look at her go
“We got something!”
That was the happiest I’d heard Oscar sound in weeks.
Not only had we had a few more breaches since the last batch, but this stalker situation with Cora was really starting to get to him. To both his sanity and his ego.
I got out of my chair quicker than I ever had and headed around to his side of the office, turning into a jog as I reached him, my hand gripping the back of his chair. “Show me.”
He angled his head over his shoulder for barely a second before clicking on a tab that turned his whole screen into code view, a million green pixels filling it up. A few clicks later, and a few coding techniques that were completely lost on me, and a map showed up.
Before I could ask, Oscar cleared his throat. “I got a hold of the IP address this asshole was using to get into our systems, but whatever software they’re using is good. Better than good.” He scrolled, and the map zoomed in. “Because all it was able tospit out was a general location for where the hits were taking place.”
“Where?” I demanded, mentally clawing at the edge of my seat.
“Impatient much?” Oscar grunted. But one glare from me and he was scrolling, zooming in on the map, and, for some reason, he was moving away from the US.
Before I could voice my questions, the screen was taken up by a map of the UK, his flashing red tracker blinking in its capital.
“London?” I asked, my voice slathered with confusion.
Oscar nodded. “My thoughts exactly.” He turned around, my hand letting go of the chair as he faced me. “Who the fuck do we know in London that doesn’t like us?”
I wandered back, my hands locking at the back of my head as I paced. “The only organisations I know and we work with are Sotaria and Aegis.” My brows knitted. “But I know Harry, we’ve done him so many favours with Sotaria that it couldn’t possibly be him. He doesn’t seem the type to. He’s too—”
“Boring.” Oscar interrupted.
“Sensible.” I corrected.
He shrugged. “If you call elbow pads and relying on the Armarnas software sensible, then sure, let’s go with sensible.”
I rolled my eyes as my feet took me to the windows, my eyes tracing the skyline and the fierce sun glare bouncing off the buildings before turning to face him. “And Cian’s wife and their little girls are some of our clients. Aegis and them mean too much to him to risk.”
“Unless she’s in on it. The wife. The call could be coming from inside the house, if you know what I mean.”
I weighed up his words as I sank back into my chair, my fingers pinching the bridge of my nose. “I’ll look into it, but it’s not likely.”
Oscar shrugged, turning back to do some digging. “This fucker could be anyone or anywhere; we can’t not investigate everything.” His clicks became more frantic. “I just wish we didn’t have to.”
“Dude, take a breath. Relax.”
His head sank into his hands, that brotherly instinct to lay a palm at the base of his neck, settling him, taking over. “I’m sorry. I’m just annoyed I haven’t solved this yet. I feel like I’m letting you down.”
My grip tightened with reassurance, head dipping to catch his eyes. “You’re not. Trust me. If anything, I should be apologising. I wish I had more time to help. But Cora’s a 24/7 thing now. Especially with the fucker that’s still stalking her.”
Oscar sat up. “Fuck, I didn’t tell you yet?”
My body went cold. “Tell me what?”
He clicked out of the code view and worked his way onto software that looked familiar. Within no time, he had up another map, an aerial view of lower Manhattan, with another blinking red dot on a street in Chelsea.
He turned to face me, his arm stretched out towards the screen. “Meet Cora’s stalker.”
My eyes went wide, face dropping completely. “You found them?”
“Last night.” He nodded. “It slipped my mind this morning when the London thing came up, but we have them. Or at least the most frequent address from where the texts were sent.”
I leaned closer, looking over the screen, trying to explore every part of my brain in the hopes of something making sense. But there was nothing.
