Page 69 of Puck Daddies
“Yes.”
“The kind of homework Addaway won’t like.”
Well, those are the magic words. One of the good things about being built like me is that I know I can take this guy if he gets clever. I unchain and let him in.
He steps inside, sets the envelope and case on the counter, flips the latches, and opens it. “Digital trail. Mile wide.” Inside is a thumb drive in foam, two SD cards, and other things I don’t recognize. “Encrypted. Memorize this password—I have only five years until I go to Mexico forever. Five is the word, to and the for in forever are numbers. No spaces, no capital letters. Don’t open it on your phone. Give it to your lawyer and have them image it first.”
“What’s on it?” Hudson asks, arms folded.
“Public dockets, UCC filings, property records,” Cash explains. “Scraped dealer reviews before they were cleaned, CFPB complaint exports, AG complaint indexes, and a pile of social you won’t find with regular searches. Evidence he sold PPI. Plus internal docs from a friend who used to work inside. Lending memos. A training deck on yo-yo financing. A spreadsheet of add-on targets. Name matches to Harbor Street Holdings and shells. Timelines on the building LLC. Not from me.”
I don’t know what most of that is, but it sounds bad. “And the envelope?”
“Hard copies. Originals or good scans. Forged signatures that will look bad next to the right notary. Cash receipts that never hit the books. Photos and a couple of videos from repos that went violent. Plenty of them have. Faces and plates are clear.” He holds my eyes. “Your lawyer builds the chain. Time stamps matter.”
“You want money from us?” Hudson asks.
“My fee has been handled.” He leaves the case and walks to the door. “If anybody asks, I was never here.”
He leaves. I lock the door and set the chain. The kitchen feels different with the case on the counter. I text Fitz:Your guy dropped a case and an envelope. Home?
He replies:Five minutes. Dana wants it first. Don’t mess with anything.
I wouldn’t know where to begin in the first place. I look at the drive and the envelope. I’d thought that hiring a hacker would be neat and tidy—everything digital, maybe one thumb drive to rule them all. Not this. But Luke Addaway has been a busy boy, ripping people off on top of being a pain in the ass to his ex-girlfriend. Evidence comes in all flavors, I guess.
The EP email sits in my head next to Meg’s new date. A month in New York, or stay and hold the line.
While I stare at the pile on the table, the decision becomes clear. “I can’t leave now.”
Hudson sighs. “You don’t have to decide tonight.”
“I’m choosinghere. I’ll ask Siena for the summer. It’s the right thing to do—there’s too much chaos to try and leave now. For Meg. For the team. For me.” The words make the decision crystalline. “This is where I want to be.”
He nods once, still staring at the evidence. “Knew you’d make the right call.”
“I could have used some advice.”
He huffs under his breath. “You’ve never needed my advice, Roc. My advice usually involves hitting, and these are problems you can’t hit.” He pauses. “Unless Meg changes her mind about letting us kick Luke’s ass. Really hoping she comes around on that.”
“I wouldn’t mind getting in on that, but that’s one of the few areas where we’re different from her. She doesn’t have any sort of bloodlust.”
He quirks a brow at me. “Neither do you.”
“Bullshit,” I snap with a smile.
“You took the least violent position on the ice—center. Face it, Rocco, you’re not?—”
“Goalie.”
“Huh?”
“Goalie is the least violent position. The only time they make contact is if someone screws up and skates into them.”
He rolls his eyes. “You know what I meant.”
Fitz rushes in with Dana on speaker. He doesn’t even take his coat off or do more than nod to address us. “Don’t touch,” he orders, and puts the phone on the counter. “We have the package.”
“Good.” Dana’s voice rings out clear. “Do not power anything on. I’m sending a courier with an evidence bag and a laptop with forensic tools. We’ll image the drive and cards, catalog the envelope, and build a chain of custody. Do not watch. Do not read. Let me do it right.”
