“And you’ve been listening in, I take it?” Charley asks.

“Speakerphone. That’s charming.”

“Really?” Luke says. “You’ve been spying on everything we say, and you’re gonna bitch about being on speakerphone.”

“We do not spy on everything you say. We have certain words programmed into the monitoring system that send us an alert. If we receive one of those, then we listen to everything you’re saying. This is about your safety, guys. Trust me.”

“OK,” Luke says, approaching the phone, “so which word triggered the system or whatever? Jordy or Clements? These guys are friends of yours, right? I mean, how else did you get them to build a tunnel in the middle of nowhere?”

“Well, money, for starters,” Cole says. “But the word that triggered the alert was terrorism.”

“I see,” Charley says. “So you’re afraid there might be a terrorist attack in Altamira, and you wanted to be sure you could evacuate us in time?”

“Let’s meet,” Cole says. “I’m in the air, but I can redirect to you pretty quickly. I’d like to hear more about what’s on this flash drive.”

“So you haven’t been listening to everything we’re saying, but you know about the flash drive?” Luke asks.

“Your conversations are archived. When we get an alert, we go into the archive and review it to see if the alert was justified. OK? Would you like my help with this or not?”

“Depends on what you call help,” Luke says.

“For Pete’s sake, I’m siphoning enough money and development into your little industry-free town to keep it going for decades to come. What else do you want from me? Weekly puppies?”

“You siphoned Jordy Clements into our town,” Luke says. “That’s why I’m asking.”

Charlotte moves to Luke and places both hands gently on his chest, then she looks into his eyes imploringly. She can only hope her expression conveys everything she’s feeling. That she understands Luke’s anger, and his fear; that she feels it, too. And that he still needs to shut the hell up. For now anyway. They’re not going to get Cole to help by bossing him around.

Eyes downcast, Luke turns away from her. So he got the message. But he didn’t like it one bit. Should she be surprised?

“A meeting sounds great,” Charley says, “but I’d like to ask for something else, too.”

“OK,” Cole answers.

“Maybe you could devote some of your considerable resources to finding Lacey Shannon. Obviously she wanted to present this material herself. Maybe she could help explain it to all of us.”

Luke opens the refrigerator, takes out a beer.

“I’m not sure that’s obvious, but I’ll consider it,” Cole answers.

Luke wedges the beer bottle against the edge of the counter, then loudly pops the cap off with the side of one fist.

“Stay where you are,” Cole says. “I’ll land in about a half hour and then I’ll call with a meeting place. Somewhere close to you, of course.”

29

“What are these?” Cole finally asks. He’s looking up at Charlotte from behind reflective sunglasses that make it impossible for her to read his expression.

Next to her, Luke exhales in a loud huff. They’ve walked Cole through everything on that damn flash drive. In great detail. And now he’s going to act like he didn’t hear any of it? This is going to be harder than she thought.

Most of the Lake Patrick boat launch is open-air, except for a metal bench at the very end of the dock. That’s where Cole first took a seat, leaving Charley, Luke, and Marty to stand between him and the dock’s edge like knights delivering reports to their king. They’re all inside the halo of shade cast by several rusted metal umbrellas. As always, there’s something about the sight of these umbrellas, with their sculpted details and flaking white paint, that makes Charley a little sad; they’re evidence someone once thought Lake Patrick would become a recreational haven, not a spot for jerks to dump their trash and unwanted pets.

And for shady CEOs to meet with their secret test subjects in private.

“You really want us to go through it all again?” Charley asks.

“No.” Even though it was Luke who gave the presentation, Cole looks straight at her. “I want you to tell me specifically what I’m looking at on this screen. What types of files are these?”

“They’re screen caps,” Marty says.

“So you haven’t been able to follow this link?” Cole asks.

“I thought we said that,” Luke says, impatience building. “Didn’t we say that? Because I could swear that we . . .” Charley places a hand on his shoulder; he falls silent. But he’s right. Cole’s being an obstinate jerk, and if he keeps it up, there’s only going to be so many more times she’ll be willing to silence Luke with a look.

“Screen captures,” Cole says again, as if this entire thing is a waste of his time.

“Yes,” Charley says, “what did you expect? She doesn’t work for the CIA.”

“Of course not. She’s his on-again, off-again girlfriend with a history of drug addiction who told Luke a lie so he’d arrest him. How could we possibly suspect her motives are anything but pure?”