Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
“I’m on it,” I said. “Something’s going to shake loose eventually.”
I followed Wren and Maddox to another cubicle, this one with papers spread out across the desk. Wren pulled back the chair for me.
“You start. I’ll get you a coffee. I think I’m partially blind from squinting at numbers for an hour already this morning.” She pointed at the paper. “That’s what we’re looking for.”
I settled in to kill time until Sylvie came back, hoping the mind-numbing boredom of sifting through data would dull the ache of guilt lurking in my chest. I had everything under control. I’d figured out all the angles. I just had to hope we got the answers we needed before Sylvie discovered how much I’d been keeping from her.
Chapter Twenty
SYLVIE
“Thank you again, Miss Calloway,” the smoothly professional female voice said. “I appreciate your patience. We should have this fixed in the next forty-eight hours, and your new cards overnighted to the address on file.”
“Great, thank you,” I said.
The address on file was my parents’, states away. But hey, at least my checking and savings accounts were functional again and intact, thanks to whatever it was Emmett had done in the back end of the accounts. The fraud departments of my credit card companies and the bank had been apologetic and helpful. There would be a delay, cards canceled, reissued, and I’d have to ask my parents to overnight them, but that seemed like a small inconvenience compared to being cut off from my money.
I hung up and looked to Emmett. His dark eyes were satisfied. Mostly. There was something behind that satisfaction, something calculating. I got the feeling he was always working the angles. Now was no different. He’d wanted to help. I believed that. But he had more on his mind than fixing my frozen accounts.
He proved it when he said, “Even once you get your cards, you can’t use them.”
“Fuck,” I muttered. He was right.
“Until whoever did this is neutralized, we have to assume they can follow your movements through those cards.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I understand. Damn it.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’re getting there.” Emmett glanced down at the screen of his phone before sticking it in his pocket.
“What if I opened new accounts? Moved my cash over?” I asked, trying to work my way through the problem. “But if he got into my accounts once, what’s to say he couldn’t do it again?”
Emmett nodded his head. “If you open a new account somewhere else, they’ll pull your credit, which is probably an easy enough way for him to track you. For now, just sit tight. Like I said, we’re getting closer.”
I grumbled internally. I knew he was right, but this sucked. And it was scary. Someone was tracking me through my electronic footprint, and it was almost impossible not to leave one. I could only do it now because of Sinclair Security. If I were on my own out there, I’d be totally screwed.
Emmett gathered up a thick file folder he’d been leafing through while I was on the phone.
“I’ve got something to show the team right now,” he said. “But later, remind me to tell you what I uncovered.”
“Why not just tell me now?” I asked, standing.
“Because it’s not solid. It’s progress, but not enough. I need to dig a little bit more. But I think your part of it will be resolved sooner than later.”
My part of it. My part of what? Emily Shaw’s murder? The bomber’s reign of terror?
The journalist in me wanted to push, but I’d been around Emmett enough to know when he was done talking, and the last thing I wanted was to annoy him. At the moment, he liked me well enough, and he’d gone above and beyond to help me fix the problem with my credit cards and bank. I wasn’t going to pay him back by irritating him with questions he wasn’t going to answer. I either had to be patient or get what I needed another way.
We walked back into Hacker Central to see roughly half of the cubicles scattered around the room occupied by Sinclair team members with headsets, their fingers flashing over keyboards when they weren’t gripping a mug of coffee or an energy drink. On the tables in the center of the room, I saw what looked like the postal bin from South Carolina. Nearby, Eli sat at a cubicle studying sheets of paper spread across the desk in front of him. His hair curled at the base of his skull, where it was just a little long. I wanted to sink my fingers in and rub at the tight muscles there. Later. Here, I had to keep my distance, no matter how weird it was starting to feel not to touch him whenever I wanted.
“Where’s Mad and Wren?” Emmett asked.