37. Lincoln #2
We messaged back and forth for over two hours, Daniel giving me a play-by-play of the game, peppered with insults and lines he probably thought were witty.
Eventually, the conversation drifted into deeper territory, and sometime during that second hour, a realisation struck me. Daniel knew me better than anyone else.
Another realisation hit me then, and I quickly tapped out a new message.
@linkb_flames:
we should swap phone numbers
@danhfirestarter:
wow you do really like me. yeah we should do that but we should keep texting here. it’s our thing
I smiled. He was right. We had over two years of messaging history here. More, in fact—our interactions went back to our early teenage years, but we’d only started interacting on a regular basis when we’d been forced into our uncles’ schemes.
Somewhere along the way, it had become a habit, and ever since the night I’d invited him to come back to my apartment, it had grown into something I relied on.
Seeing Daniel’s name appear on my phone screen never failed to brighten my day, no matter how dark it was.
I could admit that now. Now we’d both acknowledged out loud that things between us had changed.
When I eventually managed to drag myself away from my phone, I was much calmer, fully focused, and ready for the task ahead of me.
It was game time.
Everything was quiet and still. My mother would be dead to the world by now—she relied on a cocktail of pills to function daily, and whatever she took at night would have her out for the count. It was time for me to act.
My bedroom was at the back of the house, and my father’s office was on the same level, also facing the back. Both rooms had identical sash windows with large stone sills. Below them, between the ground floor and first floor, was a narrow stone ledge that ran all around the house.
My feet were big, and the ledge was small, but I was out of all other options.
Peeling off my socks, I patted my pocket to make sure I had the items I needed.
Then I pushed my window all the way open and then carefully climbed out, lowering my feet to the ledge.
The stone was freezing beneath my toes, but I was hoping the benefit of having a better grip would outweigh the discomfort.
I held on to my windowsill with one hand, using the other to slide it closed almost all the way.
Time to move. I had to make it past two other windows before I reached my father’s office, and if I fell— No. I couldn’t think about that. There was no way I wasn’t going to make it.
I inched my way across the tiny ledge, gripping onto the sill as I hugged the wall.
I was out of view of the security cameras—they only detected motion coming from outside the house, not from someone who had appeared from the inside and was already on the wall—but even so, I moved slowly and carefully.
One wrong move could risk not only my discovery, but a potentially serious fall to the ground below. A hockey-career-ending fall.
Stretching out my arm, I gripped the sill of the next window, curling my fingers around the edge. When my entire body was in line with the window, I rested my arms on it, allowing it to take my weight for a moment while I tried to regulate my breathing and slow my pounding heart.
Then I moved on.
By the time I reached my father’s office window I was breathing hard, and my palms were slick with sweat. I’d nearly slipped twice, my life fucking flashing before my eyes while I scrambled to regain my balance. But I’d made it, and now I just needed to get inside.
My bicep strained, taking most of my weight as I eased the putty knife I’d brought for this exact purpose from my pocket.
The ancient upstairs windows had never had proper locks, and so I was able to carefully slide the knife beneath the bottom of the window, jimmying it open enough that I could get my fingers into the gap.
Then I pushed the window all the way up and pulled myself into my father’s office.
I sprawled on the carpet for a minute, catching my breath as the burn slowly eased from my muscles. Flexing my stiff fingers and toes, I stared up at the high ceiling, hoping for a miracle. “You’d better appreciate this, Hoyton,” I muttered.
When I was fully recovered, I headed for the computer. It was password-protected, but my father always used the same password—Nolan—followed by a number. He changed the number yearly, and so it was easy to guess. A few taps, and I was in.
My father kept things above board…on the surface, but I was aware of the history between him and the Hoytons, and the fact that he’d represented Frank Culverhouse, the head of the Culverhouse Network, in a case against the Hoytons.
While I’d never been privy to the full details, I knew the basics, and that was where I was going to begin.
Hitting the search bar, I input HOYTON and plugged in the USB drive I’d brought with me.
I selected all the files and folders that came up, copying them to the drive, and then proceeded to do the same for CULVERHOUSE.
Finally, I selected all folders that covered the approximate date range of the original court case and copied them across.
That done, I turned off the computer and made sure everything was straightened up. Making my way back over to the window, I returned to my own bedroom, inching my way along the wall of the house in painfully slow increments.
When I was back in my room, I lay on my bed, catching up on hockey highlights until the clock hit 6:00 a.m., and then I left.
I was studying to become a lawyer, and now, I needed to put my knowledge into practice. It was time to do a deep dive into my father’s history and, hopefully, uncover something that would stop him from going after my uncle and Tilly, and the man I wanted to be mine.