“Wait, you’re leaving? Again?” Steven asked, blocking my way out of the bathroom. “You can’t keep dumping the kids on me, Finlay.”
“Why not? You’re their father.”
“So I’m just supposed to stay here with them,” he spat, “while you’re out doing god knows what with Vero and sleeping over in your boyfriend’s room? I should just be expected to handle everything because you’ve decided you have more important things to…?”
I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow, daring him to finish that thought. Isn’t that what he had been expecting of me for years? That he could walk out on our family when it suited him? That he could spend lazy Saturdays in bed with his fiancée in her town house down the street, or go out drinking with his buddies after work instead of picking up the kids? That the children would be my responsibility until a visit with them was convenient for him?
So why was I the one being made to feel guilty about it?
I didn’t feel guilty for asking him to do his part. I just felt foolish for waiting this long to put my foot down. And my children weren’t the only ones who needed me right now. “You were the one who asked for this, Steven. I never asked you to come.” I walked past him into his room and gave each of the kids a hug. “Vero and I are going out for a while,” I explained. “We have something very important to do. And when we get back, we’re all going home.”
“Home to our house?” Delia asked.
“Yes, home to our house.” No more hiding the children at Steven’sand my mother’s. No more running from Feliks and Charlie. Whatever happened next, we would face it head-on. “Stay in this room,” I told Steven, breaking out my mom-voice. “Do not let the children out of your sight.”
“Where are you going?” he called after me as I gathered up the dog.
“Out,” I said without looking back. Mommy was going to chase down some bad guys.
CHAPTER 32
“They call this a business center?” Vero grimaced as we entered the small room with a smoked-glass door off the lobby. There was a single outdated desktop inside connected to a cheap printer, a keyboard, and a mouse. The Wi-Fi password was handwritten on an index card and taped to the peeling tabletop. I set Kevin Bacon on the floor, keeping him on a short leash as he sniffed a stain on the carpet. I handed Vero the plastic bag containing the thumb drive.
“Just be grateful there aren’t any cameras.”
She made a gagging face as she gingerly used a Kleenex to plug Cam’s thumb drive into the computer. After a bit of clicking, she swore under her breath. “The file’s encrypted.”
“Can you open it?”
“Not without a password. I’m guessing the only people who know it are Cam, Feliks, and possibly Kat.”
Which meant we had no idea what information was contained on the spreadsheet Cam stole—or who it might incriminate.
Cam needed this file to cut a deal with the police, but turning the drive over to Nick would be a dangerous move. Not only because ofwhat Nick might find on it, but because once Charlie knew the police had the file, he’d have no reason to spare Cam’s life. Charlie desperately wanted what was on that thumb drive.
And he wasn’t the only one.
Feliks was terrified of losing it, scared enough to hop on a plane and risk being caught here. And I knew better than anyone that desperation made people do foolish things. It had made a woman as smart as Vero put all her chips on the line for a dice roll. It had made a jealous man like Steven face down a highway of speeding cars, for the slim chance he’d win my admiration.
But greed?
Greed made people turn on each other. Steal from each other, like siblings fighting over a toy. And fear of losing a prize to someone else might make them do far worse.
Giving the thumb drive to Nick would mean risking my entire future. On the other hand, if I used it to barter with Charlie, he would walk away from the table with everything he wanted. The police would never know the horrible things he’d done, and Vero and I would still be left with two dead men and a mountain of incriminating evidence pointing to us. No matter how you cut it, the deck was stacked against us.
But what if I could change the odds?
I’d been thinking about this as a game of chance. But what if I could turn it into a game of strategy? Vero was right, I knew how to pretend. I made up stories for aliving.I already felt like the world’s biggest impostor, but maybe that’s what made me good at my job.
Fake it ’til you make it, Finn.
I tucked Cam’s original thumb drive back into the plastic bag. “Stay here,” I said, putting Kevin’s leash in Vero’s hand. I hurried out of the room to the convenience center in the lobby. Passing over the candy and soda dispensers (and one selling an impressive variety of flavored lubricants and condoms), I shoved a twenty-dollar bill into the last machine. It contained a selection of chargers, disposable headphones, anda few overpriced burner phones, andeureka! I pushed a button. A cheap thumb drive fell to the dispenser with a muffled thump, and I tore it from its packaging as I hurried back to the business center.
Vero was hunched over herself in front of the computer, tugging at the spider on her finger. She jumped, dropping Kevin’s leash when I tapped her on the shoulder.
I handed her the flash drive. “Can you make a dummy file on this? An encrypted one that looks identical to Cam’s?”
She looked skeptical as she took it. “Sure. But why?”
