Page 45 of Cipher

I shrugged my cut off my shoulders, then pulled my shirt over my head, not wanting to get any blood on it.

Recognition entered Brenner’s face when he spotted my tattoos, followed by the kind of fear men usually experienced once they understood the quiet man studying them wasn’t only the computer specialist they’d expected. I took the chair across from him, rested both forearms on my thighs, and held his eyes until his restless movement stopped.

“Darren Pike hired you,” I stated.

“Don’t know anybody by that name.”

“That excuse is about to get expensive.” I nodded toward Judge, who slid a photograph of Pike’s Yukon beside the equipment case. “He met you at a gas station this afternoon, handed you that case, and sent you east toward my road. You were caught hiding equipment aimed at the only approach to my house with my woman’s vehicle information in your pocket.”

Brenner licked his lower lip and shifted against the restraints. “Some guy hired me through a burner. Never gave me a name.”

I caught his free hand before he could jerk it away, flattened it against the chair arm, and separated his smallest finger from the others. “You get one lie without paying for it. You already used yours.”

“Wait—”

I bent the finger backward until the joint snapped, and his scream struck the soundproofed walls hard enough to come back at him. He bucked against the chair while I kept his wrist pinned, watching sweat break across his forehead as fear finally replaced the calculation in his eyes. The sound gave the rage under my skin somewhere to go, and I let myself enjoy the instant Brenner understood that I had no problem taking him apart one piece at a time.

“Darren Pike hired you,” I repeated.

“Yes,” Brenner gasped, cradling his injured hand against his stomach when I released him. “Pike hired me.”

“What did he order?”

“He wanted the trail camera and reader covering that road. Said he needed to know which vehicles went in and out, which one carried Rebecca Raines, who drove her, and whether security stayed with her every time.” His words accelerated when my hand returned to the chair arm. “Then I was supposed to rebuild her routine and put the magnetic tracker on her SUV the next time it appeared somewhere public.”

I wanted Brenner’s hand ruined badly enough that he could never install another device, but he was bought by Pike, who was the road to the person above him. I needed every name attached to the other end first.

“How much?”

“Two thousand through my business when I took the job and three more in cash after the tracker went live.” Brenner swallowed, breathing through his open mouth while he held the broken finger tight against his chest. “The transfer said roadside-camera maintenance. Pike hires me for divorce cases and insurance work sometimes, but this was the first time he gave me route maps and all that other shit.”

“Who gave Pike the information?”

“I don’t know.”

I grabbed his hand again and closed my fingers around the next joint, increasing the pressure until the tendon stood out beneath Brenner’s skin. His face went gray, and his feet scraped frantically against the concrete as he tried to pull his arm somewhere it couldn’t go. “That answer buys you nothing. Tell me what you heard.”

“He never used names,” Brenner blurted. “I heard him talking to someone he called ‘the deputy.’ Said he would tell him when she went back to work and which routes the protection teams were using. Then Pike made another call and said the county computer guy claimed her old number was still active but wasn’t reaching her phone anymore.”

“What else?”

“That was it. Pike was pissed because he figured somebody had isolated the number and was monitoring anything sent to it.” Brenner’s voice shook harder when I tightened my grip another fraction. “I swear I never met either one. I don’t know who they are.”

I released his hand because the involuntary reactions underneath the fear told me that part was true. The answer didn’t hand me the identities I wanted. Whether the deputy and the county computer guy were two people or one bastard wearing two sets of credentials remained unanswered.

My phone vibrated against my thigh. I pulled it free and watched the screen for a moment. Then I pressed a couple of buttons before I returned the phone to my pocket and looked back at Brenner without anything in my face or posture revealing what had interrupted me.

“What else did Pike tell you to do?”

“That was everything. Watch the road, identify her routine, and place the tracker.” Brenner’s gaze darted from me to Stryker as if our president might offer better odds. “I didn’t know anybody planned to hurt her.”

“You carried photographs of a woman’s home, job, vehicle, and private routes into roadside brush after somebody had already threatened her.” I leaned forward until the chair creaked beneath the force of Brenner trying to move away. “You knew they wanted access to her. You just decided not asking why made the money clean.”

“I never touched her.”

“You pointed the men hunting her toward the door.” I took his injured hand again and pressed my thumb into the broken joint until his denial collapsed into a strangled cry. “That still counts.”

Brenner began promising access to his business accounts, every file Pike had ever paid him to build, and the locations of two off-site backups he kept in case a client tried refusing payment. I made him repeat the timeline three times, changing the order of the questions and returning without warning to minor details until the story held. He gave us the business account, invoice label, cash-drop location, burner number, dead-mail account, and the list of equipment Pike preferred using when he wanted surveillance separated from his license.