I glanced at my watch. It was past midnight. My few hours of studying had turned into four of them. “Sorry. There’s so much material to cover. Sometimes I forget to come up for air.”
“You can keep studying. I just wanted you to know that I’m going to bed.”
I shut my book. Set it on top of my study guide. “Me too.”
I followed Leo up the stairs. The hallway at the top was small and square. He gestured to the room on the left. “That’s yours. I call it the Baby Bear Room.”
The Baby Bear Room only had enough space for a twin bed and a child-size dresser. But that was all the room I needed.
“Still starting your shift at six?”
I shook my head. “I don’t work at the Blue Dog on Sundays. But I do have to go to the library. I have students tomorrow.”
“I’ll drive you. I’ll pick you up. We still don’t know why your friend was killed. You’re the only link we have to his murder. I need to keep eyes on you until we get this guy.”
Left unsaid was the thought that both of us must have been thinking. He needed eyes that could recognize what they were seeing.
He needed eyes that worked.
Chapter 36
One benefit of sleeping at the Blue Dog? I didn’t regret my lack of pajamas. And I didn’t have to get dressed in the morning. In Leo’s guest bedroom, though I took my jeans off, I wore my shirt to bed.
I crept into the bathroom when my alarm went off and took a quick shower, and then I got dressed and went downstairs as quietly as I could. The one thing I could do to repay Leo for his kindness was make an excellent pot of coffee before he woke up. I rummaged through his cabinets and found the filters for his coffee maker. I made myself a peanut butter sandwich and slipped it into my backpack. That way I wouldn’t have to worry about dinner.
I heard Leo pad down the stairs and soon he was leaning into the kitchen from the dining room. “You sleep okay?” He was wearing a T-shirt over a pair of running shorts. His black hair was sticking out all over the place.
I shrugged. I never slept okay. It was a hazard of always worrying whether the next day was going to be the one when the fragile world I’d built fell apart.
“Was it the bed?”
I shook my head. “It was my head.”
“Yeah. Sometimes I have trouble sleeping too. I think about all the ways these things can go wrong.”
These things? Things about the investigation? “What things?” I poured him a cup of coffee.
He took it from me. “Things. Everything. Every single thing.”
“Like what?”
He shrugged. “It wouldn’t be fair to share. I don’t want to scare you.”
“Or you could look at it this way: if I know what you’re up against, then maybe I can find a way to help you.”
“Okay. So here’s the highlight reel. The big one: What if he gets you before we get him?”
That was mostly what I worried about too.
“And what is China doing at the FDIC?”
“They’re not only in the FDIC.” I told him about the stablecoin verification hack.
“Maybe that’s what it is.” He took a sip. “Maybe it’s not the old hack everyone’s worried about. Maybe it’s this new one.”
“But the verification system isn’t the FDIC’s. It’s the stablecoin company’s. They verify that account holders have actual accounts at FDIC-insured banks. The system isn’t linking to the FDIC.” At least, that was my understanding.
“So now I’m back to not knowing anything. I could tell you I understand all this crypto stuff, but when I actually sit down to think about it?” He shook his head. “It all slips away from me. It feels like people make it up out of nothing. They used to print money; now they get computer programs to create it.”
“Money is money. The value is in people wanting it. It’s worth what we all say it’s worth whether it exists on paper or in digital form. We know the strength of America is the strength of her markets, and the strength of her markets is the stability of the dollar, right?”
Leo shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I’m the guy who just works hard and saves hard and doesn’t ask questions.”
“That’s what the FDIC is supposed to do: ensure the stability of the dollar by insuring deposits and supervising the nation’s financial institutions. So maybe we assume that’s exactly what China doesn’t want. They don’t want our currency to be stable. Why else would they put someone at the FDIC to keep their hands in all that data?”
He took another sip. “Okay. I’ll play. We assume malicious intent. But what can they do? And more than that, what can they do now that they couldn’t do ten years ago? Third question: Why wait so long to do it?”
“I don’t know. But whatever Cade found made someone jump.”
“What kind of guy was Cade? Have you ever pictured him asking you his question in person? Tried to figure out what conversation he was talking about?”
“I have. And I still don’t know.”
Leo ran a hand through his hair, raking his bangs back from his forehead. “Seems to me, if we’re assuming malicious intent, and we know China has stolen information from the FDIC and embedded itself in that verification system, then we have to assume they have the ability to mess with our economy. The question is how much of a mess would they be able to make.”
“There was over two billion dollars tied up in that stablecoin. And tens of thousands of accounts at FDIC-insured banks at up to $250,000 per account.”
“Then that’s a big mess.”
It was the kind of mess that Hartwell used to propose when he talked about cryptocurrencies. He always argued that I was much too naïve. That people would find a way to corrupt the technology before a framework could be put in place to protect it. Hartwell could always stay two steps ahead in any argument. That was his superpower. It was thinking that far ahead that made him a visionary. “It might be worth talking to Congressman Thorpe.”
“Why?”
“Because he was sitting on the Science, Space, and Technology Committee back in 2010. He might know something about the original hack that would help us. And there was a bill that was just voted down in the House. It had to do with strengthening that banking system. It’s one he worked really hard to get through the committee when I was there. But when it came to the floor just recently, he voted against it.”
“Be nice to know why, wouldn’t it?”
I raised my mug in his direction. “And I know he sat through the hearings on cryptocurrency. I was there. At the very least, considering he knew Cade too, maybe he could look at the information about Cade from a different perspective. Sometimes that’s all it takes.”
“I can suggest it.”
I reached behind me for the coffeepot. “More?” I held it up.
“Yes, please. Lots.” He held out his mug while I poured. “Hey—want some toast? I have this great recipe.”
“Maybe.”
“It involves a toaster. I’ll do some up for you.”
We traded places. He made some toast and buttered it. Put it on a plate and handed it to me. I took it into the dining room.
He joined me several minutes later with a plate of his own. His had eggs on it. He paused as he passed my chair, tilted his plate, and shoveled half of them onto mine. Handed me a fork. “So this bar exam. When is it again?”
“Just over two weeks.”
“So once you pass it—”
“Don’t jinx me.”
“If you pass it.”
“Stop talking, Leo.”
“Okay, so how about this: What if you don’t pass it? What’s your backup?”
“I don’t have a backup plan.”
“No plan B?”
“No contingencies. That’s why I’m studying so hard.”
“But what if life doesn’t go your direction?”
“Life has never gone my direction. I’ll give you the summary. I was born with face blindness.”
“Yeah. Th
at one, I know.”
“I got through high school, graduated with a 4.0, aced the SAT. Accepted scholarships to the school of my dreams.”
“Sounds real tough.”
“I thought the patchwork of scholarships they’d pieced together was good for all four years. My parents were wonderful, but they didn’t go to college. They trusted me to sort through the application process.”
“So it wasn’t a full ride?”
“It was. But the scholarships were renewable annually. I didn’t understand the fine print, so I didn’t renew them. I had to take out loans for the other three years.”
“Okay.”
“After my undergraduate degree, I was going to go back home, but I got talked into applying to graduate school.”
“How do you get talked into something like that?”
“The usual way. ‘Everyone is doing it.’ And it kind of made sense. My undergraduate is in finance. Fascinating, but not a lot of opportunities at the lower levels. Not in what I wanted to do. So I went back to school. I worked part-time during my master’s degree because—”
“In? What’s your master’s in?”
“International economic policy. The clock on repaying my undergrad loans started once I graduated. I could have deferred, but recall that I did study finance. With compounding interest, that loan would have gotten a lot worse. I had to take out more loans for my master’s. And more for my law degree. My father doesn’t know any of this. And I definitely haven’t told him about the shooting.”
“So the plan is?”
“Pass the bar. And then do what every law student does: get a job with a big firm. Do the associate thing for enough years to substantially pay down my loans, and then I can intersect with the path my father thinks I’m already on.”
“You don’t seem like the corporate type to me.”
“A lot of law students are the corporate type at first. It’s like being a med student. You have to slog through the rotations before you can actually be given the chance to work in your specialty.”
“Well, what do I know? It’s a plan. But I’m a little ambivalent on the whole lying-to-your-dad thing because parents always seem to figure that kind of stuff out. Other than that, sounds good.”
“So glad it meets your approval.” I took my plate and Leo’s into the kitchen. Turned on the light. Scraped the crust of his toast into the sink, turned on the water, and flipped the switch for the garbage disposal.
The switch emitted a sharp buzz just before the lights went off.
I froze. “Leo? Leo!”
“Here.” I heard his chair scrape and his footsteps cross the dining room floor.
My hand was shaking. Stupid hand. “What did I do?”
He slipped past me and opened the door to the basement. “It’s an old house. I have to get it rewired. But for now, you can’t turn on the light and the garbage disposal at the same time.”
“Sorry.”
“Now you know. Circuit breaker’s in the basement. I’ll go down and flip it back on.”
When the lights came on, it was as if everything had changed. I tried to tell myself that it was due to nerves. If things looked distorted, somewhat larger and brighter than before, then it was because my heart was racing, my eyes darting. The house wasn’t any less safe, any less welcoming or secure. But it took a while for my hands to stop trembling. And it took a few minutes before my heart stopped feeling like it was trying to escape through my throat.
Chapter 37
As I was slinging my backpack over my shoulder getting ready to leave, Leo’s phone pinged. He picked it up. Read something. Then he told me he wouldn’t be able to drive me to the library. “My boss is on the way over to pick me up.”
I told him I’d catch a car.
As he put the dishes in the dishwasher, someone rang the doorbell.
“Can you get that? It’s just my boss. Can you tell her I’m almost ready?”
I walked to the door and turned a screw to look out the old-fashioned peephole.
The woman outside started knocking. “Leo? I know you’re there! We don’t have time to screw around.”
Leo passed me at a jog on his way to the stairs. “Go ahead. Open it.”
He’d drilled paranoia into me. It was a little disorienting to have him suddenly ask me to open the door. “You’re sure you know who it is?” I gave him a last look as he disappeared up the stairs and then I opened the door. “Leo said to tell you he’ll be right here.” I stood aside so the woman could enter.
But she stayed outside, on the stoop. “You’re the one, aren’t you?”
“Sorry?”
“The blind girl.”
“Woman. I’m the woman with face blindness.”
“Are you staying here? With him?”
“Um—” What was the appropriate response? Kind of, but not really? “Just for a few nights. It’s not, um—”
She tilted her head.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with—”
She tilted it the other way.
“He was kind enough to—”
Leo joined me, pulling on a sports coat. “Hey.” He smelled like toothpaste.
The woman placed a hand on the doorframe. “What’s she doing here?”
He was wrestling with a tie. “When that thing with the prowler happened, she lost her lease. She didn’t have any place to go, so—”
“You’re not doing this, Leo.”
Leo was shaking his head. “It’s not what you—”
“Save it. We’ll deal with it later.” She pointed a thumb toward her car. “Let’s go.”
* * *
Leo’s voice echoed in my head as I got into the ride-share I took to work.
Keep your phone with you at all times. Don’t be stupid. Stay out in the open, among other people. Don’t go anywhere by yourself.
By the time I got to the library, I didn’t want to get out of the car. I wanted nothing more than to hide out somewhere until the killer was caught. But I had to show up for my students; otherwise, their parents wouldn’t keep paying me.
My second student canceled on me; I spent that time doing some work of my own, thinking about that hack back in 2010 and why it might still be important to the FBI.
What if China did want to destabilize our economy? How would they do it?
The answer was simple: by making the markets crash.
How could they do that?
It wouldn’t be very difficult. Aside from being a trading partner, they held quite a bit of our economy in the palm of their hand. I’d learned that during my research project. They were the largest foreign holder of US government debt. They were the largest foreign owner of both commercial and residential real estate. They sent over three hundred thousand students to our universities. If they made concerted moves on all of those fronts . . . If they suddenly sold all the debt they owned, it could send a shock through the debt market. If they dumped all the real estate they owned, it might tip the housing market. If they stopped sending us their students, all those full-tuition payments would pull the rug out from dozens of universities that relied on that funding.
The harder thing would be to send us into recession, to make the markets lose so much confidence that they wouldn’t bounce back in two or three weeks. In order to do that, they’d have to really shake the faith of the average consumer.
How could they do that?
I puzzled over that question for a long time.
Toward the end of the hour, I got up to take a break. I said hi to Harold. Poked around the fiction section to see if any of my favorite authors had books I hadn’t read. As I reached the end of the aisle, a man in a red baseball cap passed by at the other end.
I found one of my favorite authors. Fantasizing about life after I took the bar exam, I pulled out one of her books. Opened it to the first chapter to figure out if I’d read it before.
I had.
I went on to the next aisle. As I stopped in front of anothe
r shelf, in my peripheral vision, the man with the baseball cap drifted by again.
Was he following me?
I decided to do an experiment. I went back to the aisle I’d just been in.
Several seconds later, he drifted by again. In the opposite direction.
He was following me.
Immediately, I went back to my table in the center of the room. I texted Leo.
At library
Man following me
He replied almost immediately.
Texting agent now
A moment later, a woman who had been looking up something on the library’s digital catalog took a seat at the table beside mine.
It made me feel slightly better. At least I knew someone else was on my side. And maybe now, someone who could remember faces would get a look at his.
I spent a jumpy fifteen minutes looking over my shoulder until I saw the man disappear down the stairs, a stack of books in hand.
Leo came into the library to get me several minutes before I was done with my last student. He sat down at the table behind us, sideways in the chair, arm draped over the back. I could tell it was him by the way he sat there. And by his hair. My fingers itched to push it back into place.
As my student walked away, he slid into the vacated seat. “He’s not still here, is he?”
“Who?”
“The man who was following you.”
I felt my cheeks get hot. “No. Turned out he was just looking for books. He left with a stack of them.”
* * *
Leo drove us back to his place. We stopped to pick up my plants underneath Mrs. Harper’s deck on the way. Once we got back, I dove right into studying.
As I sat down to open my books, I grabbed an index card. But China was still on my mind. I’d already decided they could tank the markets if they really wanted to.
As I’d told Congressman Thorpe when I’d presented my report, our economy had vulnerabilities. That should have been apparent to anyone who was watching. Especially in terms of China. None of its investments in our economy was new information. None of them had been made in secret.
China could provoke a national financial storm if they wanted to, but on an international scale, our economy would still be viewed as relatively stable. The proof of that? No other currency was seriously considered as an alternate reserve currency to the dollar.
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