Page 12 of Every Last One
“All right. But, please,please, call me the minute you know anything more.”
“Of course, Ms. Vos.”
“Thank you.”
Dana hung up, and Sandra remained standing there. She needed a few minutes to process everything before she returned inside the command vehicle. Reason argued that in Margo’s muddled state, Sandra’s arrival would only compound her confusion and frustration. It was hard to admit, but the most loving thing was to let the doctors do their job, while she did hers.
As she held her phone, she considered texting Olivia about her grandmother. She decided against it for now, pocketed her phone and went back inside the vehicle.
The energy was far different from when she left. Dare she say there was the hint of victory?
“Luis got the system link,” Neal told her when she walked back in.
Finally some good news…But her thoughts drifted to her mother, lying in a hospital bed sixteen minutes away. On the upside, her emergency had come after the lockdown, or Margo could be inside Founders right now. This gave Sandra more empathy for those whose loved ones weren’t so lucky. Like that woman at the cordon line whose sister was in danger. In large-scale incidents like this, she knew it was more conducive to focus on the few, not to be overwhelmed by the many.
“Just give me a minute, and I’ll find out who last accessed the server room,” Luis said as his fingers tapped on his laptop. “It shouldn’t take too long.” He drummed his fingers on the table. A few moments later, he was declaring success. “Ah, here we go.” He leaned forward. “It was Stevie Cross.”
“I’ve got this,” Brice said, and started clicking on his laptop, likely pulling Cross’s background.
Sandra didn’t miss that Luis had said his name slowly, but she’d circle back to that. And if Stevie was behind the system shutdown on the sixth, was the gunwoman posted on another floor? “At what time?”
“This morning at nine thirty.”
“And when do we figure the system went down?” Brice asked.
“Ten on the dot,” Luis said, and shrugged when everyone looked at him. “The provider told me that.”
“Okay, so Cross could be one of the gunmen inside, or he conspired with someone, let them into the room and left before the lockdown.” Sandra’s mind swirled with all the possibilities. Cross could have been blackmailed for his help or paid for it.
“All right,” Brice began. “Stevie Cross, fifty-five, no criminal record, single, lives alone. Boring as vanilla.”
Sandra winced at the judgment and looked at Luis. “When you said Cross’s name a moment ago, you said it slowly. Is there something about him that concerns you?”
“It’s just that…” Luis looked at her and swept his gaze over the rest of them. “Stevie isn’t the most sociable of people.”
“Can you elaborate on what you mean by that?” If Cross was in on this, presumably he had some social skills because he had at least two accomplices.
“Just that. He sticks to himself.”
So how does that fit with him working as part of a team?“Is there anything about him that makes you think he’d be involved in something like this?”
“I don’t know how to answer that. Do we ever really know anybody? I mean, that’s what they say.” Luis resumed typing on his laptop, but Sandra wasn’t sure what he was checking for. She trusted he’d share if or when it mattered.
After hearing Luis’s assessment Sandra leaned more toward her earlier theory of potential blackmail. If so, they’d need to discover what Cross had done that someone saw fit to exploit. There was another possibility that may be easier to prove.Follow the moneywas an adage for a reason. “Brice, what is Cross’s credit score?” People with money problems were typically easier to manipulate.
“I didn’t check, but one second…” Brice tapped away again. “Oh, his score’s in the toilet.”
Sandra made eye contact with Brice. “Cross could have been paid to get someone into that server room. Was he due in to work today?” She directed the question at Luis.
The emergency director lifted his eyes from his screen to meet Sandra’s. “That’s what I was just checking. And, yes, Stevie was scheduled to work today, but he never clocked in.”
“Yet, he accessed the server room…” Sandra was feeling more confident in her assessment by the minute.
“Remember I told you five employees have access?” Luis began. “Cross was the only one on the schedule today.”
“He’d be guaranteed to have time alone, undisturbed,” she said.
“It seems Mr. Vanilla wanted to add a little excitement to his life.” Neal pulled his phone from his pocket. “One way to find out. I’m going to get an officer over to Cross’s place ASAP.”
