17. GRAYSON
17
GRAYSON
I quickly dialed Seth’s number on my cell. “Hey, it’s me,” I said as soon as he picked up. “Do me a favor; burn any IT trace of ever talking to me today.”
There was a brief pause before Seth responded, “Why?”
“When they come looking, I don’t want you implicated.”
“I take it, things didn’t go well.”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
Seth cleared his throat. “Was Daniel there?”
“He was.” And according to what my brother said, “Daniel confessed to Ivy that he’s the one behind all this. He fabricated evidence of Ivy’s guilt.”
“Fucking hell,” Seth said. “Do you know why ?”
“Something about another crime, but I didn’t have time to get into more than that with my brother.” Not yet.
“Jesus.” Seth’s voice was tense, but for someone who was just told his boss was actually a criminal…
“You don’t sound as shocked as I’d expect.” I mean, this—this was so much bigger than Daniel acting cagey; this was kidnapping, attempted murder, and treason.
“Yeah, well”—the sound of a laptop screen shutting preceded his next words—“after we last spoke, I decided to take a closer look at the evidence against Ivy. Last time, I only checked for inconsistencies in the IT fingerprints. This time, I tried tracing the IP addresses.”
“And?” I prompted.
“Whoever did this knew their stuff. They bounced the signal through multiple countries, but they weren’t quite as good as?—”
“As you,” I finished his sentence.
He cleared his throat. “One of the IP addresses traced back to Daniel.”
Seth was the best hacker I’d ever worked with, but still.
“Seems pretty careless of him,” I mused.
“Not careless; like I said, it would take an exceptionally skilled hacker to find it, and even for me, it wasn’t a walk in the park.”
“Is it enough to prove his guilt?”
Ivy’s word against Daniel’s wouldn’t be sufficient, and neither would mine. He might have a way to explain away what happened in that building, especially with his connections.
“He could claim someone else had the skills to use his IP address,” Seth pointed out. “But it’s a start.”
I scrubbed my jaw. One IP address and a supposed confession to a wanted criminal weren’t enough to convince the CIA of Daniel’s guilt or Ivy’s innocence.
“Can you send me what you found?” I asked. “Without leaving a trace back to you?”
“I can, but…Grayson…”
I waited.
“If this is all true and Daniel knows you’re onto him…” Seth’s unfinished thought hung in the air. “What he did could put him behind bars for life. His reputation, his freedom…everything’s on the line.” He took a deep breath. “He won’t just be coming after that woman, Ivy, now. He’ll probably be coming for you, too.”