Fatal Harvest

THREE

V ince Grant swirled the last of his martini and studied the olive that remained in the bottom of his glass. Cheryl had gone to bed hours ago, her Valium performing admirably, as usual.

Vince didn’t mind the silence. His wife’s presence keyed him up—the thousand questions she threw at him the moment he walked in the door each evening. Can I buy this piece of furniture? Are you planning to go to that gala? What do you think of my dress, my hair, my eyes, my jewelry, my latest chemical peel? Frankly, he didn’t know the answers to any of her questions, and he didn’t care. But they’d been married forever, it seemed, and so he tried.

He’d been a good husband, all in all. Cheryl had everything she could want or need. Their kids had been educated in the best private schools Chicago had to offer. The eight-thousand-square-foot house sprawled over some of the most exclusive real estate in the city. An indoor-outdoor swimming pool, membership at three country clubs, a regular pew in a dignified church, seven cars, a chauffeur—it was nothing to sniff at. Maybe Vince hadn’t always been faithful to Cheryl, but he’d done his job as a provider. Better than most, he reasoned.

He didn’t like the idea of anything rocking his boat. Had never tolerated trouble of the sort that dogged him now. Oh, through the years there had been the occasional stirring of the waters. An accountant who had threatened to blow the whistle, transportation snafus, problems with one or another of Agrimax’s international divisions, the terrorism threat. Things had grown hotter than usual since the press got wind of the new terminator gene being developed. Vince felt sure he had that under control. But this—the retired scientist and his teenage sidekick—this was making him nervous.

Seemingly nothing more than a fly in the ointment, the problem should be dealt with swiftly and decisively by Agrimax’s security division. It had to be. The meeting to finalize the merger was less than two weeks away. But if…if for some reason his people lost track of the data…if it got into the wrong hands…if his executive board learned of the unsavory aspects of the plan he had put into motion more than two years before, and right under their noses—Worst of all, if word of the merger leaked to the media, the public outcry would scuttle the whole scheme.

Vince removed the olive from his martini glass. Tomorrow was Friday, and he’d need to be at the office early. He tipped his glass and drained the last of the drink. Then he stared at his phone. Why hadn’t Mack Harwood called? This should all be taken care of by now. Everything under lock and key once again. He slipped the olive from its toothpick and squeezed the pimento onto his tongue. Then he dropped the olive into his mouth and chewed it.

He wouldn’t sleep until he’d heard from his security man. Better make himself another martini.

Cole switched off the cell phone. The three faces staring at him were etched with fear.

“What did the sheriff say, Mr. Strong?” Billy asked.

Cole knew there was no point in trying to keep anything under wraps. The Artesia Daily Press would have the story by morning. The Albuquerque Journal would print it statewide. It would probably headline the evening’s TV news.

“A deputy found Matt’s phone in Jim Banyon’s yard,” he said. “They’ve got tire marks and a weapon, and they’re dusting for fingerprints inside the house.”

“They can’t possibly think Matt had anything to do with the death,” Jill Pruitt said. “That’s absurd.”

Cole studied the petite teacher with her bouncy, shoulder-length blond curls and bright green eyes. She was the most tightly wound woman he’d ever met.

“Sheriff Holtmeyer is suspicious,” he told her. “There was sign of a struggle in Banyon’s house. And the blood spatters…something doesn’t look right to him. He’s not sure it was a suicide.”

“Matt did not kill Mr. Banyon,” Billy said. “There’s no possible way! Matt was like Mr. Peace Activist. He wouldn’t even touch a gun. I couldn’t get him to go hunting with me or nothing!”

“Es verdad,” Josefina echoed. “It’s true. He wouldn’t even kill a cockroach.”

“We’ve got to find out who those two men were,” Jill said. “They’re involved in this somehow.”

“I bet they’re from Agrimax!” Billy exploded. “I’d like to blow that company to smithereens!”

“Calm down, boy,” Cole said. “Anger isn’t going to do us any good. Miss Pruitt, find out what you can about—”

“Call me Jill, for goodness’ sake. And I’m already doing all I can. Marianne will phone me the minute she hears from the high school secretary.”

“That’s not good enough. Somebody took my son out of school today. I want to know who those men are—and I’d better find out which numskull is responsible for sending a sixteen-year-old kid off campus with a couple of total strangers.”

“I’m telling you, if two suits signed in as Princeton recruiters and asked to talk to a top student, they’d get into the building with no problem. It’s not like we check credentials or take a thumbprint or anything.”

She crossed her arms and glared at Cole as if daring him to respond.

“Well, maybe you should,” he said. “Maybe I’ll talk to the principal about the flaws in his security system. And while I’m at it, maybe I’ll mention the fact that instead of teaching computer science, one of his teachers spends class time filling her students’ heads with idealistic tripe about feeding the hungry.”

“The principal knows exactly what goes on in my classroom, Mr. Strong. My teaching evaluations are always among the highest—”

“I’m sure they are, Miss Pruitt. I’m sure everyone thinks you’re just the cat’s pajamas. But you carry the major responsibility in this fiasco, and I’ll nail your hide to my barn if I don’t find my son pretty soon.”

“Mr. Strong—” she set her hands on her hips “—you’re the one who just told Billy that anger isn’t going to do us any good. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to check Matt’s computer.”

“You do that, lady. And make it snappy.”

Jill glared at him.

Before she could speak again, Billy grabbed her arm. “C’mon, Miss Pruitt. Maybe Matt will answer an e-mail.”

“Show me what you know, Billy.”

Rage curling through his chest, Cole followed the others into the large adobe house. As they stepped into the living room, Jill and Billy turned down the hall to Matt’s bedroom. Cole dropped onto a leather-upholstered couch.

“I need to let my mother know what’s going on,” he told Josefina. “Matt may be headed toward Amarillo.”

“Yes,” she said, dabbing her eyes. “That’s where he would go, Mr. Strong. He would go to his abuela. She loves him. She would take care of him if he was in trouble.”

“I don’t know if that pickup could make it all the way there,” he muttered, listening to the phone ring in his mother’s house. “The thing’s on its last leg.”

“I’ll fix you something to eat, Mr. Strong,” Josefina said. “I made carne adovada today. Does that sound good?”

“Sure, sure.” Cole waved a hand to dismiss the little woman. Why did Josefina always think food would fix things? If Matt brought home a B on a report card, out came the empanadas. If a hailstorm damaged the chile crop, nothing would please her until Cole ate a huge plate of enchiladas and refritos. National tragedies were the worst. The attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center had led to three solid weeks of constant cooking. If Cole hadn’t ordered Josefina to cease and desist, she would have kept on indefinitely. The freezer stayed jam-packed, and the refrigerator was always bulging at the seams. Thank God for Billy Younger and his appetite.

“Geneva Strong speaking,” a woman’s voice carried through the receiver.

“Mom.” Cole felt a flood of warmth at the familiar greeting.

“Hey there, boy. What’s going on with you? How’s my little Matthew?”

“That’s what I’m calling about. Listen, Matt may be coming to see you, Mom.” Before she could respond, he quickly explained the situation. “So if he doesn’t turn up here at the house in the next hour or so, I’m going to drive to Hobbs and then on toward Amarillo. I’m concerned he may have broken down on the road somewhere.”

“Are you telling me these people think our Matthew may have killed somebody? Are they out of their—”

“Mom, you know and I know that Matt would never harm anyone. Just keep an eye out for him. If he makes it that far, he’ll be tired and hungry—and scared.”

“I’ll look after him. You know that. And if those fools get within fifty feet of my house, I’ll give ’em what-for, and you’d better believe it.”

“Call the minute you hear from Matt. I’ll have my cell phone.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll call you. And I’ll be waiting up for Matthew. In fact, I’m going to go put on the coffee now—”

“Mom, he won’t make it to your house until early tomorrow morning.”

“Well, he might call! Now stay calm, son. We can handle this. I’m going to phone Irene next door. She’ll come over and sit up with me. We’ll play Skip-Bo.”

Cole let out a breath as he said goodbye and put down the phone. Though Geneva Strong could be a handful, he almost wished his mother hadn’t moved back to her childhood hometown in Texas. But Cole had been happily married at the time. With a combination of endless hours and back-breaking work, he had rescued the family ranch from the brink of bankruptcy. His degree in agriculture had prepared him to use innovative technology and aggressive marketing strategies, and he held dreams of making the ranch a model of profitability. Though Matt had been a difficult baby, he also was the source of great joy, and Cole had been hoping the boy would have siblings soon. No one had expected Anna to be diagnosed with cancer.

Wondering if his wife’s death had erased any natural tenderness he’d ever had, Cole again thought of Matt and all the lonely years his son had spent on this ranch. The aloneness had consumed both of them—so much that they no longer really knew each other. Jill Pruitt, Billy, Josefina, and now Geneva had been quick to deny that Matt could be capable of murder. Why didn’t Cole feel that certainty? Why didn’t he know his son well enough to be sure?

To him, Matt was distant, odd, almost alien. The things boys were supposed to enjoy didn’t interest him—fishing, hunting, horseback riding on the ranch, sports, cars, girls. Actually, Cole didn’t know whether Matt was interested in girls yet. They’d never spoken about it. Instead of acting like an average kid, Matt focused on his strange fascinations—math and science mostly. He hadn’t wanted a dog. No, he’d bought a mouse and trained it to run through mazes and perform tricks.

Once, Cole had found Matt high in a tree, where he was building a tree house. Wonderful and normal. But the tree house had turned out to be a platform for Matt’s telescope. The boy was calculating the height of the tree and the distance from his branch to the ground and whether this would make any difference in his ability to observe the stars. At the time, he was seven years old.

Cole stood and stretched the taut muscles in his shoulders. Penny had discouraged him from setting out after Matt. Maybe she was right. He didn’t really know where his son might have gone. And the sheriff would put out an all-points bulletin. They probably would locate him in an hour or so.

But the thought of a highway patrolman handcuffing Matt and shoving him into the back of a police car sent a shudder through Cole. His son was just a boy, after all. Barely sixteen, and so naive about the world. There was no telling how he’d react to an accusation of murder.

“We used Miss Pruitt’s account and sent Matt an e-mail,” Billy announced, stepping into the living room. “You should see what she’s doing on the computer. She’s getting into all Matt’s files and stuff. It’s awesome! Hey, what’s that I smell? Is Josefina cooking?”

“Carne adovada. In the kitchen.”

Billy veered in that direction, and Cole grinned in spite of himself. He went down the hall and found Jill Pruitt seated at Matt’s desk.

She came across as a bundle of compressed energy in a turquoise skirt and a sleeveless white top. Though she couldn’t be forty yet, he figured she ought to be married by now. She was pretty enough, in a frizzy sort of way. He wondered if teaching and famine relief kept her too busy to be interested in marriage. Or was there something else?

“Billy says you sent Matt an e-mail,” he said.

“And I’m going through all this data he downloaded,” she replied without looking up. Her slender fingers sped across the keyboard.

“What was he copying?”

“Lots of things. The amount of information he compiled on the food industry is incredible. By the way, you’ll be happy to know your son is not into pornography. I can’t find anything suspicious here at all. The gaming sites are weird, of course, all those mythological characters and fantasy worlds.”

“I’ve watched Matt and Billy play.”

“It’s a lot of strategy—I think that’s what appeals to Matt. The RPGs are a concern, but—”

“Wait. RPGs?”

“Role-playing games.” She glanced at him for the first time. “Do you know anything about your son, Mr. Strong?”

His hackles rose. Add abrasive to the list of Miss Pruitt’s attributes. “I know Matt is impressionable,” he shot back. “I know he’s susceptible to the influence of people he admires.”

“Look, I’m aware you want to blame me for his disappearance, but it’s not going to work. Matt’s interest in famine relief was his own.”

“Is that so?” Cole put one hand on the back of her chair, bent down, and tried to read the computer screen over her shoulder. How could anyone who smelled so good be so testy? She was like a rattlesnake hiding in a lilac bush.

“Didn’t you tell my son about your little famine-relief jaunts around the world?”

“Of course I did. I talk about a lot of things in my class.”

“I thought the subject was computer science.”

“If a person has tunnel vision, Mr. Strong,” she said, peering at him with those glittering emerald eyes, “then maybe he or she can only do one thing at a time. Some people let their jobs become their lives. They don’t leave time for family or hobbies…or volunteering…or ministry. I strive for a full, balanced life. And my enthusiasm for it spills over into my job.”

He stared back at her. “Some people don’t have a job that demands constant vigilance—twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and no weekends or summers free to flit around having a full, balanced life.”

“Yeah, well, some people have children, and they ought to—”

“They ought to stop listening to people who don’t.” He reached over her shoulder and touched the computer screen. “Who are all these messages from?”

As she swung around, her curls fluffed out, grazing the hair on his arm. A jolt of adrenaline raced up his skin, shocking him in its intensity. Irked at this as much as at her words, Cole straightened and jammed his hands into his pockets. Miss Jill Pruitt was a stuck-up little do-gooder who thought she knew how to parent Matt better than his own father did.

“I think it’s them,” she said. “Look at this stuff they’ve written to him. This is appalling. Poor kid!”

Drawing a deep breath, Cole bent over again and read the message Jill had pulled up on the screen. Whoever wrote it had every intention of intimidating and threatening Matt. The writer informed him that he was in violation of privacy laws and that he had better stay out of the company’s business if he knew what was good for him.

Jill closed that message and opened another. More of the same. As she clicked chronologically backward through the long list, Cole saw that the tone of the e-mails had gone from fairly polite to downright hostile. Now she opened another window and found the messages Matt had sent.

“Bingo!” she called out. “It’s Agrimax, all right. This is who he’s been writing to, see? In this message he’s trying to get information. And in this one he’s broaching his concept—that Agrimax participate in a global plan to end hunger. I wish we could find that plan.”

“It’s probably in his term paper.”

“No, Billy and I found a rough draft. It mostly addresses the problem of famine. But his solution—that’s what Matt was really immersed in. That’s what got him into trouble with Agrimax.”

“Maybe it wasn’t his solution that troubled them. Maybe what burned them was the fact that he’d gotten into their system at all. Obviously, they didn’t want him in there.”

She gave him a grudging nod. “Could be. He clearly wasn’t e-mailing their PR department. This person who’s been writing to him has influence. An executive, I think. Matt had gotten further inside the company somehow.”

“Can you tell me why you taught him that?” Cole demanded. “What purpose does it serve? He didn’t need to learn how to break into a huge company’s computer system.”

“First of all, I don’t teach hacking. Whatever code Matt used to penetrate this level of the company is something he learned from Jim Banyon. Or maybe he taught himself how to get inside their communication network. He’s quite intelligent, in case you didn’t know.”

“Too smart for his own good, it sounds like.”

“And second, he hasn’t actually accessed the company’s mainframe. I doubt Matt would do something like that. He’s a very ethical young man.”

“Oh, really? I wonder where he got that?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “All right, I guess you haven’t totally blown it, Mr. Strong. Matt is a great kid.”

Cole wished he could feel better about her compliment. True, he had taken the boy to church every Sunday of his life. They prayed before meals. And Cole had tried to model morality, patriotism and the ideal of the hardworking American male. But how much had he influenced his son in ways that really mattered?

“Okay,” Jill said. “I’m going to take a stab at this. I think what happened is that Agrimax felt threatened by Matt, and they sent two men out here to question him.”

“Matt—threatening? No way.” Cole hooked a thumb in his pocket. “You don’t know my son as well as you claim.”

“I know he was pushing the company to consider his ideas. That’s obvious from the text of his messages.”

“Pushing is not threatening. Does Matt write anything that could be called the least bit threatening to the company?”

“I didn’t read everything.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“Okay, but—”

“Hey, Miss Pruitt, did Matt write you back?” Billy stepped into the room. He had a bowl of thick, red-chile carne adovada in one hand and a spoon in the other. “Did you check?”

“Just a sec. I’ll have to access my account.” Jill leaned forward and ran through a series of motions Cole couldn’t track. In a moment, a message popped onto the screen. “He answered!”

Hope spiraled up through Cole’s chest as he bent to read his son’s words.

hi miss pruitt im ok dont write again tell my dad dont follow me i will be home when its safe matt

“He’s in trouble, man,” Billy said. “He’s scared. He thinks those Agrimax guys are after him.”

“Does the fact that he wrote us mean he’s somewhere with a phone line?” Cole asked.

“Matt’s laptop has a wireless modem,” Billy said. “You paid for it, Mr. Strong, don’t you remember?”

“I don’t know what half the stuff he orders is all about.”

“A wireless modem works like a regular phone connection,” Jill explained. “Matt can use the Internet or access his e-mail account without needing a phone line.”

Cole considered this. “Still, maybe he stopped at a motel for the night. Or maybe he’s at a friend’s house.”

“A friend? He doesn’t have any friends but me, Mr. Strong. You know that.”