Chapter 8 #3
I squinted my eyes again, this time, at him, “Are you one of the witnesses or informants who add to that thread?” For emphasis, I stabbed a finger at his laptop.
“What?” His body jolted back and his expression became, as far as I could tell, genuinely offended. “I would never.”
I took him in, and it did seem like he would never.
I changed topics. “Is what you do illegal?”
“Not entirely,” Byron answered.
“What’s the ‘not’ part of the entirely?” I pushed.
He tossed out both hands. “Listen, I can’t tell you. I can just say that it’s kinda like…keeping my eyes on folks.”
“Folks?”
“Well, not folks. Folks’ money.”
Hunh?
“Byron—”
“People do bad shit with their money, and they hide doing that bad shit. I work for people who want me to watch the money so we can know who’s moving theirs around to possibly do bad shit,” he said fast.
Wait.
Was five-dirty-chais-a-day Byron a vigilante too?
“So you’re a hacker,” I summed it up.
“I’m a freelance forensic accountant who might not have warrants to forensically study some accounts,” he admitted, and he seemed relieved to say it, like he’d been dying to confide that in someone for years, and now it was out there.
But…
Whoa!
That was cool.
“You can’t say anything to anyone,” he begged. “And FYI, the Nightingale guys already know because they know everything.”
Hold on.
Was he kidding?
And they hadn’t told us?
Something else to scribble on my list of things to talk about with Knox.
“Have they talked to you?” I queried.
His gaze evaded mine as he muttered, “We’ve had a chat.”
Which meant he was cleared to continue to be around us, because if he wasn’t, no way those men would let him step foot through The Surf Club’s door.
I mean, how wild was this?
“Does Tex know about you?”
He nodded slowly. “And Tito.”
I turned to look at Tito.
He was watching us, and when his sunglasses caught my eyes, he gave me a little wave.
These motherfuckers.
Were they ever going to tell us we had a clandestine forensic accountant among us?
“Do they know about those boards?” I asked.
“Yeah. They have some big computer expert on payroll up in Denver who monitors it.”
“And you work for the good guys?” I pressed.
“I like to think so.”
“And who are those good guys?”
“I can’t discuss my clients.”
“Okay then, why do you do this at The Surf Club?”
“Because I can mask the IP here easier.”
That made no sense to me, but I didn’t go after it because he could explain it, and it would still make no sense to me. Sure, I knew what an IP address was, but what made it easier to mask, I didn’t know.
I also didn’t care.
“So you are totally a computer guru,” I stated.
“Mostly, I’m an accountant. But I know my way around a computer, yeah.”
“As such, and mind you, you can say no. This isn’t extortion. I’m never going to tell anyone about what you do, except the Angels, obvs. But you might be able to do some bits and bobs for the Angels on your computer.”
“They told me if you ever figured it out, you’d recruit me,” he mumbled.
“Who told you?”
“The head dude, the tall, ex-surfer guy.”
Mace, operations manager of the Phoenix branch of NI&S, Knox’s boss.
Holy hell.
This was crazy.
“And yes, I’d be willing to do stuff for you, if I know how to do it,” Byron said. “But I don’t work for free.”
I sat back, disappointed. “If you know about us, you know we do work for free. And our day jobs are servers, bakers, and bartenders. It’s not like we’re rolling in it.”
“No, I mean, you have to set me up on a date with your sister.”
It was a wonder I didn’t fall out of my chair and roll across the room, that bowled me over so viciously.
“Say what?” I asked.
“I want you to set me up with your sister,” he repeated.
“Dream,” I said to confirm.
“Yeah. Dream,” he confirmed.
Okay, I needed time with this.
First, I was no cockblocker.
As far as I knew, Dream had sworn off men post-baby daddy number three.
However, if the spirit moved her, a girl had to get herself some.
And Byron had a full head of brown hair, nice features, and he was taller than her (and the Nelson family ran tall, for instance, I was five feet eight).
Obviously, he was highly intelligent, and since I’d spent nearly every working day with him for six years, I felt relatively safe in saying he seemed like a nice guy.
He might be good at giving “some.”
Thus, I shouldn’t remind Byron she had three kids, three jobs, and she could be a bitch.
Second, Dream was my sister.
Should I hook her up with some dude I’d known for years, but clearly I did not know him very well. A dude who watched people’s money without their knowledge for undisclosed clients he “liked” to think were good guys?
To buy time, I remarked, “I thought you didn’t like her.”
“Why wouldn’t I like her?”
“Because you took my back when she was handing me shit that one time.”
“I’ve seen growth lately.”
This was true. I had too. Even when it came to me.
“It takes a certain kind of strength of character to be so deep into who you are, but still, you can take a look at yourself and realize you need to do better and be kinder,” he carried on. “And then you do better and you’re kinder.”
This was true too. And food for thought when it came to my own mission with Dream.
“And she’s hot,” Byron finished.
I couldn’t make that call, but I could say that even rundown, Dream was pretty. It was just her personality that made that shine dim.
“No offense, Byron, but, even if you know I don’t exactly get along with my sister,”—I flicked a hand to his laptop— “you hang out on the dark web and have a morally vague job.”
“That isn’t on the dark web,” he said.
“Wait. Those boards are on the regular web?”
“No. They’re on the web where even the people on the dark web don’t have the skills to access the…erm, secret web.”
“You are so totally a computer guru,” I accused.
He lifted his chin, sidestepped my comment and stated his case.
“I make good money. I like kids. I know how to cook. I’ll take the garbage out when it’s full or the bin smells, and not only because I live alone, but because the garbage needs to go out.
I’m a decent looking guy. I own my own home and car.
Not outright on the home, but I’m only five years out on that.
And what I do doesn’t hurt anybody, but it might stop others getting hurt. ”
I tipped my head to the side, because that was a good case.
“So let’s be clear. If I get you a date with Dream, you’ll do how many jobs for us?”
He shrugged. “If I have the time, and if I can do it, whatever you ask.”
“For one date?”
“You can get me the date, but you can’t control if your sister is going to like me.”
Too true.
“I need to think on this,” I told him.
“Take your time.”
“And I’ll reiterate, I’m gonna tell the Angels about you.”
“I figured.”
“And get up in the shit of the Nightingale guys because they didn’t tell us about you,” I went on.
“That’s their problem, not mine.”
It so was.
“Okay then. Nice chat,” I said.
He smiled then requested, “Can I get another dirty chai?”
Well, Byron was a lot more interesting than I would have guessed.
But in the end, Byron was Byron.
“You got it,” I said, got up and headed behind the bar.
Willow and Raye were right in my space before I even got the chai out.
“So?” Raye asked.
“Staff room. Five minutes. Get a conference call going with the Angels.”
Raye looked excited.
Willow did too.
After I dropped the chai on Byron, I met the girls in the staff room.
Raye had her phone up between them, and I could see it was engaged.
“Right, Luna’s here to brief us about her sit-down with Byron,” Raye said into the phone.
“Hey, Loon,” Gemma greeted.
“Hey, guys,” I replied.
“Let’s hear it,” Raye said.
“Strap in,” I warned. Then shared, “Byron is a forensic accountant with mysterious clients. He watches money to make sure no bad guys do bad things with their assets. He’s clearly skilled with a computer and will come onboard if I can get him a date with Dream.
Oh, and not only is there a board on some web that’s deeper than the dark web that’s been discussing all the Nightingale men’s business, but we Angels have our own thread.
Also, the guys knew all about Byron, and that board, and never told us. ”
I stopped talking and complete silence filled the locker room.
Until Tex lumbered in, all flannel shirt, jeans, long-ass beard and wild-ass hair.
He took one look at us and did not tell us to get back to work.
He said, “I lost three months ago when you hadn’t figured it out by the time I placed my bet in the pool. Fifty bucks, down the drain.”
And with that, he lumbered out.
We all stared at the door he disappeared through, then stared at each other.
“Cap knew this?” Raye whispered scarily.
“Eric did?” Jessie whispered, also scarily.
“Javi?” Harlow sounded injured.
“And they bet on it?” Raye added, her voice even scarier.
“Boy, Gabe has some ’splainin’ to do,” Willow threatened.
So did Knox.
“He wants to date Dream?” Shanti asked through the phone.
“Is there another Dream we know that he might be talking about?’ Joey suggested.
“Nope. It’s my sister he’s talking about,” I said.
“This is wild,” Gemma noted.
“I’m never going to look at some everyday dude on his laptop at a coffee shop the same again,” Shanti remarked.
Time to move on.
“Dream is coming to dinner at Mom and Dad’s tonight. I’ll see if there’s an opportunity to run the date by her,” I said.
“But…is that wise? I mean, we don’t know who he works for,” Raye asked me.
“No, we don’t,” I agreed. “But the Nightingale guys do, and do you think Cap, or Eric, Javi or Gabe would allow him to hang here if they weren’t fans?”
“Good point,” Joey said through the phone.
“Also, he flew all the way out to Pennsylvania for Macy’s funeral,” I reminded Raye. “I mean, that’s way above and beyond the call of a devoted regular at a funky coffee shop slash bar slash restaurant.”
“This is very true,” Raye muttered. “And that was really sweet.”
It was.
And anyone could use sweet in their lives.
Maybe especially Dream.
“Do we need to worry about this board?” Joey inquired.
“Byron says that the Nightingale geek monitors it,” I shared.
“Right,” Jessie said.
“Okay, you ask Dream,” Raye ordered me, then to the team, “Those of us sleeping with Nightingale boys will give them the shit they deserve. And we’ll move on from there. Everyone in on our Chambers Family brief on Sunday?”
Man, they were just not letting that go.
There were a bunch of “I’m in” so I had to say it too.
But I had four days to figure out how to convince them to back down.
Now, I had to figure out how to get my sister to go out on a date with Byron.