“It’s OK, sweetie,” she said.
She stood and grabbed a towel from the bathroom, trying to sidestep the spilled milk.
“We need to be careful with our things,” she said as she tried to dab the milk out of the carpet. She didn’t want to think about what else the towel was absorbing from the carpet.
“It slipped,” Jacob said.
“I can see that,” she said.
“I’m hungry.”
“Well, maybe if you—”
Haley cut herself off and stopped blotting the floor. She closed her eyes and slowly started counting down in her head.
Around four, two tiny arms looped around her neck and squeezed.
“Sorry, Mommy,” Jacob said. “I’ll be careful next time. Promise.”
Haley let go of the towel and hugged him tightly.
“I know you will,” she whispered. His hair smelled like cheap shampoo, and he was still too thin, but she loved every second he was in her arms. The anger slipped away, replaced by serene happiness. The exhaustion was always lurking in the back of her skull, threatening to summon a massive headache, but it retreated as she kissed his neck and heard his innocent giggle.
“Why don’t we go get breakfast somewhere fun,” she said.
“Where?”
“Why don’t we go have a picnic?” Haley said. “If you’re careful, you may even get some ice cream later.”
Jacob’s eyes lit up at the promise of frozen treats.
“Go get your bag,” Haley said.
He was off in a flash, and Haley wondered for the eight hundredth time where he got all his energy.
It didn’t take long to grab their things. After the first few motels, Haley had learned to leave most of their belongings in the car. It was a pain in the ass, but only having a few changes of clothes and her toiletries made it easier to pick up and leave if she felt like they were at risk of being discovered.
Jacob came back with his backpack, the shiny vinyl dalmatian wearing a fireman’s hat crinkling as he moved.
Haley threw her laptop in her own backpack and took his hand. She pulled the door closed with the other, making sure it clicked shut.
The morning air was crisp and smelled like industrial smoke. Haley wished they were staying in a better area of town, preferably somewhere less likely to have Volkag informants, but her wallet didn’t leave much choice in the matter.
She scanned the street from their second-floor doorway, but the road was empty except for the working girls leaning against the brick building facing the motel.
Haley guided Jacob down the stairs to their car. One girl with blonde hair that had a bright-red streak down one side smiled and waved, and Jacob waved back.
“Cute kid,” she called out.
Haley smiled and nodded in reply, then lifted Jacob into his car seat.
The park was about half an hour away, though it took nearly an hour since Haley doubled back twice. When they arrived, Haley took one last lap around, keeping one eye on her rearview mirror, before finally pulling into a spot.
She led Jacob through the grass to a small playground where a few other children were already climbing through the plastic tunnels and sliding down sheet-metal slides. Haley examined the other mothers for a few seconds, but none seemed to pay her any extra attention.
They sat on a bench, and Haley took out a packet of Pop-Tarts and a water bottle from her bag. Opening the Pop -Tarts, she handed one to Jacob, whose eyes lit up as he bit into the pastry.
“Not so fast,” Haley said with a laugh. “Have some water.”
He grabbed the container and sucked on the top. Haley’s shoulders relaxed, and she took a deep breath of the crisp, fresh morning air.
As she glanced around the playground, she noticed several of the other women looking at her, their faces all pinched in grimaces. Then she realized they were actually looking at Jacob as he ate.
She resisted the urge to flip them the bird.
Jacob licked the crumbs from the bottom of the packet, then took one more sip of water before he tugged on his mother’s jacket.
“Can I go?”
He pointed to the playground.
Haley stood and knelt next to him to zip up his jacket.
“What do you do if someone comes up to talk to you?” She said.
“Find you.”
“And if an adult touches you?”
“Scream, super-duper loud.”
Haley smiled and squeezed his shoulder.
“Exactly. Go have fun.”
Jacob grinned and took off for the monkey bars. Haley watched him go, enjoying the look of pure joy on his face. She kept a close eye on Jacob as he crawled through the playground, alternately laughing and talking to himself. He clamored over the metal and plastic, swinging between the rungs until he got to the platform with a neon yellow slide.
Haley pulled out her phone and scanned for an open network. With the upgraded electronics and scanners Hector had built into it, she was able to connect to the Wi-Fi of the Morning Glory coffee shop across the street.
No sooner had she connected, then the phone started buzzing.
“I thought you weren’t calling me?”
“Come on, Sunshine,” Hector said from the other end. “I missed hearing your voice.”
“If they track us . . .”
“They can’t, as long as you’re on the phone I gave you,” he said. “But we do need to be careful. I’m pretty sure the Feds are watching me now too.”
“And you decided to call me?” Haley said loudly enough to make several other moms look up in annoyance. She rolled her eyes and cupped her hand over the phone and her mouth.
“Are you insane?”
“They don’t know I’m talking to you,” Hector said.
“You’re not the one looking at jail time, or a bullet,” she said. “How do you know they’re watching you?”
“Couple dark SUVs and guys eating too many cheeseburgers out front of my place,” Hector said. “And I detected someone trying to poke through my firewall the other day.”
“Sure it’s related?”
“It was louder than the normal traffic hum, and when I traced it, the connection dropped when I hit a server DC area that happens to be in an IP range owned by the DC Cyber Crimes Division.”
Haley couldn’t stop herself from cursing this time.
“You think its Bradley?”
“Or someone on his team,” Hector replied. “How do you want to handle it?”
Haley chewed her lip.
“If he does it again, I’ll see if I can give him a bigger fish to fry,” she said.
“Who?”
“I’ll figure it out?”
“As long as I’m not the fish,” Hector said. “Anyway, the reason I called was that it’s been a couple months, and the Volkags are still lying low. I thought maybe we could get together sometime. You and Jacob could—”
A flash of black off to her right caught Haley’s eye. A man in a blazer, jeans, and sunglasses was strolling toward the playground, without a kid. The man was tall, well-muscled, and wore a scowl like it was his natural expression.
“Hector,” Haley cut him off. “You’re sure they couldn’t track your call?”
“I told you they couldn’t.”
He sounded annoyed at being interrupted.
“I’ve got to go,” she said, then ended the call.
She slipped the phone back in her pocket and stood smoothly. Every muscle screamed to sprint, but she strolled across the sandy ground to the slide as casually as she could.
“Jacob, we’re leaving,” she said through the metal bars.
His smile disappeared instantly.
“Why?” he said, his lip shaking in the smallest quiver.
“We’ll come back tomorrow,” Haley said.
She snuck a glance back. The man was halfway to the playground. His head swiveled right, then left as he searched the playground.
“Come on,” Haley said.
“Why?”
“Because I said so. Come on.”
Jacob’s face turned into a full-on pout, and Haley thought for a moment that the waterworks were about to start.
Instead, Jacob huffed once more and went down the slide.
Haley grabbed his hand and started dragging him across the park lawn. Jacob peppered her with questions about when they would be coming back, where birds slept, and how fast she thought he could go on the green bike chained up on one of the light posts. Haley tried to answer calmly, but she kept looking over her shoulder at the man in the blazer.
He was on the phone now, still scanning the area. Haley looked ahead as he turned toward her, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.
She bustled Jacob into his car seat and threw herself up front. She cranked the ignition, wrenched the stick in reverse, and backed out of the space before the dials on the dash had fully settled.
Thankfully, there wasn’t much traffic, and she was able to pull out of the lot immediately.
She kept one eye on the rearview mirror as she drove away, but the man didn’t run out into the parking lot or reappear.
She tried to calm her heart as she drove, but her mind was running at a thousand miles per hour.
Bonnie walked into the high school gym, trying to adjust her new mask so that it didn’t rub her face raw. The room was still filled with music and strobe lights, and people milled about in packs sipping on punch and browsing the wares of different merchants.
Bonnie joined Morpheus and Rogue at a table near some of the booths selling stolen credit cards.
“What happened?” Morpheus asked before she got fully settled.
“Someone was looking for me at the park,” she said. “I think they were tracking your call.”
“They couldn’t,” he said.
“Then how did they find us?”
“We don’t know if he was definitely there for you,” Rogue said. “Did you get a good look at him?”
“Big meathead type,” Bonnie said. “And what else would he be there for?”
“Maybe he was meeting his own wife and kid,” Morpheus said. “Not everyone is out to get you.”
“Easy to say from the comfort of your own home,” Bonnie said.
“I told you I’d come with you,” Morpheus said.
“And do what? Stand guard while I play with Jacob?”
“Or while you sleep,” he said. “When was the last time you got more than three hours?”
Bonnie ignored him and turned to Rogue to open a private chat.
“Can you help me find another place to crash?” she asked. “I’m in a Chicken Hut off 95.”
Rogue sighed.
“I’m running out of favors to call in,” she said.
“Another motel is fine,” Bonnie said. She glanced at Morpheus, who was waving his arms as he tried to get her attention. “Just somewhere I can rest for a bit without worrying about him popping up.”
“You probably could use a hand,” Rogue said. “You sound exhausted.”
“If he finds us, he’s never going to leave,” Bonnie replied. “And I need him where he is. Can you find anything?”
Rogue sighed again but nodded. Bonnie squeezed her shoulder, then switched back to the standard chat.
“Any luck with a forger?” She said.
“Yup,” Rogue said. “Won’t be cheap, though.”
“How bad?”
“For what you’re doing? At least fifty or sixty grand. For each of you. And that doesn’t include getting you a new home, or anything else you’d need to actually start living.”
Bonnie cursed.
“We don’t have that kind of cash,” she said. “The reward I just got will only cover us for about another month, two at most. Do you have any more exploits we could sell?”
“I’ve got one that might get us the IDs, but that still leaves us without any cash in reserve,” Morpheus said. “And keeping the Volkags on their heels has taken up most of my time, so I haven’t had a chance to go digging like I used to.”
He paused, glancing at Rogue before continuing.
“I know you’re not going to like this, but there may be a few things on the bounty board for about that much.”
“We steal the cash, and it’ll just bring the cops down on us even faster.”
“Not if they don’t know it was us,” Morpheus said. “We use brand new exploits, make it look like the Volkags, and then we can get your pet cop off our backs as well because we can give him info on where the Volkags actually are.”
“I don’t want to frame someone for something they didn’t do.”
“Not just someone, a Volkag,” Morpheus said. “It’s not like we’d be framing an innocent bystander.”
Rogue and Bonnie looked at one another.
“I don’t know,” Bonnie said. “Just feels wrong.”
“Consider it a settlement for the pain and suffering they caused Jacob.”
“I’m not going to become a criminal to save him,” Bonnie said. “What kind of a parent am I if I can’t show him he can make it without hurting others.”
Morpheus threw his arms up.
“This isn’t a situation covered in some self-righteous parenting book,” he said. “All the life lessons in the world won’t matter if the Volkags find you. Or if the cops do. What do you think Jacob will think if you get shanked in prison?”
“We don’t have much other choice,” Rogue agreed. “We can at least see if there are any bounties on the board we’d be OK with hitting.”
“We don’t need a ton,” Bonnie said. “I can do some legitimate freelance work from Mexico if I need to.”
Morpheus rolled his eyes.
“That assumes you can make it to Mexico with what you have,” he said. “You’ll need more than just luck and a mother’s instinct to make it across the border without someone finding you.”
“I’ll figure something out,” she said. “You just find a buyer for that exploit.”
Chapter Three
Vlad stepped off the fortified school bus and took a deep breath. The air smelled clean after the previous night’s storm, free from the smog that surrounded the high-security prison he’d just come from. He rolled his shoulder and felt the familiar ache, his smile turning to a grimace.
The guards made them line up as they got off the bus, and a woman in a light-gray pantsuit checked off items on a clipboard as they disembarked.
The man to Vlad’s left was almost as tall as him, though with only half the muscle. Possibly more since Vlad still couldn’t lift anything more substantial than a book with his left arm. The man’s pale skin practically glowed in the morning sun, and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses looked like they were pressed painfully into his swollen purple eye.
All too soon, the guards marched the inmates into the cement gray building. Vlad shuffled along, the manacles on his wrists and ankles rattling with each step. He suffered through processing and eventually was pushed into a small cell wearing a new jumpsuit and carrying fresh sheets.
Although small, the cell was still larger than the one he’d come from. There was a bunk bed bolted to one wall and a toilet, sink, and mirror on the opposite side. Neither bed was made, and since the door hadn’t shut he figured his cellmate was likely on his way.
There wasn’t a window in the cell, but enough light came through the bars from the windows along the wall outside the cell that he didn’t think he’d need to use the small fluorescent bulb that dangled from a wire above his head.
Someone knocked on the metal bars, and the man with the black eye looked in.
“Put the two tallest guys together,” the man muttered, shaking his head.
“I can send you to the infirmary if you’d prefer to have your own space,” Vlad offered.
The man’s eyes went wide, and his mouth worked up and down soundlessly.
Vlad laughed.
“You’ll get used to my humor soon enough,” he said, then stu
ck out his hand. “Vlad.”
The man shifted his bundle of sheets under his arm and shook it.
“Gilbert.”
Vlad raised an eyebrow.
“I’m not surprised you got that shiner with a name like that.”
The man’s cheeks reddened.
“Can’t help my name,” he said.
“No one gives a shit what your real name is in here,” Vlad said. “Pick something else. Hell, Gil would be better.”
“My name’s Gilbert.”
Vlad punched him in the stomach. Gilbert dropped his things and fell to his knees.
“What the hell?”
“You’re welcome, Gil.”
Gilbert got up slowly, his breath pained.
“Let’s try again,” Vlad said, holding out his hand. “Vlad.”
Gilbert took it.
“Gil.”
Vlad smiled.
“You’re lucky I’m in a good mood,” Vlad said. “Probably all the fresh air.”
Gil put his stack of blankets on the bottom bunk and started making his bed.
“Do I want to know what you’re in for?” Gil said.
“Something worse than whatever you did,” Vlad said. “White-collar?”
The corner of Gil’s mouth twisted up, and he looked over his shoulder at Vlad.
“Something like that,” he said. “The official charge I pled to was felony credit card fraud.”
“And what should it have been?”
Gil went back to smoothing the sheets over the thin mattress.
“Unauthorized access to a government computer with the intent to defraud, trafficking passwords on the Internet with the intent to defraud, and trespassing in relation to a government computer.”
“So a hacker,” Vlad said. “Not a very good one, if you got caught.”
Gil’s face flushed. His fists clenched, bunching the sheets up.
“I got caught because one of my girls was a coward.”
“You’re a pimp too?”
“I steal card numbers, print them on actual cards, then one of the girls goes shopping,” Gil said. “I take the merchandise and sell it for a fraction of the cost online.”
“You said you were hacking a government computer,” Vlad said.
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