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 andoveragain. 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.
I shook my head. “I’m still trailing the SUV.”
He came to stand next to me. “Give me the license plate number. I have another team on standby. They can help you.”
Another team?
I frowned up at him. “What? Who?”
He was scanning the video feeds I had up on the screen and, distracted, he replied, “I have two teams working for me. One does computer stuff like this.”
My mouth dropped. “You’re telling me this now?”
“Yeah.” He glanced down, back to the screen, and did a double take back to me. His eyes narrowed. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Who’s doing the computer stuff? Do you know them personally? Do you trust them? Why haven’t you told me any of this?”