“All right. He became somewhat of a fanatic.”

“He went crazy,” Phoebe whispered. “He was a terrorist.”

“Yes. He broke into government facilities, exposed or held ransom highly sensitive information. He instigated a fire sale in East Washington—that’s e-talk for shutting down the city. The communications, the utilities. He chose to do this in the dead of winter.”

“People died,” Phoebe continued. “In traffic accidents. Some died of the cold because there was no heat, no way to get heat into buildings. Looting, people panicking and hurting one another.”

“I know this,” Eve said. “I know something about this.”

“He demanded the president, vice president, and their families be executed. He’d come to believe all government was corrupt, and needed to be leveled,” Roarke explained. “He believed the people would rise up and create a new society, a pure one. A utopia without leaders or the need for them.”

“They caught him, they stopped him, but people died. He was my father.”

“And nobody was going to give an e-job to the daughter of a notorious hacker,” Eve concluded.

“Any job, probably. I was only two when they caught him, and my mother had left him right after I was born because he started getting crazy. They put us in lockdown when he broke into the Pentagon and said who he was. They put my mother and me in lockdown, and questioned her for days and days. She told them all she knew, but she hadn’t been with him for two years. Still, some of what she told them helped them find him, stop him. They put us in witness protection. New names, new place, new everything. My mom wasn’t allowed to do any e-work, but I was only two. Nobody said I couldn’t. And I’m good at it. I never did any hacking, I swear.”