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We chuckled and nodded, heartened by Brad's dry humor.
"What's the name of that place that Courtney usually gets our Monday morning pastries from?" Chase asked. I pointed at the sticker on the fridge. "The Donut Hole? How original." Chase called the number and barked. "This is Chase Stratford from Rosedale Technologies. Send us our usual Monday morning order and put it on our tab. And give yourselves a fifty-dollar tip."
Chase's quick flip from being a jerk to a generous guy acted as shock therapy to our brains for some reason. Soon, we had our coffees going, and not long after, the delivery guy brought the goodies. Today, though, instead of going to our individual offices, we huddled around Brad's computer while he showed us the progress he and Courtney had made on the new app's design.
Everyone seemed excited about the possibilities as we looked over the new app. Chase leaned forward and pointed at the screen, "I really like the new user interface. It looks sleek and modern. But what about the backend? How is the data going to be managed?"
Brad furrowed his brows, "That's a good question. We could use a cloud-based solution to store the data. It would be scalable, and we could easily manage it."
Guy nodded in agreement, "That's a good idea. We could use Amazon Web Services. They have a good reputation, and they're reliable."
Chase leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, "But what about the security of the data? We've been dealing with security issues, and we can't afford to have another breach."
Brad looked up from his computer, "I was thinking about that. We could use encryption to secure the data. And we could implement two-factor authentication for the users. That should make it more secure."
Before we realized it, all the food was gone, and the Keurig had been refilled with water numerous times. The crushed water bottles beside it were evidence. "Jeez, it's almost one o'clock. Giuseppe should be here any minute with an update on his team's progress," I remarked.
"Let's get this place cleaned up," Guy suggested, grabbing some paper towels and disinfectant spray to wipe down the table and counters.
"I got the trash," I said. Then turning to Brad, I continued, "Why don't you head for your office to put away your computer, then meet us in the conference room for our meeting with Russo."
"Nope, I'm not letting this baby out of my sight. It seems these walls have eyes, you know."
I simply shook my head and chuckled. "Yep, good idea."
At straight up one o'clock, Giuseppe strode into the conference room with Bob right behind him. We all exchanged pleasantries and then got right down to business. The Russo's had made some progress in the last few days, and Giuseppe was excited to share. Opening his laptop, he asked, "How do I hook this up to your overhead projector?"
"We've got you covered," I reassured him as Chase set things up, and soon we could see several file folders on his desktop.
Giuseppe proceeded to show us how he had arranged the evidence gathered from Agent Downing for easy identification. Each incident had a separate file with its own password and authentication process. As he clicked through each file folder, he explained the significance of each piece of evidence and how it fit into the bigger picture from the first murder and finally to the picture of Amy holding the sign.
"Now, what our team has noticed so far, is that the perp or perps love to taunt you with riddles and stupid shit," Giuseppe explained, and continued, "It seems there have been only three actions of extreme violence against anyone associated with Rosedale. First, the murder of the maintenance person - that was to get your attention. To shock you. Then you had one failed kidnapping attempt, like the one against that precious child.... her name is Harper, right Daniel?"
"Yes, sir. That's correct.”
"Then we have the cop, Carter Brown, being tied up and left to die. That was ridiculous—an amateur job, for sure. Ryder, your family was called into question regarding the murder of the maintenance person working at the original Rosedale office, but that ultimately went nowhere... more taunting."
"More like harassment!" Ryder added.
"Now, things take a stranger turn. Guy, your driver is mysteriously killed in the restroom of a popular restaurant. This leads to an acquaintance of your sister, Chelsea, pranking your then-girlfriend, Ariel. Things spiral out of control here... and Meagan is kidnapped and left for dead in the ditch allegedly by Chelsea."
"What do you mean, things take a stranger turn?” Chase asked.
"Well, for one thing, this Chelsea person turns up dead in Canada, and the perp makes sure Chase knows about it. So there's your third murder. And there is some question about an individual named Alex.... another dead end. But again, Chelsea's death doesn't trace back to anyone from Rosedale, thankfully.”
"What about Amy's kidnapping? How does it fit in?" I asked.
"That's the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. We can't figure it out, possibly because we still don't have anyone in custody to question. That lies squarely on the local legal system and probably, to some extent, lazy law enforcement. The most obvious is that you'd lose funding from a grant you were banking on for financial success. But why the kidnapper picked Amy is unclear." Giuseppe explained.
"Other than someone knowing Mitch was interested in her, despite the involvement with the mother of his child…." Guy pointed out.
I cringed but held my head up high when I expressed a notion that had been buzzing in my head since I found out I was Ava's father. "Giuseppe, do you think there's a connection between Nicole, Ava's birth mother, and Amy being targeted?"
"Let me tell you this. As you know, Vail is a small town, and Nicole's family owns a ski resort, Mitch. So it isn't a stretch that Nicole and her family influenced the killer in some weird way. But honestly, I doubt it. I know that Nicole's parents aren't exactly proud of how their daughter leads her life. And they had to know getting involved with my Amy wouldn't bode well for them."
Guy scooted back in his chair and added, "Here are my two cents. Amy wasn't a stranger to the Rosedale crew, so it is possible they planned to target her one way or another and simply followed Amy to Colorado. It might be interesting to have a look at a list of the passengers on the flight Amy took from San Diego to Vail."
"Excellent idea," Giuseppe said, scratching down a note. Then suddenly, he closed his laptop and crossed his hands over his chest. "Here's the problem we're against. The local cops aren't' killing themselves to solve this! You have to ask why? And the FBI has bigger fish to fry. Amy was kidnapped in Colorado; of course, I became aware. Ferrara got involved immediately, and the feds were brought in because my brother threatened them. But what have they done? Where are their reports? There aren't any! They were just going through the motions to keep the Russo family happy."
