Identity Crisis(84)

‘And this one.’ He scrolled down to the next email. ‘What time did the two of you confront the press?’ he asked.

‘It was afternoon,’ Kendra said. ‘Somewhere around three, I think.’

‘Was any of your talk with the press carried live?’ Wade asked.

Kendra shook her head. ‘Not that I know of. Though it was broadcast very shortly after.’

Ellis chimed in, ‘It probably would have been blogged about and certainly tweeted.’

‘I’ve considered that,’ Wade said. ‘But nonetheless, the bloggers and tweeters at this stage would have been people at your impromptu press conference, so still a journalist. Certainly the email came almost immediately after you two first spoke to the press, possibly even simultaneously.

‘And again.’ He pulled up the last two emails, the one Don had received and the one Garrett had gotten a scant two minutes later. ‘There’s no way this man could have known all of these things unless he was right there, either in the mob or the press, and the mob wasn’t there when the earlier emails came through.’

‘Christ,’ Garrett whispered. ‘Then there’s a good chance this man is there with the press at my house and has been the whole time.’

Kendra’s legs gave and she dropped into the chair next to Wade’s desk. ‘You’re sure, Wade?’

‘I can’t be sure, but it makes more sense than anything else at this point.’

She blinked away spots from behind her eyes and forced back the fear and the panic. ‘There’s a way we could be sure,’ she said. ‘We could have another press conference. We could make up something that will give it away. I don’t know; it would be easy enough to come up with something. Then we could have someone inside the house on the computer checking when the email comes in.’

‘No! Not gonna happen. I don’t want you exposed anymore,’ Garrett said, grabbing her hand.

She ignored him and kept talking. ‘Maybe we’ve been going about this wrong. Maybe we need to give Tess more exposure, you know, draw him out.’ Before Garrett or anyone else could protest, she stood and began to pace. ‘Look the worst thing that could ultimately happen is that the world finds out Tess Delaney has hired someone to play Tess Delaney to keep her identity secret.’

‘We’re not having this discussion, and that’s final,’ Garrett said.

‘But –’

‘I agree with Garrett,’ Ellis said, and Dee and Wade both nodded. ‘The less risk, the better.’

Wade handed Kendra a BlackBerry. ‘This is for you.’

‘Thanks, but I already have a phone,’ she said.

‘Not one like this one, you don’t,’ Garrett said.

‘It’s a Pneuma Inc. special,’ Dee added. ‘Ellis has one, Wade has one, I have one, the executive secretaries have one. Garrett has one too.’

Kendra picked it up and turned it over in her hand. ‘Looks like an ordinary BlackBerry to me.’

‘Looks can be deceiving,’ Garrett said.

Wade typed in something on his computer and pulled up a satellite map of the whole Western Seaboard. Then he typed in Sandra Blain, Dee’s secretary. And the view of the map zoomed in until it was focused on a small logging road off US-26 on the flank of the Cascades opposite Mount Hood. It focused right down to an older Dodge Ram parked at a pull-out in a heavily forested area. ‘Ah yes,’ Dee said. ‘Sandra told me she and her husband were checking out the huckleberries today.’

‘The woman makes the best huckleberry muffins in the whole world,’ Ellis added.

‘She’s been told a dozen times not to leave her device in the car. Can you talk to her again, Dee?’ Wade said.

Kendra looked down at the Blackberry in her hand. ‘Wow!’

‘Exactly, wow,’ Garrett said. ‘Even when the device is off, it’s not really off. Wade knows all, sees all.’

‘Sounds very entertaining for Wade,’ Kendra said, and she thought she saw a blush crawl up the neck of his sweatshirt followed by a twitch of a smile.

‘I’m not that hard up for entertainment,’ Wade said. ‘It’s just a safety precaution. You can’t do what we do here at Pneuma Inc. and not have a few enemies. Besides, both Ellis and Dee are all over the globe. This helps me keep track of them if I need to get in touch with them. Especially if they’re in someplace questionable. Now, give me your iPhone,’ he said.

Kendra balked ‘But I like my iPhone.’

‘And you can have it back when you’re Kendra Davis again,’ Wade said. ‘Give me a minute to transfer all the data and you’ll be set.’