Chapter 31
“What do you want?” Alex barked, his voice crackling through the speaker on the video doorbell.
I flashed my badge to the lens and told him we needed to talk.
“There’s nothing I want to talk about with you.”
“It involves your father.”
“Even less reason to talk to you.”
“I’m sorry to tell you, but he’s deceased.”
Static crackled over the line for a moment.
“Thanks for letting me know. Have a great day.”
The line disconnected.
JD and I shared a look.
“Ungrateful little bastard,” JD muttered.
I rang the bell again.
After a moment, Alex said, “What part of fuck off did you not understand?”
“We really need to ask you a few questions.”
“Leave now. You’re trespassing.” He disconnected.
I shared another glance with Jack.
Having had a prior run-in with the law, Alex knew better than to talk to cops. It might have been the smart move, but it didn’t do anything to reduce my suspicions.
JD and I left and walked back toward the elevator.
“That would break my heart to have that kind of relationship with my kid,” JD said.
“Well, you don’t have to worry about that.”
Jack beamed with pride.
We took the elevator down to the lobby. The valet pulled the car around, and we hopped in and headed back to the Avventura.
Buddy waited eagerly at the salon door. We stepped inside, and I knelt down and petted the little guy. The boat was quiet. Eerily so.
I stood up and marched below deck to check on Kara. She didn’t answer when I knocked on the hatch. I feared the worst.
I twisted the handle and cracked open the hatch. The stateroom was empty. The bed had been made, and the room was tidy.
I left and went back up to the galley, but by that time, Jack had found a note on the counter. He handed it to me. It read: I couldn't sit still. Had to get out and make something happen. Thanks for the hospitality. I'll be in touch. XOXO, Kara.
I couldn't blame her for not wanting to sit still.
"Think she played us for suckers?" JD asked.
I shrugged. "What's the point? If she really did kill Yan, she didn't have to reach out to us.”
"I guess we'll know if she's dying in the next day or so.”
The commotion must have rousted Piper out of bed. She staggered into the galley a few moments later with tousled hair and bleary eyes from staring at a computer screen for the last 24 hours. "What's for breakfast?”
"There are breakfast tacos in the freezer, or I can grill something up for you," I said.
"Isn't this an all-inclusive resort?"
I chuckled. "I guess so."
"I'll take French toast, bacon, and hash browns, thank you very much."
I smiled. "Coming right up.”
I hadn't seen Piper without makeup before. She looked a little different without the heavy eyeliner—all natural and wholesome. She wore a T-shirt and boxers and took a seat at the breakfast nook.
I grabbed the fixings and went to town. I figured I’d make some for everybody while we were here. Nothing like a second breakfast.
"Making any progress on the encryption?"
"I’ve had a program running all night, trying to crack it.
But honestly, a brute force attack could take years.
I’ve been digging around the dark web to see if I can find a leaked encryption key.
They’re using a proprietary encryption layer on top of SM4.
But it looks like a debug feature was left in during testing.
There is a commented-out block in the code. That might be a way in.”
“In English.”
“Looks like a dev left a diagnostic backdoor. It happens a lot with proprietary encryption algorithms.”
"Can you get in?”
Piper shrugged. "Given enough time." She looked around. "Speaking of, where is the guest of honor?"
"I'm not exactly sure,” I said in a hesitant voice.
Piper huffed. "So, I'm working my ass off for nothing?"
"Not for nothing. We need to find out what's in that data, and why Yan was killed.” After a pause, I said, "And Kara will be back."
Piper scoffed and rolled her eyes.