Page 55 of Cruel Charming Psychos (Necessary Evils 2)

I run out of the closet, through the bedroom, and just as I’m about to exit the room, I spot a painting hanging on the wall above the California king bed. It’s slightly crooked, which arouses my suspicion, regardless of whether it could have been shifted in my hasty destruction of the room. I climb onto the bed and pry the painting from the wall.

Bingo.

There’s a safe hidden in the wall, and it’s not a fancy, high-tech one. It’s an old-fashioned lock requiring a small key. I retrieve the key I had stolen from Nick back at the car and kiss it for good luck before inserting it into the lock and twisting it.

The safe pops open and inside, there’s a duffel bag full of cash, some important looking documents, and a stack of disks just like the ones I had stolen from Nick’s father’s office before. I stuff the documents and disks into the bag and re-lock the safe before carefully hanging the painting back on the wall.

I rush back downstairs, prepared to go make the exchange for Nick and Emily, but curiosity gets the best of me. I have to know what’s on these disks before I risk losing them again. I let out a groan as I stop myself from leaving, instead making my way into the office off the side of the grand foyer. I drop the bag onto the desk beside the computer and dig out the disks. They’re color coded, although I can’t discern what the code means. There’s a purple disk which I know I haven’t seen before, so I pop it into the drive and wait for the contents to load.

A pop-up menu opens up with a list of at least thirty files, each of them named after what appears to be dates. I click on one titled 08212006, but I’m met with another popup requiring the user password for the computer to view the file. I drag my palms over my hands, frustrated. I’m by no means a hacker. That was Asher’s job, and he was killed for whatever he found in these files. There’s no way I can crack this code, but I try anyways. I type in various combinations of passwords:

Emily

Nick

Callaway1234

Nickandemily

Money

Imagreedybastard

Fuckyouuuuuuuuu

Not-so-suprisingly, none of them work. If I can’t figure out the password myself, then I’m going to fall back on an old habit of myself–lying. I leave the duffel bag beside the computer as I head back out to the pool house.

* * *

I barge in the front door, gun raised and aimed squarely at Nick’s father. “New plan, since I can’t find any cash in your house, I’m going to need the passcode to your computer.”

“I’m not sure if you know this, but a personal computer does not function as an ATM. Even if it did, there’s such a thing as daily limits and the limit is well below a million dollars. Do you think I was actually going to bargain with these criminals? Absolutely not. I was planning on shooting them in the head. Trust me, if you show up there without the cash, they’ll do the same thing to you. You’re not as smart as you want to be, Addison.”

“I don’t need cash if I have access to your bank accounts to send a wire.”

“If you do this, you’ll be complicit and liable in the eyes of the law. You’ve already added kidnapping, robbery, and breaking and entering to your rap sheet today. Are you sure you want to add more?”

I cock the gun. “Give me the password to your fucking computer. And if it’s different from your bank account, give me that too.”

He forces his eyes closed as he says the words softly, “Cancun74.”

“Why-” I begin to ask but realize the answer isn’t important. In the modern age, everybody knows passwords need to be seventy letters, four symbols, and eighteen numbers long. All in a random sequence, and here, the most powerful man in the Hamptons has a simple password that any hacker worth their salt could crack. “Is that the same password as your bank account?”

“That one is Cancun88.”

Again, I’m not going to ask any questions. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

* * *

The moment of truth paralyzes me as I sit in front of the computer screen. I’ve been wanting to know what’s on these disks for months now, but now that I’m about to find out, I can’t bring myself to hit the enter button after I’ve typed in the password. The video of Emily and Nick flashes before my eyes and I realize that time is running out.

With a sweaty hand, I reach forward and press the button.

A video pops up onto the screen.

A young girl, maybe five or six years old lies in bed while a man can be seen getting dressed in the corner of the room. I click on another file. Another girl, this one younger, sits on the bed crying for her mother. I can’t stomach to watch the rest but it’s suddenly very fucking clear what’s on these disks. It’s not until the third video, this time a young boy in his underwear on the same bed, that I realize the man in the video is none other than Nick’s father himself.

He approaches the bed. “Carter, do you remember how to play this game?”

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