Car Hacker Read online

  Car Hacker

  by Rosie Claverton

  Book #2.5 of The Amy Lane Mysteries—a short story adventure.

  Bored of being stuck at home while his boss and hacker sleuth Amy Lane recovers from their latest investigation, ex-con Jason Carr leaps at the chance to investigate a carjacking at his mate Dylan’s garage. Little does he know that the “mystery” has been entirely concocted by Amy, eager to remove him from the house to prepare for a surprise birthday dinner.

  However, Jason is always a trouble magnet and, when he stumbles upon a real carjacking gang, Amy needs their friends' assistance to once more get him out of hot water – and home in time for tea.

  11,000 words

  Author’s Note

  Car Hacker takes place after the events of Code Runner, the second book in The Amy Lane Mysteries. As such, it references events in that book which may be considered spoilers. You have been warned!

  Thank you for your support of The Amy Lane Mysteries.

  Contents

  Chapter 1: Cabin Fever

  Chapter 2: To the Letter

  Chapter 3: A Man in a Pub

  Chapter 4: Movers and Shakers

  Chapter 5: Old Habits

  Chapter 6: Does Your Mother Know?

  Chapter 7: Highway to Hell

  Chapter 8: All’s Well

  Chapter 1: Cabin Fever

  Amy’s leg had been in plaster for thirty-three days and Jason had felt every one of them.

  For the first two weeks without AEON, he’d thought nothing could be worse than a grumpy Amy Lane bereft of her computer and nursing a low pain threshold. But after the murder charge was dropped and his leg untagged, Jason found her growing exponentially worse, despite AEON’s safe return. He could only conclude that she’d been going easy on him out of pity.

  In the eight months he’d been working for her, Jason had transformed her apartment into a cleaner’s pride and joy. He had scrubbed, dusted and decluttered with enthusiasm, and Amy hadn’t taken a blind bit of notice. He shopped and cooked and fed her, and she vaguely acknowledged his presence from time to time. It was all worth it, though, because Amy shared with him her passion for tackling crime and occasionally he got to run around and play hero.

  Except they were on hiatus, because Amy said the painkillers didn’t allow her to concentrate and Jason wasn’t allowed to solve mysteries by himself. He could have made half a dozen comments about how her concentration was just fine where World of Warcraft was concerned, but he was growing as a person.

  So, he was stuck at home, fetching and carrying for Amy at all hours, and awkwardly lifting her over the lip of the bathtub in nothing but a towel so she could take a shower. After which he definitely needed a shower. A cold one.

  Being in such close proximity to Amy with nothing to distract him was hell itself. He needed to get out and do something other than fuss over her while she sniped at him. He wanted to go out for a drink with his mates, let loose at a club, and get laid. Was that too much to ask?

  Today was the perfect day for it. It was the morning of his twenty-fourth birthday and he planned to see to Amy’s every possible need before lunch, before heading round to his mam’s for a cup of tea and then out on the town. Dylan was up for it, and Jason might squeeze in some time tinkering with the motors round his mate’s garage before they headed out.

  After knocking on Amy’s bedroom door at nine o’clock, Jason put away the contents of the dishwasher and set to work on a fry-up for his birthday breakfast. As the plates hit the table, Amy appeared in the doorway, draped in her dressing gown and swinging on her crutches.

  “Happy birthday,” she said. “I could’ve done that.”

  “I like my meat burned, not black.”

  Amy was a kitchen disaster at the best of times. No way was Jason letting her near a frying pan, especially without all four limbs in good working order.

  “I’ll do the tea," she said, and made her way over to the kettle which was, thankfully, already filled.

  Jason sat down at the table to resist his urge to hover and helped himself to ketchup. He nervously ate half a sausage before the tea was made, and he rescued both cups before Amy attempted to carry them to the table.

  She looked relaxed this morning, even before her shower and her first cup of tea. Her green-brown eyes were free from pain and she seemed comfortable in her skin, like today was a day where her frozen lows and her trembling peaks had evened out into something mellow.

  They ate in companionable silence, no small talk possible between two humans who hadn’t left their shared space for days. When the food was eaten and the tea drunk, Jason stacked the dishwasher before Amy could make an attempt.

  “Listen,” he said, pondering the best place for the frying pan, “about tonight—”

  The wail of Bon Jovi burst from his phone, cutting him off. He shifted it out of his pocket, saw it was Dylan, and decided he could wait.

  “I’m going out. I’ll probably stay round my mam’s, as it’s closer to town—”

  “You should answer that.”

  The phone was still ringing, and Amy seemingly hadn’t heard a word he’d said.

  “It’s Dylan—he can wait.”

  “What if it’s important?”

  Amy had never shown much interest in Dylan before, but Jason dutifully answered just before the voicemail caught it.

  “Hey mate. Y’alright?”

  “Jay, the bastards stole a car right in front of me! I only turned my back for a second and they nabbed it!”

  Dylan was breathless, almost excited, and it took Jason a moment to process his words. He twisted away from the dishwasher to lean against the kitchen counter.

  “Who stole a car? What car?”

  “I don’t know—some lads in balaclavas. Please, mate, you’ve got to help me out.”

  “Report it to the cops. I don’t know who deals with that—”

  “It can’t be cops, Jay. The motor belongs to a Splott boy—know what I’m saying?”

  Dylan had a great business model, fixing up cars without ever actually asking where they came from or how the previous owner parted with them. He also dealt in parts that may have been obtained under similarly dubious circumstances. If this particular car belonged to a gang boy out of Splott, he probably hadn’t bought it with the savings from his piggy bank.

  “What do you want me to do about it?” Jason asked.

  “Just come down here and do your CSI shit, yeah? See if you can work out who it might’ve been. I reckon we can get the car back before dark.”

  Jason’s eyes drifted over to Amy, who was watching him impatiently, awaiting the lowdown on his bizarre phone call.

  “See what I can do,” he said and hung up.

  “What did he want?” Amy asked.

  Jason straightened, inexplicably feeling like he was explaining himself to the headmistress. Again.

  “Car’s been nicked from Dylan’s garage. He wants me to take a look, see what’s what.”

  He anticipated objections—some small task that must take precedence and would prevent him leaving the house. It had been a familiar routine for the past month, Amy’s imagination leaping from clearing out the guttering to thoroughly checking her grandmother’s house for rats.

  “You should help him out,” Amy said, and made her way towards AEON.

  Jason stared after her, stunned. “You sure? I should get some things done here—”

  “They can wait. You should help your friend.”

  Jason followed her to AEON, where she was already loading up Minecraft.

  “You’re my friend too...” he said, sensing some kind of trick.

  Amy laughed. “I’m fine. Dylan needs you more right now. You’re only at the end of the phone.”


  Amy was being weird, weirder than usual, but Jason wasn’t going to turn down a chance to escape their stuffy little house, even if he was going to pay for it later in some cruel and unusual way. He’d check in with her before he went out tonight, if she was going to be gracious. He knew he risked sabotaging his evening, but hopefully her new-found generosity of spirit would last.

  “Thanks. I’ll catch you later then?”

  “Later,” she said, and started her game.

  Jason walked away, completely bemused, swearing he could hear her quietly giggle to herself as he retreated. Either she was becoming even more unhinged or he was starting to lose it himself.

  He grabbed his leather jacket and the keys to his old, faithful Nissan Micra and headed out. It had finally been cleared by the second police investigation, the one investigating the investigation into Damage’s murder. The whole thing made his head spin.

  The car was less flashy than his vintage Harley-Davidson, and if there were vehicle thieves about, Jason had no desire to tempt them. He connected up his phone via the fancy new FM transmitter that Amy had given him as an early birthday present and listened to The Clash all the way to Dylan’s door.

  Jason pulled up outside the garage, careful of the broken glass littering the pavement. He pocketed his new toy—couldn’t be too careful if folks were stealing round here—and inspected the glass by his feet. It looked like it was from a car window, but without the lamination of most windscreens. A side window, perhaps? However, it was mostly on the pavement. Why would the window break after the thieves had already driven off the forecourt? Were they being chased—by Dylan? Yet he could find no evidence of burnt rubber on the road at all, no signs of sudden acceleration.

  Of course, Jason was speculating without evidence, which both Amy and Bryn would chide him for. If he wanted to play detective, he needed to do it properly. Of course, both his boss and DI Hesketh would complain about his playing detective at all. Jason remembered well the look on Bryn’s face when he’d found out Jason had been using his name all around Cardiff to charm women into handing over their CCTV footage.

  Dylan met him outside the garage, face flush with excitement rather than fear.

  “Right in front of my nose!” he exclaimed, delightedly, as if he quite enjoyed being part of a criminal adventure—even if he was the victim.

  “What happened?” Jason asked, drawing out his police-style leather notebook. His old one had been seized by the murder investigation, but Amy had bought him a new one with his name embossed on the inside cover. It was probably obscenely expensive for a notebook, but Jason was pleased by the thoughtful gift.

  “I was replacing the old stereo with something more the boy’s style,” Dylan said, as if by rote, like he had been rehearsing his statement over and over in his head. “I went inside for a minute—to answer the phone, see—and I heard the engine start up.”

  “The door was open?” Jason asked, peering back at the glass in the road.

  “Yeah, stupid, right? I ran out and there were these two boys in ski masks in the car, driving it off. So, uh, I threw a wrench at them.”

  Jason nodded in understanding. “And you broke the window.”

  “Passenger back. Didn’t even slow them down.”

  “So, they headed out towards the main road, and then what?”

  “Nothing. I called you.”

  Jason handed over his notebook to Dylan. "Jot down the reg, make, colour—the usual. I’ll have a look around, see if they left anything behind."

  Dylan’s abandoned tools were still on the forecourt, though Jason could see no sign of the stereo equipment—either the thieves had managed to bag themselves a new sound system with their car, or Dylan had taken the more valuable stuff inside. Jason walked past the tools to the edge of the pavement and looked left, towards the main road. The carjackers probably came from that direction, unless they were local. He walked along the pavement, scouring it for anything the thieves might’ve dropped.

  A scrap of paper caught his eye. It had sunk into the gutter mulch beside an overflowing drain, and, grimacing, he fished it out. The ink had run, but he could just about tell it was a receipt from an upmarket outdoor adventure shop in the centre of town—two black balaclavas, for an eye-watering sum of cash. What kind of high-class car thieves were these?

  He continued down the short road, still keeping an eye out for anything that might help his investigation. His investigation. Not Bryn’s, not Amy’s—just his. Jason wasn’t going to let Dylan down, not like he’d let so many people down, especially these past weeks. Amy may have forgiven him for being an idiot, but Jason couldn’t forgive himself, not with the constant reminder of how badly she and Owain had been hurt.

  His little sister Cerys kept him updated on Owain’s condition, the young detective sergeant still confined to the house and probably off work for a good few months yet. He had done that. He may not have pulled the trigger, but he was the reason Amy and Owain had been in that barn in the first place.

  He almost missed the blue plastic bag, caught in the overhanging branches of a hedge with a couple of Coke cans and the remains of a kebab. Through the top of the bag, he could see black wool, enough for two balaclavas, and he carefully unhooked it from the hedge.

  Who paid sixty quid for a pair of balaclavas only to chuck them out of a moving car? Why not just keep the things for the next time you fancied nicking something, or your mam dragged you on a hike over the Brecon Beacons? These boys hadn’t done this before, clearly. And if they weren’t regulars, why were they stealing cars at all?

  As a man who had completed a prison sentence for exactly that, Jason knew a fair bit about taking without consent. He had only used a few basic tools on the old bangers, but it had taken practice to do it fast. Boys either did it for fun, before ditching and flaming the thing, or they did it for profit—because someone was buying.

  Jason had only been interested in joyriding and, that last time, securing a getaway car for their grand robbery. And look what had happened when he’d deviated from what he knew—the cops had nabbed him in five minutes flat, and he had paid heavy for it. Anyone who knew gangs also knew that you didn’t get into for-profit stealing unless you knew what you were about. Except these boys had nicked a car in broad daylight, from a manned garage, and then ditched their expensive balaclavas. What sort of incentives were waiting for them that they thought this was worth it?

  Maybe some big player in town was buying up cars, or talking kids into taking cars that might cause a problem for their rivals. If this motor belonged to a Splott boy, a rival gang might be interested in taking his baby hostage—but which established runners would take on a risk like that, unless they had much to gain in money and rep?

  Jason carried the balaclavas back towards Dylan’s garage. Something odd was going on here, far more than just one missing car. Jason intended to find out what it was, and prove that he could do this—alone. He’d make them all proud of him again.

  Chapter 2: To the Letter

  Amy had been planning Jason’s birthday surprise for weeks.

  She was overflowing with secrets, so much so that she thought she might burst, terrified she might give the game away at any moment. While Jason continued his conquest of all the dirt in the house, Amy recruited Jason’s friends and family into her masterful scheme to Get Jason Out Solving Mysteries So Gwen Can Cook Dinner.

  She had texted Cerys first, asking after the recuperating Owain and what she thought Jason might want for his birthday. Direct as ever, Cerys said her brother would like some time away from the house as he was going stir crazy. In that series of texts, Amy’s guilt mounted as she saw Cerys’s own frustrations reflected in the words.

  Amy had then seized on her brilliant plan. She wanted Jason to get out and entertain himself, but in such a way that he stayed out of trouble and she could monitor him without interruption. What better way to do so than in a scenario of her own devising? Jason would amuse himself solving a mystery, and Am
y would watch everything from the comfort of her living room.

  Her genius plotting reached critical mass when Jason’s mother Gwen phoned up and asked if she could come round to cook them all a birthday dinner. As she was thankfully yet to mention it to Jason, Amy could easily fold her into the scheming without him suspecting a thing and without Gwen thinking her little boy was doing more than hanging out with Dylan. Who needed to go to university when she already had a Master’s in cunning?

  It had been Cerys’s idea to involve Dylan and the garage, and the two women had concocted a relatively plausible scenario, which would keep Jason occupied for most of the day before bringing him home in time for tea. If he then wanted to go out on the town with Dylan, Amy wouldn’t even object, though she might conveniently forget to turn off the surveillance.

  As soon as he was inside the lift, Amy turned on her new tracking toys: micro GPS chips that she had slipped into the lining of Jason’s favourite leather jacket and his motorcycle helmet. She’d required Cerys’s assistance to place the third tracker in the dashboard of the Micra, because while she had braved the outside world a couple of times while loaded up on diazepam, it was still damn scary and she felt vulnerable on her crutches.

  “Vulnerable” was not a word she wanted to associate herself with anymore. She’d felt protected inside her house, but it had all been a lie. Despite her perimeter security, multiple cameras and state-of-the-art locks, her sanctuary had been violated, not once but twice. She had built this fortress to keep the monsters out, but she’d only succeeded in constructing a prison.

  When she had her leg back, things would be different. She would take that deep breath and launch herself through the door. Not overnight, not without pain, but she would do it. She would not be the princess in the tower because her own fear was the dragon.

  Two trackers were returning strong signals—the jacket placing Jason in the middle of the road, heading towards the Micra’s beacon. The helmet wasn’t registering, which was irritating, as it meant the basement level didn’t allow the signal to get out. She would have to factor that in if Jason suddenly decided to try sewer diving.