Page 36 of After Tonight

Riley frowned. “That’s…awful.”

“It is. And since I’ve been involved with him, I’ve been learning a lot more and getting involved too. I’m working more as an advocate. I’ve trained to work with girls after they get out. And I’m working to raise awareness.”

Riley nodded. Now that Peyton mentioned it, she’d seen on the town’s website that Peyton was raising money for a community project that would raise awareness and indicate that Sapphire Falls was a safe place for victims.

“But I was thinking about it the other night when Scott was talking about how there are websites being used to find victims. They offer things like nanny positions or other jobs, or all-expense-paid trips, or internships, and people sign up and give them all their information, agree to meet them somewhere and that’s how they’re taken. I was thinking that the task force could really use someone who knows all about websites and hacking to help them track the people behind them and get them taken down.”

Riley shook her head. “I’m sure they have access to people who are way smarter than I am.”

Peyton grinned. “I sincerely doubt it. And we’re not talking about people who design sites. They need someone who knows how to get into sites and see what’s behind the scenes.” She leaned closer. “You hacked into a Fortune 500 company. A company with some of the highest security and tech. Right?”

It was a Fortune 100 company actually, but she didn’t point that out. “I did. Accidentally.”

Peyton laughed. “Accidentally? I’ll give you that you didn’t know what you were doing was wrong, but you did it very intentionally.”

Her boss had tricked her, actually. Lied to her. Used her. Which was why the charges against her were dropped—well, that and the fact that she’d testified against him on that count as well as several others.

“Yeah, okay, I did it.”

“So you could easily hack into a site these jackasses put up, right?”

“What would that accomplish?” She didn’t mind the idea of hacking sex traffickers at all, of course. Those scum of the earth deserved anything and everything that happened to them. But she wasn’t sure how hacking them could help.

“Is there a way to hack the site so they think it’s still up but it’s not actually visible to anyone else? They have to stay active since that’s how the cops are setting up stings, but we don’t want real kids finding the sites.”

Riley nodded. “I’m sure I could do something. We’d have to feed it fake info but yeah, that could be done.”

Peyton grinned at her. “Awesome. I figured you could. And you could probably find their bank accounts too? Phone records, travel invoices, things like that?”

“I could definitely do that.”

“And you’re willing to work with Scott on this?”

Do something more important than building websites for local merchants who did only about 10% of their actual business online because everyone could walk a few blocks to the actual store and get bonus town gossip while they picked up their supplies? Um, yeah.

“It would be a paid position,” Peyton added.

Even better. “Have you talked to Scott about any of this?” Riley asked.

“I mentioned that I was going to talk to you about it.”

Riley was surprised to feel a little streak of disappointment. This wasn’t a done deal. “Oh, okay.”

“But they need you,” Peyton said firmly. “We have to take these people down, and the people they have working on this stuff right now just aren’t good enough.”

Helping to stop sex trafficking. That seemed like something even Riley’s mom would approve of her doing with her “computer obsession.” “Okay, talk to Scott. Let me know what he thinks.”

“Great.” Peyton pushed a piece of paper across the table. “And just in case you’re curious.”

It was a list of five websites. And of course she was curious. Did this mean that she was going to go in and start poking around even without Scott’s full permission?

Oh yeah.

“Got it.” She gave Peyton a smile.

Peyton pushed her chair back and stood, but hesitated.

“Something else?” Riley asked.

Peyton looked like she wanted to say more but finally shook her head. “Just check out the sites. I’ll find you tomorrow and we can chat.”

Riley nodded and watched Peyton head out the door. Wow, Peyton Wells leaving the bar before midnight. Things really did change.

For the next two hours, Riley scoured the websites Peyton had given her behind a privacy setting that even the Pentagon would have a hard time getting through. And by the time it was last call, Riley had made a very important decision.

She was going to help take these guys down even if Scott didn’t give permission for her to work with the task force. They had to go down, and she could be a part of it. She not only had the skills, but thanks to being back in Sapphire Falls, she had the time. Not to mention the desire to prove to the world—okay, and herself—that she wasn’t a complete screwup.

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