The roar of plane engines was over for the day as Zach locked the door behind his crew and went to his truck. The stench of airplane fuel hung in the air under a clear sky. It was a little after three. Now might be a good time to reach Harry Richards. He pulled out his phone and found the number he’d entered from Jack’s phone. When he was dumped to voice mail, he left a message asking Harry to call him.
He’d barely slipped his phone back into his pocket when Harry returned the call. “Sorry, Zach, I didn’t recognize the number. I haven’t heard from you in ages. How are you doing?”
“I need to talk to you about Jack, Harry.” Zach launched into the events of the past year. “What did you and Jack talk about over lunch? Did he seem worried or anything to you?”
Harry went silent, and the sound of a distant ball field came through the phone. “He seemed a little quiet and wasn’t his usual self. I asked him once if everything was okay. He hesitated, and I thought for a second that he might tell me what was wrong, but then I got a phone call. By the time I got off, he had to go. Do you really think he was murdered?”
“Yeah, I do.” As the words rolled off his tongue, Zach felt the weight of his guilt roll off. He hadn’t killed his best friend. It was going to take some time to fully process that revelation. Someone out there had looked down on Jack clinging to the rock face, then had deliberately rolled boulders down on him.
“I hope this doesn’t sound offensive, but you and Jack weren’t exactly good friends. Why did you have lunch in the first place?”
Harry went silent a moment. “Well, it’s a little embarrassing to admit. I was seeing Darla Glennon, and I wanted to ask him about her. He’d been friends with the family for a long time. She’d been acting kind of weird, distracted and nervous. I thought maybe she was seeing someone else. I only got to see her a couple of times a month because of the distance, so it seemed logical.”
“What did Jack say?”
“He said Darla had some trouble, and he was trying to help her. According to him, she really cared about me, and this issue would be over soon because he had a handle on it and was going to take care of it.”
Zach’s grip on the phone tightened. “He had a handle on it?”
“That’s what he said. Of course, it doesn’t matter now. Once she died from that drug overdose, I figured out what he meant. He’d probably convinced her to go to rehab again, but she didn’t go soon enough.”
Zach wished he could tell Harry the truth, but he bit back the words. “I’m sorry, Harry.”
“Thanks, but life happens. I’ve moved on.”
So Darla had gone to Jack for help, just as Alyssa said. He clenched his hands into fists. “I’m going to find out who did this and why. Does the word Jupiter mean anything to you? Other than your team’s name?”
“Jupiter. Well, the only other thing that comes to mind is the planet, but you probably already thought of that.”
“Yeah, we did. Nothing else?”
“Let me think a second.” Harry fell silent, then cleared his throat. “There’s the Mount Jupiter Quadrangle out in the Olympic Forest.”
Zach frowned. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that term.”
“I worked for the forestry department in the summers during college. We divided the forest into quadrangles, and I worked out of the Quilcene Ranger District. Most people wouldn’t know much about the quadrangles.”
“Do you think Jack did?”
“Sure. He worked there one summer. He knew the lingo.”
Zach had forgotten. “It’s worth looking at. Where is that quadrangle?”
“I’ll send you a map. What’s your e-mail?”
Zach rattled off his e-mail address. He had to be careful not to get too excited. A forest quadrangle was hardly likely to give them any clues. The forest quickly reclaimed what man disturbed, and Jack had been dead a year. “Thanks, Harry. I’ll check it out.”
“I just e-mailed the map. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.” Cheering in the background intensified. “I have to go. My break is over.”
Zach clicked over to his e-mail. He opened the attached file from Harry, then enlarged it until he found the Mount Jupiter Quadrangle. Some of the peaks were familiar, but he’d never hiked or climbed in that area on the western slopes of the Olympic Mountains. There didn’t seem to be any landing strips, but Shauna could fit her chopper into some of the clearings.
The quadrangle was big, though, and it would be like looking for one particular blade of grass in a ten-acre yard. But they had to try. He put his phone down and started the truck. There was satisfaction in having something to investigate. He’d felt blocked at every turn, but this might lead to something.
The two men from China met him in the small building hidden in the woods. The older one, a portly gentleman in his fifties, spoke impeccable English. “We’d like a demonstration that this device really can trigger an earthquake. This will show us if it can work on any other sites.”
He wanted to roll his eyes. Hadn’t he already given them decades’ worth of proof? “I don’t want to tip off the authorities to what’s going on here.”
“We cannot buy this information without a demonstration.”
He suppressed a sigh. “Very well, but it will be on the small side. This is my home too, and I have friends and family here.”
The Chinese guy shrugged bulky shoulders clad in a black Armani suit. “The size does not matter to us, just the proof we are not spending five hundred million dollars unwisely.”
The guy had a point. He was about to fork over a fortune big enough for a comfortable life. “Okay, let me show you how this works.”
An hour later, he exited the locked room and smiled at them. “The earthquake should start within the next few hours.”
“That’s as precise as you can be?” Armani Man’s frown deepened.
“Think you can do better? Be my guest. No one else knows how to do this.” Which was only a small lie. The only other person who understood how to work the machine wasn’t talking, and he didn’t think Duval was likely to spill his guts to anyone.
Armani Man’s brow smoothed, and he waved a hand sporting a diamond ring worth enough to buy a beach estate. “You are correct. You’re the only game in town. We shall go back to our hotel and await the quake. If it begins on schedule, we have a deal.”
The two men exited the building, and he watched them slide into the backseat of a black limo. The chauffeur was Chinese too, probably brought over with them on their private jet. The group he was dealing with was a paranoid bunch, but that was probably necessary in this line of work. As soon as the trail of dust settled behind the big car, he went back inside and reviewed the procedure he’d just executed. Every step had been perfect.
He checked his watch and smiled. Within the next hour, they should have all the proof they needed. His phone vibrated, and he dug it out of his pocket, pausing a moment to enjoy the way her beautiful face filled the screen.
“It’s done,” he said before she could ask. “They wanted proof, so I triggered a small earthquake.”
“They agreed to the half billion dollars?”
“They did.”
She gave a whoop and his grin widened. “Get some new bikinis, baby.”
“I never dreamed blackmailing the old man would be this lucrative. I’ve got some property all picked out to buy. I’ll show you when I see you.”
“Sounds good. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
He ended the call and pocketed his phone. Life was about to get really interesting.