Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Maizie swung her backpack from her shoulders and pulled out a tablet.
She inserted the flash drive into a port on the side but quickly shook her head.
“Nothing is coming up. Like I didn’t plug anything into this port.
It’s not registering the flash drive.” She paused for a second, chewing on her lip.
“What is it?” Now that they had what they were looking for, they needed to hit the road. Before whatever was causing this antsy feeling between her shoulder blades came into fruition.
Years of investigating murder had left Kenna with instincts that now yielded to the voice of the Holy Spirit. Either way, she figured that the impulse to pack up and leave because of safety would protect all of them. The adults in the room, and the unborn baby she was carrying.
“This kind of flash drive is something I’ve seen before,” Maizie said. “I actually bought one online a couple of months ago. The drive pairs with a port that is effectively its twin. You can only access it by marrying the two together.”
Zeyla shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “So there’s a port somewhere in this house? Or some kind of drive?” She turned around to the fireplace and tried to peel back the column on the opposite side. “This won’t budge.”
“Too easy to hide it there.” Kenna looked around. “It will be somewhere out of sight.”
“Or in a piece of tech that hides it in plain sight, like a modem or cable box.” Maizie went over to the TV unit and crouched in front of the console.
“Take a look at the symbol on the flash drive and then find something around here that’s a USB port with the same symbol on it.
That’s the only way to figure out which one it is, other than trying every single USB port in this house. ”
“How many can there be?” Zelaya wandered out of the living room, into the kitchen. “There’s a desktop in here on a little table, by the way.”
“Look for the symbol.” Maizie continued peering at ports on the gaming system and TV console.
Kenna moved to her and looked at the flash drive she had set on the TV stand now that she had taken it out of her tablet.
A small swirl in the plastic looked like it might have been designed as some kind of flame.
It was possible Shawn Terrance thought his evidence would burn down the company he worked for.
She headed down the hallway, wondering if he had even known all this would happen when he first decided to become a whistleblower.
The tech company he developed software for had been in the business of building servers and programming them for particular uses.
That was back nearly thirty years ago when they had first started.
Now the company was in four countries, and their products had spread to routers, artificial intelligence programs, and so many other cutting-edge technologies she couldn’t even begin to understand the scope of what they did.
If there was a connection to Dominatus, Kenna didn’t know what it was.
Once again, she found herself trying to stay as far from any of them as possible.
But when the president of the United States had her on speed dial and constantly sent her cases she was supposedly meant to investigate, it was difficult to lay low.
She’d had Maizie set up an auto-reply for anything that came in from the Oval Office, indicating she was already on maternity leave—and that she would be for the foreseeable future.
Not a foolproof way of convincing the president they were out of whatever game she was playing, but it could be enough for now.
Kenna snagged the TV box from the bedroom but didn’t see any other tech with a USB drive in it.
She unplugged it and took it to Maizie, who could use a power supply in the living room if needed.
As she walked, she tried to see if the USB port had the same symbol on it, but it was buried inside the console.
She glanced at the front door as she passed it, but Jax hadn’t come inside. Was he still talking to that neighbor?
Kenna found Maizie with a screwdriver and the open circuitry of a game console. “Here’s one you can try. I didn’t find any others.”
“Zeyla tried the desktop tower, but it wasn’t any of those.”
Maizie hit the remote, and the TV flickered to life. She changed the input to one for the game console and plugged the flash drive into the port. “It doesn’t have the symbol that I could see, but we have to try everything.”
Nothing happened on the screen.
When she tried the console Kenna had brought in, the screen on the TV flickered to life. “Now we’re talking.” But the display required them to enter a password. “Any idea what it might be?”
Maizie shook her head. “It might take me some time to break into it. We could have that be your first lesson in password cracking.”
“Sounds exciting.” Kenna tried not to let the lack of excitement seep into her tone.
In exchange for teaching Maizie how to solve crimes, Kenna had agreed to some basic lessons in IT support—the kind Maizie gave to their team when they needed it. Definitely something Kenna could do at home with the baby, on an uncertain schedule. But that didn’t mean she had an aptitude for it.
Maybe she just didn’t want Maizie to be disappointed if Kenna turned out to be terrible at dealing with advanced computer systems.
“Let’s bring it all with us and get out of here.”
Zeyla strode into the room. “Good idea. Did you notice the camera up there?”
Kenna spun around and heard Maizie behind her disconnecting cables. Up on the wall, the camera in the corner now had a red light on it. “Someone is watching us?”
“Like you said.” Zeyla shrugged. “Let’s get out of here.”
Kenna headed first to the door because Jax would be out there, and she wasn’t going to let fear control her actions until there was a reason to be afraid. She knocked on the door first, though. Alerting him to the fact that they were coming out.
The door opened before she could reach for it.
On the doorstep, Jax lifted his chin. “Time to go?”
Before she could answer, someone else spoke. A slim woman in athletic wear, her brown hair curled into waves that didn’t move, with a smile that was far too excited. “It is you!”
At the end of the leash she had a hold of, a tiny Chihuahua trotted around, jingling a bell on its collar.
The woman’s expression brightened even more. “I’m so glad I could meet you all.” She leaned toward Kenna conspiratorially. “Your husband has been so polite. But I know what he isn’t saying. After all, I’ve been following your team since that press conference with the president!”
Kenna frowned. “Following?”
The woman nodded. “Did you know there is a true crime podcast that’s going through all your old cases? It’s fascinating!”
From behind her, Zeyla said, “We are aware.”
Yeah, that tone said enough. Kenna felt the same way about the guy who was recounting every single thing she’d ever investigated as if he was some kind of expert on her. As far as she knew, Kenna had never even met the guy.
“We should be going.” She glanced at Jax. “We have what we came for, and we may have been exposed.”
“What does that mean?” The woman glanced between them. “Are you investigating Shawn’s death?”
“Ma’am, this is a case,” Kenna said. “We aren’t at liberty to give out the details of our investigation.”
The woman frowned. “That’s what your husband said. But if I could just get my phone and record a video, everyone on Instagram will—”
Kenna held up her hand. “I’m sorry, you aren’t going to be recording us. A man is dead.”
“I know that! I live on the street, don’t I?”
Kenna wasn’t sure how she was supposed to have known that.
The woman continued, “If you need to know anything about Shawn Terrance.” She brushed her hair back from her face, and the Chihuahua strained the leash, sniffing at the edge of the grass. “You could interview me.” She squared her shoulders.
Jax pulled a business card from his wallet. “I’m afraid we don’t have time for that right now, but you can always shoot us an email if you think of anything.”
The woman probably didn’t notice that he hadn’t offered for her to call. If she did, she could leave a voicemail and tell them what she knew.
“We really should be going.” Kenna glanced down the street, looking both ways.
Just in case someone showed up for the flash drive and its port.
Maizie had both tucked away in her backpack, but if someone on the other end of that security camera was on their way here to retrieve it, she didn’t want them to be found standing on the front doorstep.
Jax handed her the keys. “You and Maizie get to the car.”
The woman looked disappointed.
Kenna said, “It was nice talking with you. You should return to your home now, just in case.”
She brightened up a little. “Is something going to happen? Is there going to be danger?” Her smile faltered, and she looked down at Kenna’s baby bump.
“I’ll be in the car.” Kenna set off down the front walk.
Maizie came with her, sticking close enough she could whisper, “Why does it seem like everyone is interested in us? Stuff like that happens every time we run into people.”
Kenna smiled at her. “The president made us famous, whether we like it or not. People are interested in what seems exciting and different from their own lives. I just want to figure out who this true crime podcaster is so we can tell him to quit going over every detail of my life.”
She hit the unlock button for the low-slung Mercedes at the curb, opened the front passenger’s door, and slid in.
Maizie climbed in the back, shifting across to the left side so they could look at each other and so Zeyla could get in without going around. “Being famous is not so bad. At least I’m not famous for real things that have happened to me. It’s all just the president’s stuff.”
“You’re not worried about when the true crime podcaster gets to the case where I found you?
” She shifted in the seat so she could look at Maizie and, thus, caught the look on her face.
“Zeyla will take this case. You don’t need to do anything to try and find Shawn Terrance’s killer.
If you want to just focus on finding the podcaster before he connects the dots on who you really are, we can do that. It’s important.”
Maizie shook her head, tears in her eyes. “I need to do normal things where I don’t feel like I have to hide who I was. Where I can be who I am now.”
Kenna understood that better than most. Her own life had a series of dividing lines between who she had been and who she became after a traumatic event, or a massive shift in her situation.
But she had tried to feel normal weeks ago, on the East Coast, and they had still wound up tangled up with Dominatus.
When Shawn’s sister called, Kenna had accepted the case because of the grief in the woman’s voice.
Because Kenna knew loss in a way a lot of people didn’t.
She wasn’t going to be who the president seemed to need her to be.
Probably for her own agenda. Kenna would rather do what she could to help people.
Like finding out who had killed a software developer.
Balancing her life, being who she was now, like Maizie had said. Doing what she could to help one person, or one family, at a time.
Watching out for the people she cared for in the same way that they watched out for her.
Having this baby.
Maizie shifted. At the same time, Kenna spotted something dark in the side mirror. She glanced at the back window and saw a trio of black SUVs turn onto the street.
Kenna leaned over and honked the horn, long and loud.