John Sneeden - The Hades Conspiracy

Zane released one of her wrists and used his free hand to text Carmen, telling her to come to the third floor. He frisked Emily briefly, pulling a phone out of her pocket.

“Hey, give that back,” she said.

“You’ll get it back in a few minutes.” Zane stood, retrieved his gun, and turned on a nearby lamp.

As if sensing he wasn’t going to hurt her, Emily sank into a nearby chair, rubbed her face a few times, and looked at him. “Who are you?”

“This may surprise you,” he replied, “but we’re here to find out what happened to your father.”

“That’s nice, but it doesn’t answer my question.”

“Zane,” he said. “My name is Zane.”

Footsteps came toward them from below. Carmen and Amanda appeared at the top of the stairs. Carmen’s eyes widened when she saw a strange girl sitting at the table. She gave Zane a questioning look.

“You were right after all. There was someone here.” He gestured toward Emily. “Ladies, I’d like you to meet Emily Pauling, Dr. Pauling’s daughter.”

Emily seemed surprised there were others.

Zane nodded at the new arrivals. “These are my associates, Carmen and Amanda.”

“I guess I was right about the light in the window,” Carmen said.

“Emily and I were just getting acquainted,” Zane said.

Emily’s eyes shifted from one face to the other. “Look, you seem okay, but technically, you’re trespassing on private property. I’d really like to know who all of you are, and I don’t mean your full names.”

Carmen gave Zane a look indicating he should do the talking. Zane turned to Emily. “We were asked to come look into your father’s disappearance.” He almost used the word death but caught himself. While it was likely Pauling was dead, Zane didn’t want to poison whatever small hope Emily held onto. “I can assure you our purposes are honorable.”

There was some measure of understanding in Emily’s eyes. She seemed to sense he could hurt her if he’d wanted to. “Who asked you to come here?”

This time, Carmen answered. “We don’t work for the government, but they asked us to look into the case for them. As you probably know, the Venetian police aren’t treating this as a missing person case yet. We’re convinced there was foul play involved and therefore wanted to move before the trail got cold.”

Emily winced at the mention of foul play but also seemed satisfied with Carmen’s answer. “So you’re private investigators?”

“Yes, you might say that,” Zane said. “Now, I have a question. What are you doing here?”

“The same thing as you.” Emily ran a hand through her hair. “The Venice police have been completely unhelpful. I had a spare key, so I came to have a look around, to see if I could find something.”

“And did you?” Amanda asked.

“Nothing so far. I did find a laptop in Dad’s bedroom and had just powered it up when I heard someone coming in downstairs.”

“You’ve got sharp ears,” Zane said.

“I got that from my mom.” She laughed. “Apparently, they weren’t sharp enough though. I didn’t know you came back up.”

“Were you aware of any projects your father was working on?” Carmen asked.

Emily shook her head without hesitation. “I was not into the whole archaeology thing, so we didn’t talk much about it. Why do you ask?”

At this point, Zane couldn’t think of a good reason to keep her in the dark. In fact, she could probably provide them with some helpful information. He held her gaze. “Someone received a cryptic text from your father. It seemed—”

“Who?” Emily leaned forward.

“An old colleague of his.” Zane realized there was no soft way to communicate what he was about to say. “The text seemed to indicate he was in some sort of danger. It was sent on the day—”

“Why weren’t the police told about this?” Emily looked accusingly at all of them. “If they had that information, they might be working on the case right now.”

“We think there is something bigger at play here. That’s another reason we’re involved. Until we know what that is we—”

“I’m his daughter. The FBI never told me anything. They only told me that one of Dad’s former co-workers was concerned.”

“Which is technically true,” Carmen said.

“The text… what did it say? This is my father. I want to know.”

In the interest of full disclosure, Zane pulled out his smartphone and accessed a secure Delphi app. He then found the screen grab of the text and handed it to her. “Here it is.”

Emily read it several times. When she finished, she set the phone down on the table, pressed her hands against her face, and began to cry. Carmen crossed over and sat in the chair next to her, draping an arm across her shoulder.

Zane remained silent, letting her grieve. She’d probably held out hope there was some mundane explanation for her father’s absence — an archaeological dig that was out of range of cell towers or a getaway with a new girlfriend. He didn’t like being the bearer of bad news but felt Emily deserved to know. Besides, if they wanted her cooperation, they needed to tell her as much as they could.

A couple of minutes later, Emily sat up straight again and wiped her eyes with the cuff of her sweater.

Carmen rubbed her shoulder briefly before pulling her hand away. “Don’t give up hope. We’re going to find out what happened.”

After a minute of silence, Zane said, “Anything you can tell us about your father’s work would be helpful.”

Emily sniffed a couple of times then exhaled. “I do know he’d been extremely busy recently, even busier than usual. Normally, we talk regularly… at least every week. Sometimes more than that. But recently, it was every two to three weeks.”

Amanda frowned. “Did he ever mention what was keeping him so busy?”

“Now that I think about it, he did say he was working on something new, something he’d received recently.” She glanced briefly at Zane. “Sorry, I didn’t remember that before.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Carmen said. “You’re under a lot of stress. So he didn’t provide any more details?”

“No. And that’s probably because he knew I wouldn’t be interested.”

“Maybe it was something he couldn’t talk about,” Zane offered.

Emily nodded at the shelves of books. “We could always see if he had a notebook out or something.”

Amanda’s eyes widened as she noticed the library for the first time. She crossed over to one of the shelves and began pulling out books. “Unbelievable. This is an archaeologist’s dream.”

Carmen caught Emily’s eye then nodded at Amanda. “In case you hadn’t figured it out, she’s an archaeologist.”

“Amanda, keep checking those books.” Zane turned to Emily. “Why don’t you show us the laptop?”

“Okay.” Emily stood. Focusing on the hunt for clues seemed to have lifted her spirits slightly. Anything that would get her mind off what might have happened to her father was good.

Emily led them down the hall and into what appeared to be the master bedroom. After flicking on the light, she crossed to a walk-in closet. Moments later, she returned with the laptop and sat down on the bed. Carmen settled in next to her.

“This is bound to have something helpful,” Carmen said.

Zane looked around as Emily opened the device. Like the rest of the house, the room was impeccably neat. Other than a lamp on the nightstand and a decorative vase on the dresser, the room was bare and minimalist — no shoes on the floor, no coat hung over a chair. Nothing. “Let’s hope it has something because there doesn’t seem to be much lying around. Either that’s by design, or Emily’s father has a massive case of OCD.”