“How was that possible?” Badger asked.
“Someone accessed her account remotely and made changes,” I explained.
“So, her security system is useless?” Dash asked.
“In this instance, yes. Whoever is behind this knows how to hack security systems. Ironically, disabling residential alarms is fairly easy.”
“This is exactly why I’m going to have at least two brothers stationed at Gabby’s house. They can hide their bikes in her garage. If we want it to look like she’s there, we can park her car in the driveway. This person has already entered her house twice. I have no doubt they’ll try again,” Phoenix said.
“Her house is a mess, Prez,” I added.
“We’ll have the cops come out so she’ll have a report for her insurance company. Once that’s done, we’ll get her place cleaned up and put back in order. When does she have to go back to work or school?”
“Tuesday morning.”
“All right. Let’s have her stay in Croftridge through Monday. She can stay at the clubhouse or your place. Shaker and Keegan will be back on Sunday. We’ll reconvene then and come up with a plan for next week if there are no developments between now and then. Any objections?” Phoenix asked.
When everyone agreed with the plan, Phoenix asked if I had any updates.
“Nothing, Prez. I haven’t been able to find anything on Chad Higgins, or who he really is.”
“Are we sure he’s the one behind this?” Phoenix asked.
“No, not completely. But the timing, the lies he told Gabby, and his lack of an online presence strongly suggest he is,” I said.
“Are there any other potential suspects?” Duke asked.
I shook my head. “No, just Chad. Gabby said he was the only new person in her life, and her troubles started right after she broke things off with him.”
“Sounds like Chad knows a thing or two about computers,” Carbon said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “And it’s pissing me right the hell off.”
“He’ll fuck up sooner or later,” Badger said. “And we’ll be ready for him.”
“Okay, I’ll send Edge, Diesel, and Ink to Gabby’s house. Once the police have come and gone, Edge can disconnect the cameras while the other two get started on clean up,” Phoenix said.
“Wait. Why would he disconnect the cameras?” Duke asked.
“So the little wanna-be hacker can’t turn them on remotely and see that Gabby’s house is being occupied by a bunch of pissed-off bikers,” I said.
“All right, I think that’s everything. Are you two staying here or going back to your place?” Phoenix asked.
“I guess we’ll stay here unless she says otherwise, which I doubt will happen since she’s not talking.”
“What do you mean she’s not talking?” Carbon demanded.
“She hasn’t said a word since she saw her house. She’ll respond to directions, like ‘get out of the truck’ or ‘let’s go inside,’ but that’s it. Harper’s with her now,” I explained.
“Reese used to do that,” he said quietly. “After we lost our family, sometimes she’d just shut down. She was like a damn robot.”
“What did you do to bring her out of it?” I asked eagerly. I was willing to do anything to bring Gabby back from wherever her mind had gone.
“I held her and talked to her like I always did. I never acknowledged her zombie-like state. I carried on like everything was normal,” he explained.
“And that worked?”
He shrugged. “I really don’t know. Sometimes it was only minutes, while other times it took days, but she always came back around.”