“No, I have plans.” I didn’t mean for my reply to be cold, but that was how it came out.
“Ah, the mystery guy.” She leaned against the counter. “When do I get to meet him?”
“I’m not sure.” I stood up with a cup of yogurt in my hand.
“You need to join us for dinner again soon.” My mother nodded absently. “Edgar always asks why you’re not there. He was really hoping tonight would be the night. I hope you’re not avoiding him intentionally…”
“What? No…” I shook my head quickly.
“Good.” She smiled. “There are things he needs to discuss with you. School, remember?”
“Right.” I nodded. “I’ll get with him about that once the semester is over.”
If I don’t fail half my classes because I’ve been so distracted…
“Hey Pennington…” Martinez’s voice drew my attention. “A couple of Jenny’s friends are here.”
“Tell them to go the fuck away.” Pennington walked into view. “Or I will…”
“I thought you might want the honors.” Martinez chuckled. “You’re the one they drew on—dicks, man. They drew dicks on your face.”
“Shut the fuck up.” Pennington stomped towards the front door.
“It must be fun having them follow you everywhere.” I glared at my mother.
“They keep us safe.” My mother walked towards Edgar’s office.
I walked to one of the freshly repaired windows and glanced out to see if I recognized them—and I did. It was Anna and Bolt. I listened to Pennington run them down and threaten to call the cops if they didn’t leave. Bolt looked like he was about to take a swing, but Anna grabbed his arm. I threw my yogurt in the sink and speed-walked as fast as I could to the back door of Sinn Manor. The house was massive, but I couldn’t really go out of the front door if I wanted to talk to Jenny’s friends. Once I was through the back door, I broke out in a sprint that would have made my gym teacher proud—except it had been a while since I tried to put miles on my shoes, so I was nearly out of breath by the time I turned the corner.
“Anna! Bolt!” I motioned to them.
“Leigh?” Anna tilted her head and started walking towards me.
“No, don’t walk over here. Can you meet me at the Carson Cove Library in an hour?” I shooed her away.
“Yeah.” She nodded.
“Okay.” I waved and took off back towards the house.
It was a risk, but I was running out of options—and allies. Anna was Jenny’s best friend. If there was anyone I could trust besides Damien, it would probably be her, but she wasn’t the one that I was going to ask for help. Bolt was able to break into Edgar’s computer like it was nothing. I also remembered what he said when my efforts proved futile. It made me wonder if maybe he could do more than just reset a password.
I made it back to the house, and it seemed like nobody noticed my sprint, so I headed upstairs to grab my things. It wouldn’t take long to get to the Carson Cove Library, but I didn’t want to waste any time. At least I had a cover story—the mysterious boyfriend that was taking up so much of my time. It terrified me to think what would have happened if anyone found out the truth. My mother seemed to have lost her ability to make rational decisions—she was Edgar’s parrot—echoing everything he said with a different inflection in her voice.
Everything looks peaceful downstairs. One smile for Pennington—one smile for Martinez—and then I’ll be on my way.
“Your mother says you won’t be joining us for dinner tonight?” Edgar’s voice stopped me in my tracks.
“No sir.” I turned around to face him and grimaced. “I have plans…”
“The guy you’re seeing?” He nodded. “What’s his name?”
“Uh…” I tried to think on my toes. “Hank! I work with him at the Pembroke Hotel.”
At least he is a real person that actually exists—even if he does have a girlfriend.
“Tell Hank that your mother and I would like to meet him tomorrow.” Edgar tilted his head and smiled. “He can join us for dinner.”
“I’m—sure he would like that.” I felt my heart beating in my ears. “Actually, he’s been asking when I was going to introduce him to my family.”
Wow, I turned the lie faucet on, and now it’s going full blast.
“Good. It’s settled then.” Edgar nodded.
I had officially painted myself into a corner. I was no longer an employee at the Pembroke Hotel. I gave Ms. Valerie the courtesy of quitting instead of making her fire me, but I didn’t give any notice—Hank probably hated me for that, so it was unlikely that he was coming to dinner at Sinn Manor as my pretend boyfriend. I didn’t think Edgar would try to verify my story, but if he did, it was as shaky as the image he projected that made my mother think he was just trying to be a good father. My lies weren’t going to keep me afloat much longer. I drove to the Carson Cove Library and circled a couple of times until I saw Anna and Bolt in the parking lot.
I can’t do anything to save you, Damien—but I will do everything I can for your sister. That probably means more to you than your own future right now…
“Thank you for meeting me.” I rolled to a stop beside them. “Do you think we could have this conversation in the car?”
“Sure.” Bolt nodded and opened the door.
“What’s going on with Jenny?” Anna sat down and turned towards me. “She hasn’t been to school all week. I mean, I get it—her dad is pissed off and has a reason to be, but making her drop out of school seems a bit excessive!”
“This is way worse than her not going to school.” I waited until Bolt was in the backseat and then parked my car. “Look, you two don’t really know me. I don’t really know you. The only thing we have in common is that we all want what’s best for Jenny.”
“Of course…” Anna face twisted into a worried expression.
“I really need some help right now.” I turned towards Bolt. “You said something the other night about not being able to take down a man like Edgar Sinn from his home computer…”
“Yeah, he’s not going to leave incriminating evidence on his desktop.” Bolt shrugged.
“Where would he leave it?” I leaned forward. “And more importantly—how would we get it?”
“Um, I don’t really know.” Bolt shook his head.
“Bolt…” Anna narrowed her eyes at him. “I think we can trust her.”
“We talked about this.” Bolt’s jaw tightened. “It was one thing when we were trying to help your sister, but Jenny kind of brought this on herself. She trashed her dad’s house!”
“He’s forcing her to get married.” I exhaled sharply. “This weekend.”
“What?” All of the color and emotion drained out of Anna’s face.
“Married?!” Bolt blinked in surprise.
“Something is going on. It’s really bad…” I felt my arms shaking.
I hadn’t been able to tell anyone about what was really going on at Sinn Manor. Once I started talking, I couldn’t bottle the emotions back up. I told them about meeting Damien—our relationship—my mother’s abrupt wedding to Edgar—and I even told them about the phone call I overheard. I took it past a simple risk—I laid everything on the line. It didn’t seem like the secrets mattered that much anymore. After my conversation with Edgar, my time at Sinn Manor was being counted in hours instead of days. They would realize something was wrong when I didn’t show up for dinner with the boyfriend, who was supposedly so eager to meet them. I wasn’t even sure if Anna and Bolt could help, but I was running out of options.
“Okay, you’re right.” Bolt nodded. “This is really bad.”
“Bolt can help.” Anna glanced at her boyfriend. “Nobody knows this, but he’s the one who took down Alexis Devereaux.”
“Except that you keep telling people, so it’s hard to say that nobody knows.” Bolt sighed and shook his head. “I need somewhere to work. My mom is hosting her book club at my house tonight, and I really don’t wa
nt to use the public library’s Wi-Fi network for this.”
“My mom is home tonight too…” Anna grimaced.
“I’ve got somewhere we can work.” I nodded.
“Let me grab my stuff from the car.” Bolt opened the door.
Bolt and Anna grabbed their stuff, and I drove us to the villa. Bolt told us that it could take a really long time to get access to anything of importance—and there was no guarantee that he could. I talked with Anna and got to know here a little better while Bolt tapped away on his laptop. After a couple of hours, I started to get fairly antsy. In the back of my mind, I thought it would be as simple as breaking into Edgar’s home computer, and when it wasn’t—I began to worry that it wasn’t going to be possible.
“I think I found something…” Bolt looked up, and then there was a knock at the front door that made him jump out of his seat. “Who the hell is that?”
“Does anyone know you’re here?” Anna’s eyes filled with terror.
“No!” I shook my head back and forth. “Oh god…”
“I told you I had to stop doing this!” Bolt slammed his laptop shut. “Fuck, I’m about to go to jail…”
“She doesn’t look like a cop…” I peered around the corner and saw a woman standing at the door. “She’s not dressed like a cop.”
“The cops you should be scared of don’t wear blue!” Bolt started shoving all of his stuff into his bag.
“I’m just going to answer the door. Don’t freak out—yet.” I sighed and walked to the door.
“Don’t let her in unless she has a warrant!” Bolt sighed so loud I could hear him from the front of the villa.
This day is already going every which way but right, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the cops really did show up.
“Hi…” I opened the door. “Can I help you with something?”
“Are you Leigh?” She tilted her head.
“Um…” My head snapped back. “Yeah?”
“My name is Addison Regan. I’m Damien’s attorney. He said I might find you here if you weren’t at the Pembroke Hotel or Sinn Manor.” She looked past me. “Is someone here with you?”
“Just a couple of friends.” I motioned towards the living room. “Is Damien okay? I’ve been looking for his arraignment on the docket every single day!”
“It’s been delayed. As for him, he’s as good as he can be considering the circumstances.” She looked down for a moment. “I’ve got a message from him.”
“Okay…” I felt a lump rising up in my throat.
“Something really bad is about to happen.” She grimaced. “He doesn’t want you anywhere near Sinn Manor.”
Does he know about the wedding, or is he planning something himself?
“Tell him I won’t be going back.” I took a deep breath and blew it out through pursed lips.
“He said you would put up a fight…” Addison blinked in surprise.
“No.” I shook my head back and forth. “Not this time.”
“I hope you’re telling me the truth.” Addison sighed. “Edgar Sinn is involved with some really dangerous people.”
I could sense that Addison didn’t entirely believe me, but I was being honest with her. My fight was no longer within the walls of Sinn Manor—that wasn’t where I was going to find what I needed to bring Edgar down. I had exhausted all of my possibilities there and painted myself into a corner—I had to stop fighting the losing battle with my mother and focus on winning the one that could possibly put an end to the wedding. I didn’t know if it would be enough to get Damien out of jail, but saving his sister was the top priority. If nothing else, she could take responsibility for her actions—and I didn’t think anyone was going to fault her for it when they found out what kind of nefariousness her father had planned.
“She wasn’t a cop?” Bolt tensed up when I entered the room.
“No, it was Damien’s lawyer.” I sat down. “You said you found something?”
“Maybe…” Bolt pulled his laptop back out and opened it. “Sinn Technology’s server is a fortress—but I found a way in.”
“Because you’re the best.” Anna smiled and scooted closer to him.
She seems as impressed by his hacking skills as she was by Dylan Benson’s keg stand…
“This is going to take some time.” Bolt sighed. “I’m in, but there’s no way I can sort through it all to look for something useful. That’s assuming there is something useful.”
“Can you download the server?” I leaned over to look at his screen.
“It’s hosted in a cloud…” Bolt narrowed his eyes. “I could probably mirror the cloud, which would be just as good downloading it—problem is, we would still need a lot of eyes to go through it all.”
“I could call my sister.” Anna reached for her phone. “She does owe us a favor.”
“Yeah, do that.” Bolt nodded. “I’m going to get in touch with my brother while I’m mirroring the server. He might have some ideas.”
I set up my laptop while they were making phone calls. I got the feeling that we were going to be there for a while if it was going to require the kind of effort that Bolt described. An hour later, I welcomed Anna’s sister, Taylor, to the villa—and thirty minutes after that, we had Bolt’s brother on video chat. Bolt ran down what we were looking for, and it was basically anything suspicious—a breadcrumb that could give us direction. Bolt’s brother told how to build an index and search functionality for the server once it was mirrored. Bolt followed his instructions and then gave us all a link to get started.
“How are we going to know when we find something suspicious?” Anna glanced over at Bolt.
“Almost every company has something to hide, but we’re not really looking for trade secrets—we’re looking for personal emails, access points, and the kind of stuff people don’t realize they’ve left out there for someone to find.” Bolt typed a couple of things into his computer.
“Like when the Russians got access to Hillary Clinton’s emails?” Taylor raised her eyebrows.
“Yeah.” Bolt nodded. “Except we’re the Russians…”
“Got it.” Anna tapped on her keyboard.
The hours melted away. I ordered some food for all of us and footed the bill since I was the one that basically begged for their help. We all looked like zombies—staring at our computer screens and reading everything that we could find in the Sinn Technology server. I noticed a few yawns when it started to get late, so I made coffee for those that wanted it. It gave me a quick boost, but that didn’t last long. My eyes were getting tired. My head was starting to hurt. I could feel the constant stream of dead ends, leaving their mark on the room. I wasn’t the only one that was nearing the point of exhaustion. I started randomly clicking—with frustration growing by the second—and then I saw something that piqued my interest.
“Hey…” I narrowed my eyes. “Can someone look up when Edgar Sinn was arrested?”
“I got it.” Taylor grabbed her phone. “I remember it was on the news—here it is…”
“Let me see.” I looked at the article. “Yes, I’ve got something!”
“What is it?” Bolt hopped up and ran over to where I was sitting.
“This is an email from Edgar, but it’s on a different account.” I pointed at the email address. “It looks like the person who responded sent it to his Sinn Technology account.”
“He was making arrangements for protection while he was behind bars.” Bolt nodded. “I’m surprised; I thought he got sent to one of those white-collar prisons.”
“Is that illegal?” I looked around the room.
“I don’t know.” Taylor shrugged.
“Here, let’s index that email address.” Bolt leaned forward. “May I?”
“Go ahead.” I turned my keyboard towards him.
“Oh shit, yes—this is what we need.” Bolt grabbed my computer and sat down on the floor. “That email account isn’t on the Sinn Technology server.”
“Where is it?”
I leaned forward.
“It’s in another cloud.” He sighed. “Fuck, this may take a while.”
All of us decided to take a break while Bolt worked. We filled our coffee cups and walked down to the beach. The evening air felt good and helped erase some of the exhaustion that had started to leave a mark on all of us. The beach reminded me of Damien, and the first time we made love. I wished I could rewind time to that moment—before I knew how much brimstone was going to be rained on our lives. It wouldn’t have changed anything, but it would have still been nice to live in that moment for another day—I would have settled for a single solitary minute—just to feel Damien’s arms around me.
“Come back!” Bolt motioned to us from the villa. “I’m in!”
“He’s amazing…” I looked over at Anna.
“I know.” She smiled.
“Way more impressive than one of Dylan Benson’s keg stands.” I nudged her.
“Say what now?” Taylor glanced over at us.
“Taylor’s married to Dylan’s dad.” Anna gave me a look that simply said shut-the-hell-up.
“Oh!” I blinked in surprise.
We made it back to the villa before I got another opportunity to stick my foot in my mouth. The cloud that held Edgar’s personal email account was a lot easier to break into than the one that was backed up by Sinn Technology’s firewall. It was a good thing Bolt didn’t actually want to cause damage with his hacking skills because he was extremely talented. Bolt mirrored the cloud with all of Edgar’s personal emails, and then we went to work. He didn’t seem to be very forthcoming in his emails—there were a lot of them that were very vague and ended with call me. I didn’t expect to find a full confession—but if we could find anything that pointed to illegal activity, we might be able to convince someone with authority to ask for one to sit him down in a room.
“I’ve got something.” Anna pulled something up on her screen. “It looks like a draft for wedding invitations. Jenny is apparently marrying someone named Giovanni De Luca.”
“Who the hell is that? He definitely doesn’t go to our school…” Bolt started typing on his screen. “Oh shit. That guy his bad news. He’s been arrested a few times.”
Devious Intentions (Carson Cove Sandals Book 3) Page 22
