41. Lucy

I sighedand pushed away my empty plate.

We were making progress, but it was slower than I would prefer.

All I knew for sure was that data was being sent out of the Valor Enterprises network, and then any trace of where it was sent was deleted.

Consistently over the last year and a half.

Data that would tell me what kind of information was being sent outside of the Valor Enterprises secured network. It was so meticulously done that no one else has noticed the inconsistencies either.

It had to be someone who had access to the Valor servers with the right credentials, or the skills to make them which meant they were somewhere in the building on a regular basis.

Valor Enterprises had better security than most companies which meant certain processes would send an alert and the tech team would look them over to make sure nothing suspicious was going on and only someone with the right credentials could erase those alerts without causing other problems.

So what exactly were they trying to hide?

I tried to ignore the excitement I could feel brewing under my skin. We were finally finding real clues – proof there were things people didn't want anyone to know about.

I had to be very careful about what I did next. If this person, or persons, saw what I was looking for, or that I was looking at all, they'd probably have something set up to warn them and potentially destroy any evidence I could find.

We had the missing data from the servers, evidence of a second unregistered phone, a missing wedding ring, and cash we couldn't source from the safe in Gideon's house.

There'd been nothing else of interest other than the letter of authenticity for the Artemis Genecia painting.

I asked the interns to look through personal bank statements to see where the money might have come from, but I didn't think we'd find anything substantial which made me curious why he had so much cash on hand.

It wasn't out of the norm for legacy packs to have some kind of money laundering business but they weren't usually this sloppy, which made me think it was a personal side hustle of some kind. It could even be connected to the second phone.

There wasn't much to go off of when it came to that phone either and it was starting to piss me off. I couldn't find anything on the Valor Enterprises firewalls that would give us a lead, and nothing about unregistered devices connecting to the corporate wi-fi with it.

I'd gone through every device I could find that wasn't registered to the employees, or visitors but no files or messages were sent from those.

Which meant Gideon was smarter than he'd let on, or whoever he was contacting had advised him not to, but I could still follow him to wherever he'd gone with that phone, and hope he'd connected to a network at one of those locations – a place with unsecured internet access would be the most likely. Somewhere like a café or a library.

No one would ever think to go through a firewall in a place like that. Especially if they didn't know when that person was there.

I also had Gideon's cloned computer, but if he was smart enough to keep from connecting to the corporate wi-fi then he might have been extra careful about what was on his company computer as well.

The best way to keep data a secret was to make sure no one could access it without having the actual device and since the safe at the house only had money and not a hard drive, I was pretty sure it was all on that phone.

I had to find it. That stupid phone was going to tell us exactly what we needed to know to make the right connections. I just knew it.

Typing up my report for Nicolette, I made sure to attach any evidence we had and why we were doing things in this weird, circular method.

Most detectives preferred to run down one lead at a time but it was inefficient. Doing things that way added time to the process – time that could erase other leads.

Frankie and I were a good team. We had very different strengths so we could cover a lot of ground very quickly and we could both multitask while doing it.

At least Nicolette wasn't trying to manage things on the right side of the law. Cyber-crimes were always reported to the federal government which might delay Valor's case. If they had a good enough lawyer, they could probably press charges for each crime committed instead of as a whole. I'd have to document whatever evidence I could obtain legally too just in case Valor decided to go public with any of this information.

Liam's chin rested on my shoulder as he watched me work. He hadn't said a word the whole time and I was starting to wonder if he'd fallen asleep.

I finished up my report and sent it off to Frankie for her to check. Then I made sure Gideon's computer wasn't connected to the internet in any way and booted it up.

This was the last thing I could do remotely.

If I wanted to find out what was being sent from the Valor servers and to where, I needed direct, physical access to the server room if I didn't want to trigger any alerts to the wrong people by remotely accessing sensitive information.

Whoever was sending it was definitely someone with regular access to the servers as an employee or someone on the security team.

Not knowing who they were would make it really fucking difficult to avoid them.

I had no idea what was being deleted, but if what I'd seen on Liam's office computer was any indication, I didn't think it was data any normal person would be interested in. A legacy pack though…

If they weren't above killing Gideon…I was nothing.

Whoever killed Gideon Valor wanted to make sure people knew he was dead and not missing – they'd ensured he was found in his own office, in a building his pack owned that was monitored by a security system owned by another member of that pack.

They also wanted this to look personal, especially since they'd been so very careful not to leave any clues at the crime scene other than a missing wedding ring.

In my opinion, that one choice was going to get them caught.

Why not kill him at his house if they wanted to frame Melinda? Or somewhere that she went to regularly? Melinda didn't have the same access to Valor Enterprises that Cassius and Liam did. I'd checked her credentials to make sure.

Melinda was allowed into the skyscraper and she had access to all the amenities, but she didn't have access to anything sensitive and did not associate with anyone who did.

If she hired an assassin…maybe. But there"s still some kind of paper trail for that and her finances were clean.

She wasn't the one hiding money or spending large sums of it. Melinda didn't own any companies either. Her entire income came from her modeling career and her Valor allowance.

No, whoever had killed him took the wedding ring but murdered him in his office to scatter any attention they might garner. They'd ensured the police would suspect Melinda, and anyone who might inherit the chairman position next.

It was a solid plan. No one would think to watch the footage from Valor Enterprises before the night of the murder unless it was during any time Melinda, or a member of the Valor pack had been there.

But the Valor pack hadn't left this up to the police. They'd called in a private company to investigate which meant I was the one looking for their mistakes.

As much as the killer wanted me to believe Melinda was the main suspect, I knew better. Even if Melinda was involved, she couldn't have done this alone. Between the missing data and the secret phone…

There was definitely someone else involved. Someone who was just as good as me.

Or better.

I started going through Gideon's computer and didn't have to dig very deep to find something odd. Someone installed a program that cloned his entire computer and sent it somewhere every day at 3 in the morning before erasing any record of it.

I opened the command prompt and typed as fast as I could, feeling my heart start to race as I followed it all the way back to when it was installed on his computer. It looked innocent enough – something a company might have to monitor their employees but it had a weird name I'd never heard of before and it operated too much like malware for my liking.

My heart stopped when I saw how much had been deleted…just an hour after his death.

"Who has access to Gideon's office computer?"

Liam placed his hand on my chest, just over my racing heart. "Does this have something to do with his other phone?"

I shook my head and started tracing the command to erase all those files back to the IP address that had sent it.

Remotely.

"This has nothing to do with Gideon's secret phone as far as I'm aware. This is a separate issue and it's not just his computer, it's the servers too. The missing phone is one lead, the missing data is our second lead, and the security company is the third."

Cas leaned over the both of us and watched me follow the IP address and all the others they'd used to bounce off of with a VPN. "There's no missing or altered footage from the night of the murder at Valor Enterprises and you know where every single access point is into that building. I also sent you every camera that exists on the property whether they're functional or not. Do you think there's a connection between the security company and the missing data?"

Frankie leaned back and laced her hands behind her head. "If there's no tampered footage and nothing's missing from the Aegis servers, then someone knows exactly how to get in and out of that building without being detected. I can't think of anyone who'd know how to do that other than the company in charge of the security. Can you?"

"Can you guys shut the fuck up for two seconds?" I snapped.

Jesus, whoever wanted to hide this definitely made it difficult to trace them, but not impossible.

It took me almost five minutes to find the source of the command and I stared at it, barely breathing.

A laptop at Buttercuppa Coffee – one of the locations Gideon had gone to with his secret phone.

Now, this café wasn't even open when the command was sent, but it was an unsecured network. Someone could have parked right outside and accessed it from their laptop.

If there was any kind of security footage from the surrounding businesses, the traffic cameras, or the CCTV we might be able to get a license plate.

Whoever set this up had made sure to send an alert if I started digging into Gideon's files, and that was exactly why I'd made sure to isolate his machine before booting it up. With no way to send out the alert, they'd never know.

But if the police did the same thing, I had no doubt they'd fuck it all up and connect to the internet before taking a look around. This account was set up to automatically connect and most people didn't think twice about it.

I let out a shaky breath.

One little mistake and they would have known exactly where I was.

This person was good, but they weren't better than me.

That might sound conceited, but I haven't met many people on my level even in the cyber-crimes department. The only ones I knew of were hackers and they only worked under aliases. I had no idea what country they were even in.

Whoever had planted this program was most definitely not on that level or they wouldn't have been so sloppy.

Yeah, Gideon was obviously not someone who knew where to look for this kind of shit and he definitely wouldn't notice malware on his computer if it didn't slow down or affect his normal processes, but they should have made sure any trace of this shit was gone or someone like me would find them.

"I don't know who put this cloning program on here, but they sent a command to delete files from Gideon's computer only an hour after his death. I don't know why they didn't delete this program too…maybe they thought the police would assume it was a company program. I don't know."

Putting the coordinates into the world map, I hit enter and leaned back into Liam as it zoomed in on the location.

"I don't think it's one person," I admitted. "Whoever deleted the data might be the same one who snuck past the security system without setting off any alarms, but it would make more sense for it to be two people working together. One to manage Aegis Security and one with the credentials to access the server room at Valor Enterprises."

The map zoomed in to show where I'd traced the command back to and Cas growled. "Who the fuck owns this café?"

Frankie had the information pulled up faster than I ever could. "Buttercuppa Coffee was started ten years ago by the Tinley pack. Per the information Genesis keeps on file they became millionaires overnight when their coffee shop became a social media sensation."

"From what I remember, most of their money comes from selling franchises," Liam murmured, his lips tickling the back of my neck.

"The coordinates are for the original café," Frankie informed us. "Their website says the owner has maintained all its original charm and it's their flagship store so Tinley still owns it. They're new money as my father would say."

Cas pushed off my desk and pulled out his phone. "I'm pretty fucking sure we don't have a anyone from Tinley working for Valor or Aegis."

"No, we don't," Liam agreed. "Anyone not from the Valor pack always has an extensive background check done. That would be something we'd flag as a potential conflict of interest."

"Except this pack is very wealthy," I reminded them. "If they didn't buy a fake background, this person is clearly skilled enough to create one. It's entirely possible to have someone from that pack working at Valor Enterprises without knowing it."

"We're going to have to go through every single person in the Tinley pack, aren't we?" Frankie sighed and pulled out her phone. "Do you still need to go to the café?"

"If I want a look at their firewall to see what Gideon's IP address is for that other phone we do, and we need any security footage we can get from that night without making it obvious what we're looking for."

This was going to start getting dangerous.