Page 93 of All the Little Raindrops

“It’s your father’s computer,” Vitucci said as he opened the jewelry box and gazed down at its contents. Noelle thought she heard him exhale or perhaps sigh before he closed the box and focused on her again. “And in that envelope, you will find the photos I took from his house. The best of the shots your mother managed to get and the way in which Dow Maginn was able to access their server. Or at least the one they used at that time. They have, of course, beefed up security since then.” His mouth moved into a smile.

Evan handed Noelle the computer and the envelope, and she took them, setting them on her lap and placing her hands over them. So many questions were tumbling through her mind about her father and Dow she hardly knew where to begin.

“Your father and I shared the same enemy, Noelle, though of course he never knew that,” Vitucci said, obviously reading her confusion. “I made a point to have one of the officers who worked on his case offer my services at a highly discounted rate at the time of the trial against Evan’s father. Your father was deeply distraught, as you know, and he took me up on it.”

Evan let out a whoosh of breath. “You did the same for me,” he said. “You swooped in tohelp, when you really wanted information.”

“And a connection, yes. But I helped you emotionally, too, Evan, did I not?”

Evan looked away, appearing so incredibly torn. This manhadhelped him; Evan had told her as much.

“What did you want with my father back then, at the time of the trial?” she asked, saving Evan from having to admit that, yes, this man had helped him. She remembered that moan suddenly, the confession he’d torn from her despite her best efforts.

“I wanted to know about anything that might not have been in the court transcripts,” Vitucci answered. “I wanted to know about your mother, about any small thing that might help me take my enemies down.”

“But you didn’t get that,” she said.

“Not at the time, no. But I was the one who’d originally sent your father to Baudelaire when he’d expressed his deep sadness at having to sell some family heirlooms to pay his debts. Baudelaire paid him far more than they were worth. I’m certain it’s why he returned to him years later to sell the final item he’d kept—your mother’s ring. Baudelaire noticed that he seemed ... unwell. Desperate. He needed a priest, truthbe told. But Baudelaire bought his bauble, and then he called me and suggested I reach out.”

“For therapy.”

“A yearly check-in, I told him, and he didn’t question it. Maybe, to him, it seemed serendipitous. He was having a nervous breakdown. He asked me about medication. I suggested we talk first. He was driving when I called him. I told him to pull over and compose himself and then come straight here. I’d heard that Fontane’s son, Evan, had gone missing. Could that possibly be related to Mr.Meyer’s deeply agitated state? The timing was interesting. Anyway,” he looked at Noelle. “Your father said he’d gotten involved in something he couldn’t get out of. Something online. He’d had his friend hack a site where they hurt people. That’s when I knew it involvedthem. Iknew. But that’s all he would say.”

The words pierced her heart even though she and Evan had already figured out that her father had been responsible for Evan’s abduction. But to have it confirmed seared her soul. Her father had set Evan up as a victim in one of their brutal games. “You didn’t know about the games then,” she said. “When my father told you he’d discovered something ... you hoped it would lead to Evan’s father, to ... Fontane ... and the others. It was a stroke of luck, your chance to avenge your mother’s and sister’s deaths.”

“Very good, little rabbit. But I wouldn’t attribute it to luck. I’d positioned myself well. But it was my chance, yes. I’d waited a long, long time. They’d moved their lust for blood sport here, and I had finally been presented with anin.”

Evan released a breath. “Did you kill Dow Maginn?”

“Of course. You had been abducted,” he said to Evan. “Mr.Meyer saw you in the cage and immediately regretted what he had done. His hatred had gotten the best of him. He sold that ring hoping he could buy your freedom, but, of course, that’s not the way the game is played. And even if it was, ten thousand dollars is petty cash to those men.Mind you, I only pieced all those details together later. I see you’re not shocked, which means you’ve deduced some of it too.”

Noelle nodded, even while tears burned the backs of her eyes.

“Fontane logged in and expected to see a stranger in a cage at the start of another game and instead saw his own son. He went to the big bosses, or the midlevel bosses, you might say. The originals are highly insulated and only emerge once a year. They told him the game was already started, bets had been made, money put on the line. They were even angry he had the audacity to assume who ruled the game. Fontane’s father was long dead, and he had been nothing but a mere boy when they’d immigrated to the United States. I imagine the fact that he’d gotten himself embroiled in a high-profile investigation and trial didn’t ingratiate him to those men. No, Evan was staying, his captivity was underway, and the first days of darkness while the players placed their initial bets had commenced. Some captives screamed and begged during that time, chewed at their hair, banged their heads. All things that helped players determine how much money they’d first put on the line. How could they admit to these men that a mistake had been made? That anobodyhad hacked in and put them all at risk? Trust in the system would be gravely compromised, and to play such a game, trust in the system is paramount. The players wondered, of course, at the contestant who was chosen, the son of a player. But that, too, turned out to be a boon, as it was assumed to be payback for some transgression. And so it acted as a warning and naturally helped tighten internal security. As some reconciliation to your father, however, they did allow him a request: to match Evan with the contestant of his choice. Fontane chose Noelle.”

She brought her hand to her mouth, holding back her tears.Oh God, oh God. It was the very definition of evil.

Her head swam, her muscles ached from holding them so tight. And the only reason she wasn’t slumping over with the weight of hergrief was because Evan was holding her up. His solid body. The love and support she could feel emanating from him.

Of all the crushing horrors she’d experienced, the knowledge of what her father had done almost broke her. Instead of reporting what he’d found, he had Dow put Evan’s name in as the next contestant. Change a name. And an abduction location. The low-level muscle who’d nabbed Evan would have no clue. They were simply following the orders they’d been given, and as far as they knew, the abduction had gone smoothly. The players would only find out that something had gone awry when they logged in to play.

Had it been simple for Dow to hack their site? Was it easy for someone who’d once hacked the electric company? Or had he found it a challenge? Either way, he’d been successful. She closed her eyes, visions swimming before her. Her father seeing Evan on screen, trying desperately to reach Dow, hocking the only thing he had of value to try and bail Evan out of that cage if possible, to have some financial leverage to fix what he’d done, and then dying of a heart attack when he found out that his own daughter was there too. Because of him. Because of what his actions had led to.

An eye for an eye.

Two men so bent on revenge that they sacrificed the other’s child.

“Why did you have to kill Dow?” she asked. Her voice sounded monotone. Was she going into shock? Maybe. But the emotional numbness was a blessing.

Vitucci sighed. “I needed the computer he’d logged in on, and so I paid him a visit. Afterward, I couldn’t risk that Dow would give my name to the police or perhaps go to them to confess what he’d done. I killed him, yes, but the organization would have done much, much worse. You two don’t have to imagine the ways in which they might have exacted revenge once they located the man who hacked their elaborate game.”

A chill went down Noelle’s spine. No, she didn’t have to imagine. But she also didn’t want to think that this man had done Dow a favor by swiftly taking his life.

“When your father had a heart attack, I went to his home and took his laptop and the photos. And when I understood exactly what the situation was, I paid a visit to the man who would be the sponsor I needed to play—Fontane. They don’t just let any old chump join in, after all.” He smiled, and it appeared as serene as his other smiles.

“A sponsor?” Evan asked. “My father? But why? He vouched for you because you had evidence against him?”

“No. He vouched for me because I’d done him a favor in the past and I had an in with the Reno PD and plenty of access. I’d hidden evidence in the case against Noelle’s father. I’d let him pay me off.”

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