Even as they traveled over the keyboard, Aldon McKenzie’s fingers trembled. It was Sunday, and the building was empty save for the security guards and cleaning teams. Aldon’s colleagues were at home, playing with their kids or gardening or doing whatever the hell else they did on their days off. If he had been at home, he would’ve been reading a book with his autistic daughter.
Daria loved fish. At times, she couldn’t focus on anything else. Many kids with autism developed nearly obsessive interests like that. Sometimes that led to trouble, but for Daria, it became her release. She couldn’t talk about herself or her day, but once she started talking about clownfish, she wouldn’t stop.
Aldon loved hearing her little voice. She had spoken her first word at two years old. Table. It was an odd first word, but Aldon fell in love with her voice the instant he heard it. His entire world shifted when she spoke for the first time. At the time, he and his wife pretended Daria was a late bloomer. Now that she spoke, they had told themselves, she’d interact with her parents more. Maybe she’d smile like other kids her age.
That didn’t happen.
They took her to doctors and therapists. The professionals were kind and understanding, but Daria would need help the rest of her life. She’d never go to a typical school, and when she got old enough, she might have to move to a special facility with appropriate staff to care for her. Even the word facility broke Aldon’s heart. To him, Daria was perfect. She would always be his baby, and he’d never give up on her and dump her into a facility where they’d warehouse her until her death.
And then, he and Jennifer took her to the zoo in St. Louis. Daria had been four, but she still liked riding in the stroller. They spent hours at the zoo, but she had hardly looked at the animals. Then they walked into an artificial cave near the end of the elephant exhibit.
Both Alden and Jennifer had been ready to go home. Giggling, happy children had surrounded them all day, but Daria hadn’t even cracked a smile. It broke his heart all over again. Aldon wished his daughter could experience that same uncomplicated childish joy. She deserved it. He would have given anything to make her smile.
And then she did.
The cave at the end of the River’s Edge exhibit wasn’t large, but it had faux stalactites and stalagmites on the ceiling and floor, and there were signs pointing out the different features common to the limestone caves that dotted the Missouri countryside. The cave also held a thirty-three-thousand-gallon fish tank with gar, bluegill, and whiskered catfish. When Daria saw that water, she squealed and clawed at the restraints that held her upright in the stroller.
Aldon and Jennifer thought something had scared her, so they ran her through the exhibit and out the other side. Even when they got back into the late afternoon sunlight, though, she didn’t stop fighting. Thinking she’d hurt herself, Aldon unhooked the stroller’s straps, and Daria vaulted out and ran back into the exhibit.
When Aldon and Jennifer got to her, Daria had pressed her face to the glass and grinned.
“Fish,” she said, looking to her mother and father and then back to the tank. She pointed at an ugly gar near the glass. “Fish.”
It was the second word she had ever spoken. It was also the happiest she had ever been. Jennifer cried. Aldon knelt beside his little girl and hugged her tight.
They spent two hours staring at that fish tank. Other families passed through the exhibit, but nobody remarked on the cute, smiling little girl at the fish tank. It became the happiest day of Aldon’s life.
Now, Daria spoke every day. Her vocabulary and memory astounded everyone around her. She knew the scientific names for hundreds of fish, and she remembered the exact outfit she wore when seeing an alligator gar for the first time at the zoo.
Unfortunately, despite her progress, God hadn’t made Daria for this world. As long as Aldon and Jennifer lived, Daria would have everything she needed, but the two of them wouldn’t live forever. Aldon was thirty-eight; his wife was thirty-nine. With luck, they’d live another forty years, but they couldn’t provide Daria the help she needed forever.
Between Aldon’s job as an accountant and Jennifer’s job as a second-grade teacher, the family enjoyed a comfortable middle-class lifestyle. They saved every spare penny they earned for their daughter and put it into a tax-deferred trust. In thirty years, Daria would have several million dollars to live on. That money would buy all the help she needed. She’d be happy and safe.
Now, Mason Stewart had put that dream in jeopardy.
Aldon’s throat felt tight as he typed in commands. Six weeks ago, he had found some disturbing discrepancies in his employer’s accounting books. Everybody made mistakes, and Aldon thought little of them. Then he looked closer and learned the discrepancies weren’t mistakes at all. Something bad was happening at Reid Chemical.
His fingers trembled as he progressed through the guide his attorney had given him. The first step was to create a virtual private network. That would allow him to upload company files to an off-site cloud server without fear of the IT department being able to track him. He had done this weeks ago, and nobody had found out, but the process still made him nervous.
Reid Chemical advertised itself as a boutique manufacturer of chemical compounds for the pharmaceutical industry. In actuality, the company made cough drops and children’s ibuprofen. In the past year, though, the company had branched out.
Aldon was on step five of his attorney’s eight-step guide when he heard the elevator ding. Like many modern office buildings, Aldon’s floor held cubicles but few private offices. He rose out of his chair to peer over the cubicle walls. Three men walked toward him. Two of them carried firearms and wore the black outfits of security officers, but the third came from IT.
“Shit.”
Aldon didn’t know how the Reid family organized their business, and on a day-to-day basis, he didn’t care. He was just a CPA. He kept his head down, did his job, and drove home at the end of the day. It used to be a great job, but then Mason Stewart, the CEO, brought in new partners.
Supposedly, Stewart’s new business partners operated an off-shore holdings company, but none of Aldon’s colleagues knew who they were. These new partners, though, brought a lot of cash with them. More than that, they brought guns and their own security personnel. Now, men with assault rifles prowled the halls like it was a military base.
Aldon’s heart raced. He had a story prepared if they caught him, but now it sounded flimsy in his head. The progress meter on his computer said he was halfway through the upload. He needed to stall, but first, he needed to calm down. He closed his eyes and pictured Daria. This was for her.
Once his breath came easily, he stood and forced a smile to his face.
“Anthony, right?” he asked, stepping out of his cubicle and looking at the guy from IT. The security guards stopped near the elevator, but Anthony kept walking. Aldon swallowed hard and pointed to his cubicle with his thumb. “I’m trying to get a head start on a big project, and I’m short for time. You guys need something?”
“Oh, don’t let us bother you,” said Anthony. “We’ll come back later.”
“You’re not here for me?” asked Aldon. “I mean, you’re not here to fix my computer or anything?”
Anthony furrowed his brow. “Something wrong with your system?”
“No, it’s fine, but what’s with the security guards?”
Anthony looked over his shoulder before darting his eyes to Aldon.
“Mr. Stewart ordered it. My team is installing biometric fingerprint readers on each computer. It makes things more secure. I’m sure you’ll get an email about it.”
Aldon’s shoulders and chest loosened. “That will be a big change. It’s past time.”
“Way past time,” said Anthony, nodding and raising his eyebrows. “The world’s changing. Information security has to change with it. Since you’re up here, though, I’ll tell my team to work elsewhere so we won’t bother you. Good luck with your project.”
“Thank you,” said Aldon, nodding and breathing easier. “You, too.”
He watched Anthony go back to the elevator. Once the IT manager left, Aldon’s legs gave out, and he fell to his chair, panting. The upload finished a few minutes later without a hitch, allowing him to finish the remaining steps in Laura’s checklist. Then, he jogged to the stairwell and pulled out his cell phone to call his wife.
“Hey, honey,” she said. “I’m making lunch for Daria. Will you be home soon?”
“I’m leaving the office now,” he said.
She paused before speaking. “Are you all right? You sound out of breath.”
He thought about lying to her and pretending that everything would be okay. It wouldn’t be, though. Aldon had opened a Pandora’s box. Unlike his colleagues, Aldon knew Mason Stewart’s new partners. He also understood what they planned for Reid Chemical. If they found out what Aldon had discovered, they’d kill him and his entire family without hesitation.
Thank God he had found a lawyer with guts. Once he and Laura Rojas, his attorney, had the information they needed, she would contact the US Attorney’s Office in St. Louis. She’d keep them safe. Considering the people they were up against, the government would probably put his family in witness protection. Witness protection would hurt Daria, but it beat the alternative of being dumped in a shallow grave in the middle of nowhere.
He cleared his throat.
“Nothing’s right,” he said. “I’ll pick up moving boxes on the way home.”
“Why do you need boxes?”
“I’ll tell you later,” said Aldon. “Think about what you’d want to take with you if we had to disappear for a while. I’ll be home as soon as I can. We have a lot to talk about.”