Jacob waved me over and I leaned over his shoulder as he pointed to a line of code on the screen. “This is a time stamp of when it was uploaded on your computer. There’s no other external IP attached to this. It was most likely put on here using a drive of some sort. Has anyone had access to your computer?”
I started to say no, then stopped.
No. That can’t be.
How the hell could I be so damned blind?
“I have to go,” I said, turning to leave Jacob’s office.
“I have to report this to Agent Sanders,” he called out to me as I left. I didn’t respond.
I hurried back to the third floor and found Madison in the break room. She was alone.
I closed the door behind me, closing us in. Alone. It was more than a little uncomfortable. Madison glanced at me in surprise.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Why did you think Hannah was messing with my computer?” I asked her, hating the way my voice shook. In anger?
In fear?
Madison raised her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”
“That day you accused her of doing something to my computer. What did you see?” I was feeling panicky. This had to be a crazy coincidence.
There had been a lot of those lately, hadn’t there?
Madison pursed her lips. “It doesn’t matter. You made it clear you didn’t want to hear what I had to say.” She started to walk past me. I reached out and grabbed her wrist. Not hard. Just enough to stop her from moving. She looked down at my hand, then back up to my face.
“Please, Madison. What did you see?”
Madison sighed, pulling her arm free of my grip. “I was watching her, all right? I knew it was the woman you were seeing. I’m not stupid. And maybe I was curious about her.” She seemed embarrassed to admit that and I didn’t comment, so she went on. “After you walked over to Perry’s desk, I saw her pull something off her key chain. She looked around and then put it in the back of your computer. I’m not making it up.”
“I believe you,” I said quietly.
Madison frowned. “You do?”
I ran my hand over my face. I felt sick. Why would Hannah put a root kit on my computer? Why was she reading my files? What was she after?
“Thanks, Madison,” I said, turning to leave.
“Mason,” Madison called out and I stopped. “Whatever’s going on, be careful, okay?”
I nodded and left. I pulled out my phone and tried to call Hannah. It went straight to voicemail.
The voice was screaming at me again. This time I knew I should listen.
I pulled out my car keys and hurried out the door.
It was time for some answers.
Chapter 26
Hannah
Everything was going to plan. Using the hash attack, we had been able to secure over five million passwords. Toxicwrath had picked up on his end and was in the process of putting them up for sale on a secure online site. Far away from the prying eyes of the authorities.
I had isolated the vulnerabilities on the Virtuant network. The data breach was ready to go forward as planned. My palms tingled. I was high on the adrenaline.
