Red Flag

28. Details and Direction

After Lorne had emailed the scan of the courier notification, he lifted a phone receiver from its cradle and poked three numbers. A short while later, he said, "Crown counsel Wilson, interview office six. I have some physical evidence that needs recording and filing."

He listened and nodded, then said, "Thank you," hung up and turned to me. "Let me get the immediate details out of the way first, Kate. Then we can look at our next steps without pressure."

Without pressure? How? But I remained quiet, impressed with his efficiency while he made three more phone calls and received two uniformed policemen in the office. When a third entered, I thought, surely, if he can juggle all of this under pressure, he can continue keeping me safe.

Himself too – they now know his face. But where do we go? Away from Vancouver is a given. Too many know our faces here. We don't know who or where. Can't sail away – might be a GPS chip planted in Tastevin. Maybe drive up to Naramata. No, that would endanger my folks. I closed my eyes and began deep breathing, trying to quiet my spinning mind, thinking of more pleasant things. Life with Lorne.

Lorne's gentle shake of my shoulder woke me, and after I had oriented myself, I said, "Sorry. Must have nodded off."

"Yes, and so beautifully."

"Ummm! Dreaming about you."

Lorne pointed to my lap. "That's why I woke you. Moaning my name made it too hard to focus."

I felt my face warm as I looked down and pulled my fingers from my mound. "How long?"

"The standard eight and a tad." He chuckled. "But to relieve your mind, nobody else was in here at the time."

I blew a deep breath. "But I distracted you from what you need to do."

"No, you drove me to want to protect you all the more."

I raised my arms as I rose from the chair. "Kiss me, you adorable hunk."

He wrapped me in a loose embrace and kissed my forehead. "These offices are all video-monitored. I might be seen as attempting to influence a witness."

"Oh, God! Taped?"

"Only images unless we get consent for audio."

"Yeah, the right to privacy. So, did you get anything done?"

"I had half an hour or so while you slept – nearly finished. Waiting only on the installation of the new plates."

"Plates?"

"Licence plates. Just in case one of them was vigilant and shot a photo or wrote it down as we drove out. The police hadn't observed the two who entered the garage."

"God! I can't believe you're so thorough. Do you ever miss anything?"

"I missed the second tracking chip. That's what brought us here."

"Yeah." I blew a deep breath.

"But to bring you up to date, Kate. The Coroners Services have not yet completed their investigation, and they're uncertain when the remains might be released. To keep the Mob guessing, Driscoll advises you to delay informing Nathan's family of his death."

"Oh, God! I had forgotten about him." I shook my head and winced. "How would that keep the mob guessing?"

"Seeing no death notices or obituaries in the newspapers or –"

"But they're in Halifax and Moncton."

"As this scam may well be." Lorne pointed to the phone. "The RCMP have now identified restaurants with similar patterns in sixteen cities across the country. It's folly to think the Mob isn't monitoring public responses and reactions in all of them."

"Yeah, and most obituaries are now posted online – easily searchable."

"Exactly! And from what we've seen, whoever's behind this is clever, observant, innovative and swift. And if they follow the pattern, they would demand and enforce strict obedience from everyone."

"Hmmm! They might have some loose cannons. The restaurant managers seem to be overly free in their choice of enforcement methods."

"Why do you think this?"

"Like Zack's nabbing Nathan and booby-trapping the condo – and Nuance planting trackers, having us shadowed and sending the courier."

"Ah, but they would have had plenty of time to scheme those with the Boss. Things this extreme are unlikely to be independent actions. Routine things like the trackers and the shadow would be at the manager's discretion, but the couriered bomb would have been directed from the top."

"If it was a bomb."

"It is, Kate." Lorne tapped the phone in his pocket. "Richmond Mounties contacted the Novex dispatcher and had the driver divert to Fire Hall 7. The Bomb Squad's robot disarmed the package, and they're now dismantling it to track components."

"Oh, God! And I slept through all of that."

"Yes, and so beautifully."

I blushed at the thought of what Lorne had seen me doing. "What else did I miss?"

"To follow a hunch, I suggested to Driscoll that the menus across the country be checked. I had noted many items on the Nuance menu that I remembered being on those at Dalliance and Zack's."

"Ummm. Like the gawdawful white-slime fingers."

"Exactly. It makes economic and logistical sense for them to all have similar menus like the chains – Cactus Club, Earl's, the Keg and so on."

"Hmmm, with their quality, a better comparison would be Macdonald's, Wendy's and Denny's." I tilted my head. "So, if we learn that the menus are like those of a chain, what does that gain us?"

"We can stick more thorns in their sides by adding truthful descriptions of the dishes to our blogs – further informing the duped diners. Link them to our previous posts."

I nodded and smiled. "This'll be a fun exercise. Have you checked how they're doing?"

"I did. They're both going viral on Twitter – trending all across the country and spreading globally."