I wasn’t an altar boy, and I loved the money as much as any other Kensington, but that didn’t mean I’d sit around and let a woman get shot. My twin and I helped our share of people obtain new identities. We gave them the chance to start new lives. Fresh beginnings.
Hazel fell into the far most needy category.
I sent one more text to Drake.
CORBIN: Monitor her and send me updates.
Hazel would be safe with Drake watching her, but if she’d been truthful, the Grandmaster might come calling, and she had to prepare.
I needed more time to figure out Hazel Webb and learn exactly what the All American Bank’s CEO wanted hidden. Whatever it was, he considered it enough to tie himself to a mob connection and the dangerous man who ran it.
CHAPTER3
HAZEL
By the next morning, I’d finally come up with a safer place to hide the thumb drive. I couldn’t keep it on me any longer, so I stashed it after the meeting.
The thing was burning a hole in my pocket, and I didn’t want to be caught with it by someone I shouldn’t. I didn’t want the thing anywhere near me. This went beyond plausible deniability. I needed just plain deniability.
Our team secretary called to let me know about my boss’s death, and I hoped she believed my shocked response. After we finished sobbing to each other—each of us for different reasons—I explained about my sick grandmother and how I needed a few more days.
I promised to make it back for Sean’s funeral. If I lived that long, my made-up grandma would have an amazing recovery.
I just had to hope no one dug into my files to question my story and remember four years ago I used three days of bereavement pay to attend my real grandmother’s funeral. It might not have been the best excuse to use, but I didn’t have any experience in coming up with lies to miss work. I wasn’t good with lies in general.
Yesterday afternoon during my meeting with TerminalChaos, I was full of jitters and nerves looking over my shoulder, worried I’d get shot at any moment. Since then, I’d had a full night of sleep and time to think about my situation.
It didn’t help.
Not one bit.
I woke up more scared than I’d been the day before. I didn’t know how to contact a hacker about the thumb drive. The only reason I knew TerminalChaos—err—Corbin Kensington was because of Sean’s work contracts and his failed meeting with him earlier. I wasn’t surfing the dark web. I didn’t know where master hackers hung out.
At least the thumb drive was no longer in my possession. After being rejected by Corbin, I hid it in the bathroom at the town’s bakery. Even though I no longer had it, I swore the imprint of it stayed in my pocket. I didn’t bury the thumb drive under the floorboards, but the rhythmic thumbing of its heartbeat followed me to the bed-and-breakfast.
I couldn’t see the thumb drive, but it was too close. I needed to move it farther away. Preferably to a different country. Where someone definitely wouldn’t find it.
How often did they clean the bathrooms in that bakery? Probably often. At least once a day. What if someone looked underneath the sink and found it shoved in the box of free tampons they had for customers?
My hiding place had too many variables. Too many chances for everything to go wrong. If someone else came across it, they might accidentally throw it away. Then what happened?
I needed to find a safer hiding place. But where? Not on me. Or in my room. I wanted to legit bury it beneath the floorboards. But the bed-and-breakfast in Pelican Bay was one of those old historic buildings. It had a big wraparound porch and multiple stories, with a bright blue paint job reminding you of what this town looked like 150 years ago. If I went around prying out floorboards, I’d probably end up in jail.
But I couldn’t keep it on me. I also couldn’t let it stay in the bakery much longer. I needed to hide it until I found somebody to break the encryption. And I needed to do it soon. So far, no one knew my boss gave me the thumb drive. But how long until they figured it out?
Sean wasn’t a secret spy. He couldn’t even figure out I’d been lying about his coffee for years. No way had he done a good job covering his movements when he came to my apartment.
And Corbin Kensington wasn’t the only supersmart hacker on the planet. I just didn’t know enough nerdy men at the present, and it wasn’t like I had knowledge of where to find them on the internet. Did they have hacker white pages? Sean never said how he found TerminalChaos’s information. He constantly left out important information.
Either way, screw Corbin, I had other means at my disposal. I had no money, I knew no contacts, and no ability to break the encryption myself, but I wasn’t a project coordinator for nothing. Figuring out shit was part of my job. I Just needed enough time to think of a good plan.
And brain food.
I didn’t choose to stay at the bed-and-breakfast for its free breakfast. But I also didn’t miss the signs when I walked by them last night. There was a dining room to order whatever you wanted and a free continental breakfast set up in the back. Who knew when I’d collect a paycheck next, so I decided on the free option.
They had a large spread with little boxes of cereal and cartons of milk in a small refrigerator. Bagels sat next to a toaster along with two loaves of bread, one white and one wheat. As soon as I saw the food, I lost my appetite. The thought of having something in my stomach no longer sounded like the brilliant solution it did a few minutes earlier.
I grabbed a banana off the bunch on the top of a basket and mulled over the other choices. The woman Katy who checked me into my room yesterday before the meeting with Corbin stood at the end of the table rearranging a stack of napkins.