Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Eli added, “That’s part of what we’ve been cross-referencing all day.”
Maddox went on. “Most sites record IPs when you log in. You know how sometimes you go to log into a site you’re a member of, and you’re in a different place, and it asks you to verify your identity?”
“Yeah.” As much as I traveled, I’d had that happen often.
“That’s because they’re used to you logging in from a certain IP address, or at least a general geographic area. Then, when you’re somewhere else, they want to make sure it’s you. Well, in this case, whoever this is, is logging in from a different IP address. They could be masking it. They could be bouncing it using a VPN. Getting into the logs of your socials is a little more work. Accessing the back end of your website, on the other hand, unless you’ve got some high-end security in place—”
I was already shaking my head in a negative.
Emmett nodded. “Much easier. If he has a VPN—”
“I don’t know what that means,” I interrupted.
“A VPN is a service that masks your location by bouncing your signal through various IP addresses in different geographic locations,” Eli said.
“So, if they’re doing that, we’re out of luck?” I’d heard these terms before, but I still didn’t really get how it worked.
“Not necessarily,” Emmett said. “It depends on the VPN, and it depends on how good they are.”
“Doubtful they’re better than we are,” Maddox said with a smirk.
“Agreed.” Emmett took a long sip of his green tea. “We’ll find them. The wheels are already turning on getting the fraud dropped from your bank account. You’re not clear yet, but we’re closer.”
Maddox looked to Eli again, then back to me. “Like Eli said, you just have to hang in there. We’ll figure it out.”
“Okay,” I said, not sure exactly what that meant. Hang in there for how long, and for what? What was the answer going to be at the end of this?
I wanted revenge. Justice for Emily. And the freedom to go back to my life. I was beginning to have a very bad feeling that I wasn’t going to get everything I wanted. I might have to be happy with just a sliver. I might have to accept that everything had fundamentally changed for me when I decided to look into Emily Shaw’s case.
I didn’t yet know how I felt about that, except that I was pissed. And not able to do anything about it. Yet.
I sighed and sipped at my coffee.
“Here,” Eli said, sliding my laptop back in front of me. “I divided out that drive. Scroll through this stuff. See if you find anything that connects to this.” The sheet from the envelope with the cryptic code was sitting between us.
I sighed and dug in.
“I know it can be boring as hell,” Maddox said. “But trust me, the fun parts of the job make it worth it.”
“And what are the fun parts?” I asked.
He just quirked a smile and turned back to his keyboard.
“You don’t want to know,” Eli said.
“I kind of think I do,” I said, but he didn’t answer.
I tried to put my socials, my website, my paused career, and the rest of it on the back burner and stay alert for anything on the screen that made the clue make sense.
Hours later, having found nothing, with a headache pounding behind my eyes, my stomach growling, and the taste of coffee sour in my mouth, I sighed in relief when Eli shut his laptop and stood. “We’re done. For now, at least.”
“I can’t believe all of this, and we didn’t find anything,” I said, closing the laptop in front of me.
“Sometimes that’s how it goes,” Eli said. “You burn time ruling shit out. Now we know that whatever that clue was about, it didn’t reference any of these files. We’ll keep looking.”
Maddox stood and stretched, his back popping. “Yeah, but I think we’ve got something in those first files you went through—the IP addresses in the communication logs.”
“What did you get?” Eli asked.
“Not exactly sure yet.” Maddox closed his eyes and rolled his neck. “We have to cross-reference it with some other things, but I think we’ve got proof—” His eyes slid to me and then back to Eli.
“Of what?” I asked.
“Not sure enough yet to say, but we’ll know by tomorrow morning.”
I let out a huff of air, realizing that they were going to talk in cryptic circles around me and not tell me anything for what felt like the hundredth time. “You guys know I signed an NDA, right?” I asked, pushing in my chair and rubbing my fist over my very empty stomach.
Eli grunted low in his throat, his eyes narrowed on Maddox, who looked from me to Eli and raised an eyebrow. Eli shook his head.
“This is getting really fucking annoying,” I said, picking up my empty coffee cup and carrying it over to the trash can. “I’m going back upstairs. My bladder is about to explode, and I feel like I’m sweating coffee.”