The Devil Went Down to Austin (Tres Navarre #3)(97)

She held up the gun by two fingers. "New hardsell tactics, Pena?"

"Get up," I told him.

He did, slowly, rubbing his hip. "I was about to ransom your brother's worthless life, Navarre."

"Really," I said. "How uncharacteristically noble. You want to explain?"

His eyes were dark and full of motion, not unlike snake pits.

Maia ejected the magazine from the pistol. "I'm disappointed, Matthew. There's no more than fifty grand here. I would've thought you paid better."

He put his thumb to his mouth, pulled it back, and looked at the blood. "The computer, Maia. The cash was the smallest demand—just an appetizer. The real price is an electronic stock transfer."

"And who's doing the demanding?" she asked.

Pena picked up an empty bottle from his champagne bucket, regarded it with disgust, dropped it again. "You need to ask? He just hit me in the mouth."

Maia and I exchanged looks.

"Um," I said. "Not that I have any aversion to bilking you of your stock portfolio, but what the hell are you talking about?"

Pena glared at me. His upper lip was starting to puff up and the blood looked like lipstick. "The email, Navarre."

I shook my head. "Sorry, amigo."

Pena started to respond, then stopped himself.

Maia picked up a silk sock, wiped her prints off the gun and the magazine, threw everything back into the suitcase. "Maybe you should start from the beginning, Matthew. What was this email?"

"Maybe I shouldn't start at all," he said. "The package you put together—extremely impressive. And don't tell me it wasn't one or both of you."

"I'm glad you liked it," I said. "Tell us again what we said."

Eye level to us, out the window, a helicopter ruttered by—a police spotlight unit, probably seeking a fledonfoot suspect. The spotlight made Matthew's white shirt glow.

"The Heismans," Pena said. "The fact I was adopted, the paperwork on my birth parents is a total blank."

When he saw we were not surprised, he seemed to interpret it as guilt.

"Goddamn you," he said. "You went to a lot of work. The Doebler child—the one born in '67. The fact that the father died when I was in college, the mother five years ago at a time I happened to be in Austin. Then Jimmy Doebler, and Ruby. The toxicology, the ballistics."

He looked at Maia. "Worst of all, Adrienne. How could you imply that? You know I didn't kill her."

Looking at him now, I could understand why so many people had been destroyed by him. If you weren't careful, you could read anything in his demeanour—concern, caring, mournfulness, vulnerability. You might even think he could be trusted.

"Adrienne was drugged," Maia told him. "Just like the others. Dwight changed his statement, took away your alibi. The only common denominator in all the murders is you."

He shook his head. "The traces on the betatesting. How did you do that?"

I tried to choose my words carefully. "You admit you sabotaged the program?"

Pena laughed. "Well, I don't have much choice. It's all right there—every single time, every session logged. How the hell did you get into my system? Even the emails—those goddamn, hateful emails. Somehow you managed to pin them to my machine. You know I didn't send anything like that."

Maia walked to the window, looked out at the Austin skyline. "You're saying you never sent me any emails, Matthew?"

"I called you a few times. I'll admit I was a little . . . aggressive. But I never sent you anything like—those. I never crashed your system. The rest of the shit you accused me of—breaking into your apartment, all of that—I never did that. It's just like I told you last year—the crap they claimed I did to that guy in Menlo Park. I didn't do it."

It bothered me that I almost believed him. It bothered me more that the package he'd described—the case against Matthew Pena— was exactly what Maia and I had come here to pressure him with, except someone had beat us to it, someone a lot better prepared.

"Matthew," I said, "I'll suspend disbelief for a moment if you'll do the same. Let's say you really did get an email like this—let's say you're not luring us into something, and you have been framed up about as well as anybody can be framed. I didn't send you any email. Neither did Maia."

The colour drained from his face. "Who the hell else would demand I help clear your brother?"

"What did they want, exactly?"

"He—"

"You're sure it's a he?" I asked.

Pena looked impatient. "He, she, it—take your pick. He threatened to hand me to the police on a skewer. The level of documentation he'd provide would clear Garrett, make me look like a multiple killer."

"With what you described," Maia agreed, "he's probably right."

"He wanted twenty million in stock, fifty thousand cash. The stock he wanted transferred to an anonymous account. In exchange, he wouldn't use me. He'd make somebody else the scapegoat."

"Who?" I asked.

"I don't know. I didn't care. I was supposed to meet you— him—tonight. At the restaurant marina, Ruby's place."