“Let her be for now, maybe she’s in shock. Just drive,” I say, way more empathetic than I usually would. My body feels still shaky, and I can’t stop yawning.
We drive all the way through Brooklyn and the Suburbs. I stare outside the window into the night, with a whole lot of emotions in me. I can’t tell if I am glad or annoyed, and it takes another half hour until my hands finally stop shaking.
Exhaustion rushes through my body, and only then do I realize how tense I have been.
“Do we know anything about who it was?” I finally ask.
“The cameras caught a reflection of the shooter; it came from the opposite building, third level. We’ll plug the government systems in to check every single person who went in or out. I’m certain we’ll find a match. Almost every corner is covered with cameras there.”
Question after question surges through my brain. None of which I can answer. I close my eyes.
There is only one thing I now know: Jared’s death was not an overdose.
Goosebumps spread over my arms as I realize how much worse everything is. I open my eyes and pull out my phone to dial Jared’s head of security.
“It’s me, Lilian,” I say when he answers. “Did you check your systems? And I mean his personal vault, did you check for breaches?”
“Yes, but we couldn’t find anything.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing,” he says.
“I’d like to check it,” I say. “Under the clause of his contract, I can invoke that right to access company data anyway. I have different means to check a system.”
There is a moment of silence.
“Sure, Lilian. The feds cleared everything anyway, and Jared has left his empire to no one, so who cares?”
Secretly, I hope it will give me the chance to get the files Jared had on me. But if the feds didn’t get to it, I am not so sure I will, even with Zeus and our RATs.
I thank the man and hang up.
“If you ask me,” says my bodyguard, “Jared died of an overdose, and today was a separate incident. It has been three weeks, too much time passed, different MO.”
“I don’t know, Doug. My feeling tells me otherwise.”
“You’re scared,” he says without further elaboration. Doug has been with me for all these years now. He’s been my protection since I turned twenty-five. As far as I trust people, he is the one. And theonly one I allow to point me towards the things I may not see so clearly.
“I am, and yet my gut feeling has never misled me. Let's just get to Jared’s. We’re gonna breach the systems. I want to investigate that ourselves.”
Only there is nothing to be found. I comb through his systems with meticulous care, but there is nothing there. Worst of all, I can’t find the data I was hoping to erase. The system is clean, almost too clean.
I also watch all the security footage. The entire apartment is filled with cameras, except his bedroom and the bathrooms.
“Who’s that?” I ask the Head of Security as I watch Jared enter the apartment with an extremely hot, brown-haired woman.
“A pickup from a bar,” says the man. “Was cleared because she was in a hotel at the time of the death.”
“What’s she writing on the wall?”
“Her bank account number, he transferred money to her, um, for services on his body, I believe. She was checked and turned out legit.”
I sigh. “Did the autopsy bring anything?”
“Lethal level of amphetamines, and high blood alcohol that would knock out an elephant.”
“Makes sense,” I say, while my gut still tells me there’s something not right.
