The Hack, page 14
“He’ll see us if he looks this way,” Raya said under her breath.
“And if we rush off we’ll capture his attention,” Ari said, fighting the urge to stand up and run.
Raya stood and he hissed her name, but she surprised him by coming to stand in front of him. She put her arms on his shoulders and he looked up at her. His heart pounded in his chest as their eyes locked. He put his hands on her waist, drawing her in. She stepped to the side, ever so slightly, but it gave Ari the vantage point of being able to see the man without his face being exposed. His heart was racing and he couldn’t say it was purely adrenaline.
“He’s not looking,” Ari said before returning his attention to her.
Raya cleared her throat. “Good.”
Ari’s eyes locked on hers and she seemed to stop breathing. He did the same.
“Is he still there?” Raya asked.
Ari looked past her to see the man turning to go back inside. His hand was near his ear, like he was on the phone. Ari looked around Raya to see the man with the camera also holding his hand to his ear.
“Let’s get out of here, I’ve seen what I needed to,” Ari said.
Raya nodded, taking a step back but Ari wasn’t ready to let her go yet. He took her hand, holding it as they walked down the side of the house. He peered around the corner, half expecting the man to be standing by Luke’s Jeep, but the street appeared quiet.
Ari unlocked the car and they quickly got inside. He drove down the hill, past the man with the camera, and toward the highway. His heart pounded in his chest and his stomach churned when he saw the black SUV in his rearview mirror.
“It’s the same plate,” Raya said quickly.
Ari had no option but to turn onto the highway, accelerating just enough to put some space between the cars. The SUV followed behind him, picking up the pace.
“Raya, grab the gun,” he said, motioning toward the center console.
“Ari, I can’t—”
“Just hold it. You can shoot if you need to—if it means staying alive.”
The highway was congested and Ari was forced to slow down. The SUV changed into Ari’s lane and he had a bad feeling about this. Raya was silent beside him.
A gap opened up in the lane beside him and the SUV moved into it. Ari kept his eyes forward as the car came parallel with the Jeep.
“Are they looking into the car?” Ari asked.
Raya made a show of yawning, covering part of her face with the hand. “I can’t see through the window tint,” she said.
“Are the windows up?” Ari asked quickly.
“Yes,” she said and he felt a slither of relief—they weren’t going to shoot at them through closed windows.
Ari continued to drive at a pace that indicated he was nothing more than just another regular citizen wanting to get home.
The traffic grew so heavy they almost came to a stop and Ari waited for them to make a move. They continued at this pace for another few miles, and neither Ari nor Raya said a word. They passed an exit and the traffic cleared a little. The SUV increased speed, moving ahead of the Jeep. Ari expected them to cut straight in front of them, but they didn’t. They moved over another lane into a gap in the traffic.
“I don’t think they knew it was us,” Raya said, breathless.
Ari loosened his grip on the steering wheel and exhaled a shaky breath.
CHAPTER 27
Raya tracked the car as Ari wove through traffic, but she lost the SUV once it had moved too far ahead and blended into the sea of cars on the highway.
She looked to Ari who had visibly relaxed. His shoulders sat lower and his hands were no longer clenched around the steering wheel.
“How long has your uncle been following you?” Raya asked.
“Six months. I wasn’t aware of it until recently. Now the fact that he’s following me is the least of my concerns—it’s what he’s hiding that is most concerning.”
Raya nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “We need to get inside Gregory’s house. If there’s a link between your uncle and KinTech, we should be able to find it.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” he said as he changed lanes.
Raya thought about the files she’d seen on Justin’s computer, trying to piece it all together. She’d disposed of the pink note in a garbage bin on the sidewalk, but it still felt like it was burning a hole in her pocket.
Justin knew something she didn’t, of that she was sure. She just hoped she could figure it out before it was too late.
The piece she couldn’t fit into the puzzle was Fargo Security. Yes they’d been Ari’s father’s security, but why was there a folder on Justin’s laptop for them? The folder had contained financial documents and board minutes, but nothing had seemed out of place. She’d researched the board members present, but again nothing raised an alarm.
Raya needed to know the identity of the man who had come to kill her, and who she’d seen again at the storage facility. If she could link him to someone, she would know exactly who was after her. She knew they were related to KinTech, but who at KinTech was ordering the assassinations? Raya assumed it was Gregory Higgins, but she couldn’t be sure—not until she got inside his house.
She needed proof that he was prepared to kill to keep his secrets, and proof of the falsified test results. Ari’s malware was in place, but it hadn’t yet allowed them to access the system. They were close, though. Another twenty-four hours and it should’ve done its job.
She stole a glance at Ari, who looked deep in thought. She hadn’t voiced her thoughts aloud, but she knew he must be thinking the same thing: if his uncle was connected to Gregory Higgins and they both went down, it might not be possible to salvage the Rossi name. She thought again about the phone call with his mother. It had been a white lie; Raya knew for a fact Ari hadn’t been working on any contracts, but nonetheless it had seemed to roll off his lips so easily—like he’d thought nothing at all about lying. She felt like she knew him, like she could trust him and he would protect her, but maybe she didn’t know him as well as she thought she did. Maybe he’d known she was testing him with the laptop that night.
Trust no one, Raya.
Raya pushed those thoughts from her mind. What they needed to do now was focus on getting inside Gregory Higgins’ computer and finding the truth. She would deal with the aftermath when it happened.
Ari took the exit and Raya tapped her fingertips on her knees anxiously. She wanted to get inside the property, she wanted answers—she needed them.
An image of her mother flashed in her mind, and now more than ever Raya was convinced her mother had known something. She wouldn’t have left Raya like that—Raya had never believed she’d killed herself, not for a second. And tonight she might finally get the answers she’d been looking for for so long.
Raya looked to the navigation screen. She’d been lost in her thoughts and now they were only minutes away from Gregory’s house. Ari had been quiet the entire drive, and that made her nervous. If he found information he didn’t like, what was he going to do with it? If it meant taking down his uncle, Raya trusted him. But if it meant destroying the legacy his father had built . . . then she wasn’t so sure.
When Ari turned onto the street, Raya inhaled deeply, reading the house numbers as they passed.
43
45
47
The Higgins mansion came into view, looming on the street like a vault waiting to be cracked. It was an architectural masterpiece with an arched portico and more windows than Raya had ever seen—she supposed Gregory like natural light. He is not going to do well in prison then, she thought with a smirk.
Ari’s phone rang and he put it on speaker as he drove.
“Luke,” Ari said.
“Higgins left five minutes ago. I got here early to scope the house. He left with a security team, and I can’t see anyone on site. I’ve hacked his cameras, and I can’t see anyone inside either. Rather than disabling his security, I’m going to duplicate the footage of the past twenty-four hours. It’ll be harder to detect manipulation on the system that way.”
“Got it. What about the alarm?” Ari asked.
“I’ve intercepted the signal. You’ll have fifteen minutes once you enter before it reactivates. Move quickly, Ari; if the alarm goes off I won’t be able to stop the notification being sent to his security monitoring company. I don’t know how quickly they’ll respond, but you won’t have long once they’re notified.”
Raya looked to Ari. Fifteen minutes wasn’t long enough. “If we enter and exit, can you intercept the signal again if we need to go back inside?” she asked.
“I should be able to,” Luke said confidently, but Raya didn’t like the use of the word should. “Technically, as long as you freeze in place and don’t move, you won’t need to enter and exit. Set a timer on your watch, you need to do this to the second—there’s no room for error.”
Raya swallowed the lump in her throat.
“I’ll call you via my watch and we’ll keep the call running so we can communicate,” Ari said. “Raya can set the timer on her phone.”
“Good plan. Good luck,” Luke said.
Ari pulled the car over two houses down, turned off the engine, and looked to Raya. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation.
He grabbed the gun from the center console and called Luke on his watch, placing it on speaker. “We’re moving in now. Can you hear me?”
“I hear you. Let me know when you’re at the front door. I’ve duplicated the footage so I can’t see you—or anything going on in the house. I don’t think there’s anyone inside, but I could be wrong. It’s a huge house, Ari—just be careful.”
“We will,” he said and opened the door.
Raya got out of the car and they walked side-by-side up to the house. The front of the house had no fence—rich people like this wanted to display their beautiful gardens . . . their focus wasn’t on keeping people out, although Gregory Higgins should’ve rethought that.
With every step they took toward the house, Raya’s heart raced a little faster.
It felt unsettling to think the cameras were recording them, even if Luke had duplicated the footage so Higgins couldn’t see them if he looked.
The security lights lit up the garden as they walked the paved path to the front door. Raya looked around, expecting men in suits to jump out from behind the trees, but they appeared to be alone.
She shook her hands, shaking out the nervous energy.
“We’re at the door,” Ari said quietly, as if someone might overhear them.
But Luke must’ve heard because he answered, “Raya start your timer.”
She pressed the start button on the timer app and the countdown began.
She heard a clicking noise, then Ari pushed the door opened and they stepped inside.
CHAPTER 28
Ari’s eyes swept over the grand double staircase with intricate black balustrading. It was a beautiful house but it didn’t feel like a home. It felt cold, but that might be because he was an uninvited intruder.
Ari looked left and right. They had no idea where the study was and didn’t have time to waste. They needed to split up and search the house as quickly as possible, but Ari didn’t like that idea one bit.
“I’ll search this floor. You search upstairs,” Raya said quickly, seemingly reading his mind.
Ari suppressed the unease lingering like a shadow. It was the best plan—the right plan.
“Move quickly, message me if you find anything,” he said. If someone was in the house, they shouldn’t yell for one another, but this house was so large that even if Raya yelled his name he wasn’t certain he’d hear her. “Let’s both go right first,” he said, thinking it was a good idea if they at least stayed in the same part of the house, albeit on different floors.
Raya all but ran to the hallway and he hesitated, watching her. But the best thing he could do to protect her was find the information they needed.
He took the stairs two at time, mindful of moving as fast as possible while remaining alert and cautious. He turned down the hallway, using his phone as a flashlight. The doors were all open, thankfully.
The first room he came to was a bedroom. The white duvet was neatly in place and the bedside tables were uncluttered. It didn’t look like anyone had used this room in a while.
The next room was a mirror of the bedroom he’d just checked.
Ari paused when he came to the next bedroom. The bed was unmade and the light was on in the walk-in closet. Ari’s pulse spiked and he stilled. This didn’t look like the master bedroom. He listened for any movement but didn’t hear anything. He looked to the adjoining bathroom. He could see the marbled tile on the floor but the lights were off. Ari debated whether he should move on, or stop and investigate. He didn’t have time, but he needed to know if someone else was in the house.
Carefully he crept forward, his gun in hand, his finger steady on the trigger. He moved silently on the plush carpet, pausing at the wall, pressing his back against it and listening. When he heard nothing, he took a steadying breath then peered around the corner. He almost sagged with relief when he saw that it was empty—of people and of clothes. The cupboards had no doors and not a single piece of clothing was hanging or folded on the shelves.
Ari concluded Higgins had perhaps had a guest recently who had left the light on. But no one seemed to be here so he moved on to the next room. He moved quickly, trying to make up time, and searched the entire wing of the home but didn’t see a study. He ran back to the staircase, checking the other hallway. Two of the rooms were completely empty and one was a home cinema. The next door was closed and he had his hand on the handle to open it when his phone vibrated.
Raya: I’ve found it. Go left at the stairs, third room on the right.
Ari turned and ran down the stairs, grateful for the carpeted steps to muffle his footsteps.
Raya was sitting at the computer when he walked in. “I’ve inserted the drive and it’s unlocked the computer. I’m searching his applications now,” she said.
Ari came to stand behind her, his eyes dropping to her phone placed on the desk beside the keyboard. They had eleven minutes left.
Raya swore then looked to Ari. “There’s no remote connection to HaloTech,” she said, her tone laced with disappointment.
“Start a file transfer,” Ari said quickly. “We need days to look through this volume of files.”
Raya quickly typed the code but the file transfer didn’t begin. She typed it again, but it refused to load. “It’s blocking it. He has some kind of encryption on this computer to prevent a file transfer.”
“Look at his files, we’ll look at what we can,” Ari encouraged. If they’d been able to access HaloTech from his computer, it would’ve given them full access to the system. But Ari hadn’t given up on his malware yet—they just needed to give it more time to activate. Right now they needed to focus on what information they could get from Higgins’s computer.
Raya loaded his emails, which he’d kindly stayed logged into. She ran a search for HaloTech then returned to searching the folders on his computer while it loaded.
Raya loaded a folder of photographs and rapidly clicked through them, looking for people they recognized. She shut down the folder and opened another labeled Christmas Party.
Raya clicked through them at a speed that made Ari dizzy. He could barely see the faces before she shut them down again, moving on to the next one. But when she paused on a photo and straightened, he paid attention. He didn’t recognize the man, but he knew the woman because she looked like an older version of Raya.
“That’s my mother and Derek Lam,” Raya said with a thick voice. She checked the date of the photograph. “It was taken two months before my mother died . . . wait, this is the KinTech Christmas party not Synthesis.”
She rapidly clicked through the photos of the night a little slower now. She paused on one and Ari leaned in to get a better look. Raya pointed to two figures kissing in the background of the image. “They were a couple . . .” Raya said, seemingly more to herself than him. “Oh my gosh, it was him,” she said. “I knew she was dating someone—she’d told me it was the happiest she’d ever been—but I didn’t know it was Derek Lam.”
Raya clicked through more images and when she stopped on another image, Ari had a bad feeling about what they were going to learn. Part of him had thought that maybe Raya had been wrong about her mother’s suicide—that maybe she’d been too young to see what was really going on—but when Ari saw Raya’s mother, his uncle, and Gregory Higgins sitting together at a table in the background of an image, he suddenly felt sick.
“Two minutes,” Luke’s voice came through his watch.
“I’m not leaving,” Raya said, adamant. “We’ve barely started searching . . .” She shook her head, grabbed her phone, and photographed the image on the computer before going back to rapidly clicking through the photographs. But Ari knew they needed more than photographs of Raya’s mother with them, they needed cold hard proof.
Once again, Raya’s mind seemed to be on track with his and she went back to the email search she’d started.
Two thousand results for HaloTech. “We need to copy this over, we don’t have time to search through anything,” she said, frantic.
“One minute,” Luke said.
Ari looked to the door but he was not leaving without her.
Raya started another search, typing a name he didn’t recognize.
Diane Lewis.
The search was quick, generating no results. Then she typed Derek Lam.
The search results began loading and Ari knew they’d found something when the subject line: Termination of Shareholder Position came up in bold black text.
