The Revenge (The Insiders Trilogy #3)(66)

The other side of his mouth curved up, and he came over. A finger under my chin. He tipped me up and he bent down. He said, as he always did, right before touching his lips to mine, “It’s nice to have you back.”

A shiver went through my whole body, but I was grinning. It was a good shiver. I replied back, my lips moving against his. “It’s nice to be back.”

He groaned before lifting his head. “I’ll meet you in the basement.”

I grabbed a tank, sweats, and put my feet in some fuzzy slippers. I left the hair and makeup how it was, and at the last second, grabbed my own bag. It housed my laptop, and the headphones were already in there. I found Kash waiting at the bar. He had a few items there, but when he saw me scoping them out, he said, “I’ll get you started, then get the rest.”

Right. That was smarter.

He went over to the wall, removed one of the bottles, and pushed in the wine bottle holder. He stepped back and the entire wall shifted outward, then glided to the side.

There was a hallway behind it.

Kash walked in, put his hand on a scanner, and another door opened.

I was in hacker nerddom love.

Beyond was everything I could’ve wanted in life—except for, you know, Kash. But everything else, hell yes. I went inside.

Kash touched my shoulder, indicating a side door. It had a red EXIT sign over it, and it looked just like the exit doors at a movie theater. “Bathroom is through there.”

Right. Exit meant “bathroom.” Got it.

“I’ll be back with your other items. ”

But then I was thinking again, and I rounded as Kash was leaving. “Wait. What about everyone else?”

Kash held his phone up. “I will send everyone away, don’t worry.”

“And you…”

“I’ll be right here.” He nodded to a couch in the corner. “I can work just as well as you.”

I liked that. I liked that a lot.

“What about Matt?”

“He is going to be told to take his friends on a three-day trip.” He smirked at me. “He will get the jet.”

I laughed as he left, and I repeated to myself. “He got the jet.”

I focused on the computers and sat down.

First things first, I had to hack into my dad’s personal computer, and then his system. Again.





FORTY-ONE

Bailey


I had two objectives with where I started. One, the location, and two, the players.

I did what the FBI said they were already looking at, but I was going to do it better. I wasn’t going to wait and get permission from local store cameras. Yep. I hacked ’em. All of ’em. I didn’t feel one iota of guilt. Some of these systems were so easy that I was almost doing them a favor. If they realized they’d been hacked, they would get a better system.

But that wasn’t a justification, because I didn’t feel guilty.

Within an hour, I had two photos of my mother. Two.

One was of her in the backseat. Okay, it was more an image of a woman in the backseat of the SUV. But I knew it was her, so I was counting it as one of them. The second one was pure luck. Kash came over once to refill my coffee and he pointed it out. “Reflection.”

One word. That was it.

Mind blown.

I completely forgot about reflections, and then I was cursing myself because I had to backtrack over all the work I had already went through .

I found one, but it wasn’t enough. She was blurry. Too many shadows. It was just a glimmer, a hint of who was inside that SUV. I recognized her. I knew that was my mother, but no one else would, and that’s why I was doing this. I had to find proof. I had to ramp up the fight for her.

Four blocks around the club and I was able to find the SUV’s trail. Then I just kept doing that. Over and over and over again. I worked every single system in a four-block radius, mapping out the SUV’s path until they hit the interstate. After that, it was the street cams, and thank goodness, they were so much easier. I panned out, and once the SUV stopped showing up, I rerouted back to the last exits, from where I lost them to where I last saw them. It took me twenty minutes to find them, because the first turn did have a camera but the second turn didn’t. It wasn’t working. So after that, I had to redo all the same work I’d already done. I panned out in a four-block radius until, an hour later, I found them.

After that, it was hit and miss.

And slow. So much slower.

They were getting into suburb territory. The street cams were more sparse, with a few on the major streets. I hit those first. Hacking in. Scanning. Not finding anything. So I had to go back, again. I took each street, in every single way they could’ve gone.

Chicago suburbs had a lot of streets.

Four hours.

Four freaking hours.

I was getting a headache, and I didn’t want to count how many personal systems I had hacked, because by then some of the guilt was trickling in. Some. Not a lot. I reminded myself who I was looking for—Chrissy Fucking Hayes.

My focus grew firm again. Crystal clear.

I was back on it.

I was being Kash with his business deals. Ruthless and calculating .

It was another two hours later when I got a hit, and I cried out, because I couldn’t help it.

“You found her?”

Oh. That’s right. Kash had no idea what I was doing.