Page 69 of Submitting to Them
“Baldwin and I have been sharing notes on the investigations,” she says.“He called and said he has an update.”
When we get inside, Baldwin greets us and takes us into a conference room.Several large whiteboards on wheels are shoved along the far wall.Two of them are facing the room, and I recognize photos of Kristin, me, our office building, as well as images of some of my other employees…and then, Rayanne, Steve, and Joel.Illegible notes are scrawled all over the boards, words squeezed together to fit, some crossed out, some circled.
“Where’s Kristin?”I ask.
“She’s okay,” Baldwin says.“She’s at the hospital for an evaluation, but she seems, on the surface, perfectly healthy.”
“Does she know who took her?”I ask.
“We found them at the same time as Kristin.Steve and Rayanne Hackler.We have them both in custody.”
“Rayanne?Steve?”I shake my head, because even though I had suspicions after learning Joel had been surveilling Ella’s apartment, this is a bit much.What in the actual fuck are they doing?“Kidnapping?”
Baldwin looks directly at me and says, “I need to know if you’re helping to hide your son.”
My mouth falls open.I don’t know how to respond.As soon as I gather my wits, I say, “Fuck, no.No.If he’s responsible for this, he can face the consequences.I don’t know where he is, and I certainly am not helping him evade the police.”
“Okay.”Baldwin nods.“Just making sure.”
I’m a little annoyed he would have to ask, but I can understand it’s his job.
“Did you find them after the voice recording I sent you?”I ask him.
Baldwin says, “We were already investigating the Hacklers, at that point.There were too many incidents, too much happening with your company at the center of it.While you didn’t think your ex-wife and her husband had much motive because of her own successful company, Perdure Pharma, we started looking into them at the urging of your private investigator.”
“Perdure is worth hundreds of billions,” I say.“Tyler Analytics is insignificant compared to Perdure.”
He shakes his head at the same time Lin does, and he gestures for her to go ahead and speak.
“Perdure is getting dragged through the justice system, but so far they’ve managed to keep their problems out of the media,” Lin says.“Their development of that ‘diet’ drug—Ruffexone—has led to fatal addictions and it’s alleged that the Hacklers were aware of and even encouraged its use despite Ruffexone’s highly addictive properties.”
“The more we dug, and with the help of the Ironwood team,” Baldwin says, “the more we found for motives.Not only that, we were starting to put together that these incidents you’ve seen lately, aren’t isolated at all.The only ones we can’t piece together are the bomb threat, and the stabbing of Sebastian Crown.”
He gestures at the whiteboard and I go over to it, looking at it more carefully.In green boxes are the words BOMB THREAT, STABBING, KIDNAPPING, HACKING.I grab a marker and add CROWLEY’S MURDER and VIDEO SURVEILLANCE.
“What’s this for?”Baldwin says.
“Crowley was watching Ella’s apartment…for Joel—and probably for the Hacklers,” I say.“They knew she was connected to me, and were likely trying to get some dirt on us.They went through Ella because her apartment was low-security and easily accessed, unlike my penthouse.”
Baldwin says, “We’ll ask about that in interviews, and have our team do sweeps for electronic files and other receipts.”
I nod.Good.I want everything they’re responsible for to be pinned on them.
“The stabbing might not be them at all,” I add, “but you can ask about it.Ella thinks it’s related to her brother’s issues.”
Baldwin makes some notes on the whiteboard.“That still leaves the bomb threat.Other than being disruptive, what can it gain them?Kristin’s kidnapping threw a major wrench into your daily operations, and the attempted hack would have, as well.The fake bomb, though?”
“I want to show you something I noticed in video footage the day of,” Lin says, holding up her phone.“I just found it this afternoon and I’ve been puzzling over it.”
She types in a long-ass passcode and uses her thumbprint to open her phone.She doesn’t take any risks with her tech, it appears.A moment later, she’s typing in more codes and then accessing what I’m assuming is Ironwood’s files.
“Here it is,” she says, clicking on one.
A video pops up and begins playing.I see Kristin and me, as well as that other couple who worked in the building, coming down the stairs.The screen pans out because our cameras move from time to time, and a second later, we pass the bomb technicians who we spoke to on the stairway.
“Those two people here, in the gear.”She points at the male and female bomb techs who went past me and Kristin on the stairs to check the building.“They shouldn’t have been in there, and their uniforms don’t match anyone else’s.”
“Could you see where they went afterward?”I ask, but then I shake my head.“Never mind, I can guess.They went to the servers, didn’t they?The bomb threat was their way to access our servers, so they had a way to hack our system a few days later.”
