Page 116 of After All The Wreckage
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Rory
BURNING HEART
Performed by Survivor
The first warehouse was a bust.The lot had been empty, and the building had appeared to be vacant. It hadn’t taken much effort to evade the smattering of cameras, sneak in a back door, and search the joint. There was no basement and there was nothing in the building. It was emptier than the Argento Skies offices downtown.
I spent a few minutes longer than I wanted making sure there wasn’t a hidden hatch in the ground or some other sign that people had been there recently. The entire building reeked of oil and gas. The owner had run an auto repair shop out of it before closing down. If the Lovatos had been there or if Dunn and West had brought Monte there, no signs of them remained.
My gut twisted as I made my way through the shadows back to Pop’s Jeep.
Maybe I was too late again.
Back in the car, I checked my phone and saw I’d gotten another message from Gage. He was at Nan’s—outside. Shit. I didn’t want him to worry. Worse, I didn’t want him to wake Nan up and make her worry too, but if I responded, I’d either have to lie to him or risk him coming here. I couldn’t do either.
I couldn’t afford for him to show up and distract me simply with the energy that zapped between us. My heart twisted as I put my phone down and drove through the darkened streets to the second address.
I parked in the lot of a building across the road and picked up my nightscope.
This warehouse had been bought by a company selling gourmet tea and coffee blends. Many of their products were shipped from South America. It would be a stereotypical way of smuggling drugs into the country and would likely have had customs and DEA all over it, if it were true. But if the Lovatos were involved, they could have paid off individuals in those organizations.
This early in the morning, the building was quiet, but a couple of box trucks were parked in front of a loading dock. The roll-up doors were shut. Floodlights illuminated the entire frontage of the building and a sign that read Bishop Security.
Whether I wanted to believe it or not, Dad was involved.
It would make it easier for me to get inside. I just had to reopen the back door of Dad’s system. But I couldn’t afford to trip the hidden code that had notified Dad last time.
I scanned the roof of the building. It was futile to think I could enter that way. Dad would have those entry points locked down as if they were a bank safe. Maybe tighter. My eyes slipped to the side of the warehouse where a couple of dark Escalades were parked in the shadows. Dunn and West had arrived in similar ones at the restaurant yesterday.
But then again, three-quarters of the politicians and military leaders in and around D.C. rode around in similar models. Hell, even the lobbyists scurrying around the Hill and CEOs of companies vying for federal contracts showed up in them. I wished I’d taken snapshots of their license plates.
I opened a secure link on my computer and started to type in the IP address for my hack into Bishop Investigations. Then, I hesitated. What if I went in the front door instead of the back? What if I used Dad’s access?
And then my mind settled on Dad’s words from earlier at Shady Lane about working this together, and my throat closed. What if I used my own access? One he’d never given me before… one I’d never asked to have.
I opened the Bishop Investigations employee portal. I typed in my name for the user I.D., and then my fingers hovered for a moment over the password field. What would he have chosen if he thought I’d come knocking? I thought back to his words at Shady Lane once more, and my heart squeezed another notch tighter.
With shaking fingers, I typed Keith-Mars-Isn’t-The-Only-Man-Who-Loves-His-Daughter and then held my breath. A fresh wave of unexpected tears hit my eyes when it was accepted. Did this mean he now believed in me? Trusted me? Or had he simply known I’d never stop?
I shook my head and concentrated on what I was there for.
When I found a file waiting with my name, surprise rolled through me.
I hovered over it, wary. So many things could go wrong when you opened a file. I’d planted many of the rotten eggs myself over the years. But there was only one way to find out, so I clicked on it.
The file loaded an image of Mom’s accident scene—the tire marks that had given Dad his first clue that something wonkyhad happened with her braking system. There were more, and I swiped through each of them before something funky caught my eye. I went back two photos. The license plate was wrong in just this single image. It wasn’t Mom’s. It was a random string of numbers. Code.
Dad had left me a message.
I opened a new screen and typed in the code.
What the hell was this? It looked like some of Chanel’s files from the front desk. Innocuous drivel. Things Dad had asked her to handle. Why the hell had Dad encrypted any of it?
Headlights burst through the darkness of the storm, and I scooted down in my seat. Another box truck headed straight into the lot opposite me, backing in next to the other two already there.
The driver got out as one of the doors rolled up. A couple of men stepped out of the warehouse, and the three men talked briefly before starting to unload crates from the back. With the doors wide open, this was my chance to get inside. I just had to shut the cameras off and back on quickly enough.
