Page 108 of The Wicked

“So, ‘firesdust816’? Any capital letters?”

“Maybe one at the beginning? Isn’t that what normal people do when they get one of those stupid password prompts that says you have to include a capital letter? And if you need a special character as well, it’s just an exclamation point at the end.”

“I’m pretty sure these files were created before passwords began demanding a hieroglyph, a gang sign, and the soul of your firstborn,” Luca pointed out.

“So are we trying lower case?” Aaron asked.

Blue made a decision. “Yes.”

Password incorrect. One attempt remaining.

Dammit.

Once again, everyone turned in my direction. Why were they looking at me? Didn’t they realise how little I knew about anything?

“Why couldn’t she have picked a normal password?” Brooke asked. “Regular people use the name of their pet and their birthday, don’t they?” A pause. “Or is that just me?”

Luca snorted. “Better change your passwords, sweetheart.”

Fires… Dust… Oh my gosh. The pieces began to click together. If I’d gotten the “third floor” part confused, then perhaps I’d misunderstood “fires” too? Because what did we have in front of us?Files.

“Can I try?” I asked, and Aaron angled the laptop toward me.

My fingers trembled as I enteredDuster816.

Password accepted.

I’d never felt relief like it, not even on the day a semi swerved into my lane and missed me by inches. When the driver got arrested—he landed in a tree—he’d claimed he was avoiding Bigfoot, and then he blew double the limit in a breath test after a deputy took him back to the station.

Thank goodness.

“Told you that you knew it,” Blue said, sounding smug. “You should trust your instincts more.”

No way. I’d just used up my entire quota of luck for the next decade.

The drive contained seven files—a plain text document and six videos. Aaron tried opening the document first, and we all leaned closer when several paragraphs popped up on the screen.

If you’re reading this, then I’m dead. And the person responsible is one of the six men in these videos. Scum rises to the top. Those in power protect themselves.

But I should start at the beginning…

Eight weeks ago, a young woman approached me after my yoga class and said a friend needed to speak with me. Usually, I’d have brushed her off, but she was persistent. She talked the whole way to my car. Her friend was in trouble, she claimed. She’d seen things she shouldn’t, and she believed her revelations would rock Capitol Hill to its core. She had to speak with me because Mike Colvin was the one man who she thought might be able to help. What can I say? I got curious. Pete drove me, and we met at a diner in Maryland.

She introduced herself as Samantha, but I have no idea if that was her real name. It probably wasn’t.

Samantha claimed she’d been recruited two years ago to work as a high-end escort. The money was good, she said, and the work sure beat waitressing. But after six months, she started to recognise some of her clients. Rich men, powerful men, politicians. And she began to overhear things. She realised that her clients weren’t the men she was servicing, but instead were the men who watched. Who recorded the interactions. They called themselves Compass, and she was a tiny cog in a vast machine. Honestly, I thought she was a fantasist when she talked about a new world order, about a small but mighty movement slowly aligning governments to its own way of thinking. But then she showed me the videos. Just a sample, she said. There are hundreds more, thousands even, blackmail material against those in positions of influence.

She was terrified, that much was obvious. She’d come to realise that women like her didn’t have a long life expectancy. If they learned too much or if they outlived their usefulness, they disappeared. Her time was coming, she feared, and if the worst happened, she didn’t want her death to be in vain. I asked why she didn’t just run. She told me they’d always find her.

Samantha came to me because Mike was one of the few targets Compass hadn’t been able to catch in a compromising position. Squeaky clean, she said. She wanted him to see the videos, to set wheels in motion to investigate what sounded like a huge conspiracy theory.

A conspiracy theory that I think might be real.

Watch the videos and read Mike’s obituary, mine too. You’ll see.

I took copies of the videos, and I went to Mike. I truly thought he would do the right thing, the honourable thing. But that was my biggest mistake. I came to realise that when you mix men with politics, greed trumps everything. Instead of starting an investigation, Mike tried to use the videos to his own advantage. The opportunity was too good to pass up, he said. Margins in the House were razor thin, and if he could swing a vote or two our way…Our way.I no longer wanted to be a part of this, and I told him so. We fought about it. He promised to reconsider, but by then, the damage was already done. This morning, I attended his funeral. A heart attack, the powers that be said. A simple yet unfortunate medical issue.

Samantha said professionals were good at that. At making death look like an accident or pinning the blame on somebody else.

---