Emily Locke 01 - Final Approach

hurrying a slow-poke child, and he went outside onto the porch like she said.
    Jeannie followed him out, stopping to turn the lock on the front door as she passed it. I went out behind her, carrying the bag and computer, and hustled down the front steps as fast as I could. The front door closed, and I heard Jeannie’s quick steps behind me.
    “Hurry!” she ordered. “He might be crazy enough to chase us.”
    ***
    Jeannie drove while I searched the laptop. There weren’t many folders and it wasn’t running any software beyond the standard load. I nosed around in the e-mail application but only found spam. Contents of the Deleted Items and Sent Items folders had been purged. The last websites visited were news sites. I found a link to a web mail application, but got no further than its password screen. The laptop was clean.
    “There’s one,” Jeannie said, flicking on the turn signal. I’d told her to find a place with wireless Internet access. She exited the highway and drove toward an upscale bistro situated near a bustling strip mall.
    Inside, smells of croissants, quiche, and gourmet coffee were intoxicating. It had been eighteen hours since I’d eaten. Jeannie ordered for us while I found a private table and connected to the Internet.
    I opened a search engine and typed Data Retrieval Houston. Several hits had promise. Nine years experience recovering data from damaged hard drives. Express data recovery nationwide. Recover losses due to hardware or software failure. And—my favorite—Recover losses due to human error. Scud’s hard drive was next to me, in my pack, and I was determined to find what he was hiding. I scribbled an address and closed the laptop as Jeannie returned with a To Go sack.
    My cell phone rang. It was Richard finally calling back.
    I flipped open my phone. “
Where
have you been?” Immediately, a series of beeps told me my phone’s battery was dying.
    “The police have been here forever, asking about the car,” he said. “I couldn’t call.”
    Suddenly I remembered. I’d left Richard’s car at the airport—now a crime-scene.
    “I’m sorry,” I said, although somehow the car seemed slightly irrelevant, compared to the rest.
    Jeannie pulled out a chair and sat down. She watched me like she expected me to relay everything he said, right then. Instead I mouthed “battery” and pointed to the failing phone.
    “It’s fine,” he said. “At least Tim was safe with cops around the house.”
    His first thought was for his family’s safety. Why hadn’t that occurred to me years ago, when I was accusing him of crimes and trying to get him fired?
    “I’m sorry,” I said again. I meant I was sorry for everything else. For making snap judgments, hurling accusations, and being mean. I wondered if I would ever find the right words.
    “After the police left, I got in touch with a contact at CPS and learned what I could about Trish’s boyfriend, David Meyer.”
    I pulled out a chair and sat across from Jeannie, who’d begun to rummage in the backpack. She discreetly peeled a few hundred-dollar bills out of a block and stood to leave.
    Richard continued. “An auditor noticed that Meyer closed a lot of field cases by saying that, despite a diligent search, he couldn’t find the families. These were all white families, in a county with large Hispanic and black communities. It raised the question—was he favoring some ethnic groups over others? Meyer categorically denied it. The agency followed up by reviewing his time sheets, case notes, and files.”
    “What’d they find?” I took the lid off my coffee and watched Jeannie head for the door. She left with no explanation.
    “A dedicated and thorough investigator. In fact, he logs quite a bit of overtime.”
    “Was there anything to validate the racism concerns?”
    “No. So, they looked at his computer next. It wasn’t his files that got their attention, though, it was his log-on history.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Apparently, Meyer had logged into the system at times they knew he was in the field, away from a computer. There were several times he was logged in twice, from two IP addresses.”
    I tried to understand. “He obviously couldn’t be in two places at the same time. Someone else must use his password. But why would he share that? It could only get him in trouble.”
    “I asked myself the same thing. Then it came to me. Maybe he unknowingly gave it to his new
live-in girlfriend
.”
    He let me digest that