The Stars are Red Tonight: The Paradisi Chronicles Read online

  The darkness inside the apartment worried him. But he tried to put on a confident air and said, “Maybe he just isn’t home.” Then he blinked, trying to adjust his eyes to the dim light. A soft gasp escaped Saya as she peered around him into the darkness.

  “What is it?” he asked, squinting, desperately trying to make out the blocky shapes as they began to take form.

  The room was small, and across from them he could make out a window, which was not much bigger than a horizontal doorway cut into the upper part of the opposing wall. Light coming in from outside provided the only illumination. As his eyes adjusted, he began to make out the dark figure in the middle of the room. It appeared to be the silhouette of a large man, much taller than Bobby, standing motionless in front of them.

  “Hello?” he said, staring intently into the dark apartment. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat. The figure swayed slightly but remained silent. Trevor swallowed hard.

  “Who is that? Why don’t they say something?” Saya whispered into the safety of his shoulder.

  “I don’t know,” he whispered back as he fumbled with his right hand along the wall for a light switch. His fingers felt the glass touch-screen, and with a sudden burst all the lights came to life, revealing the room.

  Bobby hung from a rope that was tied around his neck and attached to the ceiling fan. He had appeared so tall because he was hanging three feet off the ground, swaying slightly. He didn’t look like the Bobby Fulner he had seen this morning. This Bobby was blue. His lips black and swollen, his tongue bulging out, wet and discolored. His eyes stared back into Trevor’s, the pupils cold and accusing.

  Saya screamed and buried her face into his back, shielding herself from the gruesome sight. He quickly backed them out of the room, away from the hanging figure. He closed the door, maybe a little too hard, and the bang of it shutting made both of them jump.

  “We have to get out of here.” He couldn’t tell if she said it or he did, but they both started running toward the elevator.

  “Hey, you got a smoke?” A dark lanky figure standing in a doorway reached out at them as they passed.

  Saya shrank back in horror, but Trevor snarled, “Naw, man, beat it.”

  “Whatever, dude. You don’t have to be a dick.” The slender man slunk back into his apartment. Trevor was breathing heavy, and as he checked on Saya he saw she had tears in her eyes.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know yet.” He was trying to catch his breath, trying to wrap his head around what he had just seen. “I don’t … fucking … know.” He raked his hands through his hair.

  “Shouldn’t we go to the police?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think this is the kind of thing they will help us with.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Whoever did this has powerful connections. They found out what Bobby had, and they killed him for it. Whoever did that is probably looking for me right now. God, they could be at my apartment!” Trevor’s hands shook.

  “I still don’t see why we don’t we call the cops,” Saya said impatiently.

  “Don’t be naïve. We are talking about information Bobby stole from WelCo, information that someone was willing to kill over. And big corporations like WelCo––and the Gunthers who own them––control the police in this city. Anyway, how do we know that the police won’t blame us? At the very least, if we go to the cops and make a report, they will take the drive and the information, and we will have no leverage, nothing to keep us safe. Whoever killed Bobby could come pick us off anytime they wanted. No, the cops are not going to be our friends on this one.”

  “Oh,” Saya whispered. “I hadn’t thought about that. Do you really think the killers are going to your apartment?”

  “I don’t know, but I have to call my roommate, warn him to get out of there.”

  “Here, use my mobile. He won’t recognize my number, but if they are already there, they won’t know it’s you calling, and they won’t bother to trace it.”

  “Thank you; good thinking.” Trevor looked at Saya, surprised. She was taking all this well. She looked scared but not as panicked as he felt. He tried to slow his breathing and calm his heart rate. He had to pull it together. He had to keep her safe.

  Once they were out on the street, he stopped under one of the streetlights and took Saya’s mobile, calling his roommate. After six rings, he hung up. “No answer. That could mean he is just passed out, though. He was pretty messed up when I left earlier tonight.”

  “Do you want to go and check?”

  He sighed. “I don’t know. This is crazy. They killed Bobby, so it makes sense they will be coming after me next. As far as Bobby knew, you didn’t have anything to do with the flash drive, so whoever is after it probably doesn’t know either. You need to get away from me. You need to get some place safe.”

  Saya didn’t say anything, and Trevor noticed that she was staring back at him with the same strange look that she had when he told her about Frank. Like she knew something but wasn’t sure she should share it with him.

  “Saya, what is it that you are not telling me?”

  She bit her lower lip and looked away. Then she sighed heavily. “When you first told me about Frank, that he was reporting to a woman, well, I might know who that woman is.”

  Trevor was floored. He was sure his mouth hung open like a goldfish, just staring at her. This night is just getting more and more bizarre. “Who do you think it was?”

  “My mother.”

  “Your mother?!? You think Frank is reporting your activity to your own mother? But why and what would she have to do with the drive?”

  “My mother is not just some random mom with an ordinary job and ordinary problems.”

  “Okay … who is she?”

  “My mother is Caroline Kuttner, the one you had heard about on the news. The CEO of AgriWW, the big agro-business firm that owns most of the farmland in the northern hemisphere.”

  Trevor shook his head in astonishment. His mind was racing as more pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. But they just led to more questions. “It wasn’t just Caroline Kuttner on that list. There were a whole lot of Kuttners.”

  “I know. Including my name, my real name, Sarah Kuttner. I didn’t say anything before because I didn’t have a clue why I was on the list. I still don’t know why. But whatever is going on, whatever the Paradisi Project is, it must have something to do with my family. I am already involved, like it or not. So I think we should stick together while we figure all of this out. And maybe decrypting that drive is the best way to do that. So you’re right, we can’t take it to the cops. We can’t let anyone else see it or take it from us. We have to de-code all the files and figure out what the hell is going on. Maybe then we will know who killed Bobby and why they want this drive so bad.”

  Saya’s words spun around in Trevor’s head like bits of tumbleweed caught in an updraft. Twirling and dancing around, not really going anywhere, but not sitting still either.

  “Say something,” Saya pleaded.

  She looked so fragile standing there, shivering slightly in the cold of the night air, her thin sweater wrapped tightly around her small frame. She grasped the ends of her sleeves and tugged them over her hands.

  He didn’t know why he did it, but he reached out and pushed a curl out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. It felt so personal, such an intimate action, but it felt right as well. She didn’t shy away or looked shocked. She simply blinked and looked at him with those blue eyes, searching his for an answer, for understanding, for forgiveness.

  Finally, he said, “So you are a Kuttner … and even I’ve heard of them. Wow, you must be loaded. Stands to reason, then, that you’d be working in a shitty job at WelCo!”

  She smiled at that, which was the reaction he was hoping for.

  “I’m not loaded,” she replied. “I ran away from everyone in my family and gave up my inheritance nearly three yea
rs ago. I wanted to go out and make my own way in the world, make my own money. I haven’t spoken to any of them in all that time.”

  “So you haven’t been in contact with anyone from your family?”

  “Not a single person. Not even my favorite uncle who adores me. I was too worried it would get back to my mother, and she would find me.”

  “Yeah, I can see why that would be a problem. But your name is on this drive, along with the rest of your family, and the names of other wealthy families. And it looks like they are going on some top secret space voyage, set to launch in a couple of weeks.”

  She nodded.

  He continued, “And we don’t know where they are planning to go or what the encrypted parts of the drive are about. But we do know that something on this drive is enough for someone––probably someone from WelCo––to send assassins to retrieve the drive and kill anyone who came in contact with it.”

  She nodded again.

  They stared at each other a long time. Then he had an idea. “We need to go somewhere populated. Somewhere with lots of security cameras and people. If there is an assassin after us, we should stay in busy areas so that he doesn’t get a chance to do to us what he did to Bobby.”

  Saya nodded and said, “You’re right. What about the Kerry Park Mall?”

  “That’s perfect. Let’s go there. It’s not too far away.”

  As they started down the two blocks towards the transit station, Trevor felt relieved to have a plan. He just hoped they would be safe at the mall and could figure out what to do next.

  Chapter Three

  Caroline Kuttner was used to getting only four or five hours of sleep a night. Since it was less than one month to launch, that number had gone down to about two or three hours a night. And they were restless hours at that. So when the expected call from Frank came in from the mainland at eight forty-five at night, she was in her cramped quarters onboard the SS Great Republic, wide awake and doing her usual multi-tasking. Tonight she was busy reviewing the latest reports from various parts of the Nautilus space station, preparing her speech for launch-day, and reviewing the contracts the Reachers had prepared regarding their safe passage on the final ship, the SS Challenge, once it was retrofitted.

  A small red light began blinking on and off at the corner of her desk to indicate that there was a call on her private line. With a practiced hand, she swiped away all the other windows she had open and pulled up the video feed of Frank. She’d been waiting for this call since he’d reported on her daughter earlier in the evening.

  “Where are you?” She didn’t waste time with pleasantries, especially not with Frank. He found small talk to be idiotic and unnecessary, only something to make the weak and inadequate feel productive. Caroline felt the same way, although her position often required her to engage in idle chitchat in order to grease the wheels of polite society. She normally found the entire experience revolting.

  But today it wasn’t simply the desire to skip the useless chatter that compelled her towards bluntness; it was fear that something had gone wrong with her daughter this close to launch. She could see from the background in the vid that he was no longer at the shop. He was somewhere dark. And his deep scowl looked even more pronounced in the faded light.

  “Report. Give me the details.” She knew Frank responded well to quick short commands, a holdover from his years in military black ops. He wanted everything as quick and precise as possible. No room for excess or loose ends. That was partly why Frank and Caroline had gotten along so well for so many years. She’d first met him when he was assigned as her and her husband’s bodyguard during a business trip they’d taken to the dangerous Middle East. She recognized a similar ruthlessness in him that her husband lacked. When years later, she needed an operative in Seattle, she’d offered him the job, and he’d proven resourceful and loyal.

  “I tailed Saya and the boy to an apartment complex in the old Queen Anne district of Seattle,” he said.

  Caroline squinted while she listened, trying to make out the shadows around him.

  “They entered the building at nineteen-thirty. They visited an apartment on the eighteenth floor that belongs to a WelCo employee, Bob Fulner. The boy, Trevor, mentioned the name Bobby several times … so I have to assume he is the one who downloaded the information to the drive. This Trevor and Saya didn’t stay long, exiting the building after ten minutes. They appeared very upset, so I decided to go into the apartment to check it out.” Here, Frank paused.

  Frank almost never paused. Caroline began to get even more nervous.

  “What I discovered upon entering the apartment was …”

  Caroline felt on the verge of screaming, wishing she could come right though the video feed and rip the information out of Frank’s head.

  “… that Bob Fulner had been murdered,” he finally concluded.

  This was not what Caroline was expecting. She prided herself on never being surprised, but this had her dumbfounded. “Murdered? Are you sure?” She knew that was a silly question even as she said it. Silly to ask Frank. If anyone would know a dead body, it would most definitely be him.

  “Yes. He was strangled and then hung by the neck to a ceiling fan to suggest he’d committed suicide. Although it might be the hanging was some sort of warning … possibly meant for the boy and Saya to find. I am not sure.”

  Caroline could feel her heart beat faster. Fear was taking hold. She swallowed hard, forcing herself to stay calm, to stay in control. “There was no one else in the apartment?”

  “No, ma’am. I checked myself.”

  “Did anyone see you go in or see them leave?”

  “I can’t say if they were seen entering or leaving the apartment, but no one saw me.”

  “Good, that is good. Where are they now?”

  “According to the tracker I have on her mobile, it looks like Saya is headed south. There is a mall on that road. That destination would be a smart move.”

  “All right. Follow them. I don’t want you to take your eyes off of her again, do you understand me?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “This is much more serious than I originally thought. I need to know what is on that drive they have. If we can assume the killer was looking for the drive, she could now be in danger. We may need to move up the plan to bring her onboard, possibly even tonight. I must determine what kind of risk she is putting herself in. All for some boy.” Caroline shook her head at her daughter’s foolishness. “I want you to retrieve the drive from the him and report back to me immediately.”

  “Understood.”

  “And Frank, I have always been able to rely on you to protect my interests. Can I rely on you now?”

  “Absolutely, ma’am. I will get the drive and keep your daughter safe. You have my word on that.”

  “In your opinion, do you think the Gunthers are responsible?”

  “I can’t say for sure, but my gut says yes. I believe this Bob Fulner who was murdered was the one who first got hold of the drive. The killer most likely got out of him who he gave it to. So he is probably going to this Trevor’s place next. Since Saya and the boy are going in the opposite direction, I assume they are smart enough stay away from there.”

  “Well, I hope they are as smart as you, Frank.”

  “Saya certainly is, ma’am.”

  Caroline smiled, pride outweighing her growing fear. But the smile was short lived, and she said, “Nevertheless, I don’t know this boy she is with, and if she listens to him and he isn’t as smart …”

  “She has never been one to be led, certainly not by some guy.” Frank stated this as a fact, and Caroline felt comforted.

  “You are absolutely right.” Caroline took a deep breath. “I am lucky to have you watching over her, Frank. Now go keep her safe.”

  “Yes, ma’am. What are your orders regarding the boy?”

  “Get rid of him, Frank. He’s brought danger to my daughter. I don’t want to worry he will ever put her life at risk again
. Make sure that won’t happen.”

  “Understood.”

  “Do you want anything?” Trevor asked Saya as they walked into the coffee shop on the first floor of the mall.

  “I can’t think about food right now.”

  “Then let’s just sit down. We can sit over there.”

  Trevor motioned to a corner table that was out of the way but in full view of the coffee shop’s exit and a good portion of the mall beyond. Saya nodded, and they made their way over to table in a quiet corner. The table was so small that when they both sat down, their knees bumped. He studied her face. Her brow was furrowed, and her lips were pressed tightly against her teeth, and her brown curls fell into her eyes.

  Then she brushed her hair back and looked straight at him, saying, “So what do we know? Let’s start with that.”

  Trevor liked her direct approach. One step at a time. That is how we are going to survive this, by moving forward, one step at a time.

  He said, “All right, we know that Frank is reporting your actions to a woman who is most likely your mom.”

  “We know Bobby downloaded a bunch of information from WelCo’s mainframe,” Saya added.

  “And the files we could read were about a space voyage that is set to launch in three weeks. And your name is on the list of passengers,” Trevor said.

  Saya replied quickly, “And we also know someone killed Bobby for stealing that information, and they probably are looking for you right now, to get the drive and kill you too.”

  Trevor knew she was right. They were both probably in danger. But it was hard to grasp that reality when he was sitting across from Saya, staring into her blue eyes as he’d dreamed about doing since the day they’d met.

  After a moment, Saya sighed and looked down at her hands. “What I just don’t understand is what could be worth killing for?”

  Trevor said, “Whatever it is, it is very important to someone, and your mother seems to know something about it.” An idea had begun to form in Trevor’s head. He didn’t think Saya was going to like it, though.