Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
“You all good? Sorta seem distracted.”
John’s words snapped Xavier from his thoughts. He looked at Leah, Flint, Dax, Bo, Breaker, and Marco before turning his gaze back to John. “Yeah. Sorry, man. Just thinking about some news I got before we came here.”
“Bad news, I’m assuming,” John said.
“Sort of. But, well… I best explain.”
They all took seats around one of the long plastic tables and Xavier told them about the call he’d had from his old co-worker back at LVPD.
“Impossible!” John said. “There’s no way it’s her.”
“That’s what I told him,” Xavier replied. “But I know the minute we get back to Vegas, the FBI is going to swarm her. If they truly believe she’s faking all this, then it’s too juicy a case to sit on. They’ll want to move fast.”
John nodded. “Then we’ll just have to solve this thing first.”
“You said they have surveillance video,” Breaker mentioned. “If we can hack into their system and find that video, maybe we can use it to start building a digital profile.”
Xavier didn’t know a ton about cyber stuff, but he knew enough to say, “You mean search other security feeds around there and see if she shows up?”
“More than that,” Breaker told him. “We can hack into other systems and possibly patch together a timeline of where she came from and when. Follow her all the way down the Strip. Maybe.”
“I guarantee you the Feds are already working on this,” Marco chimed in.
Breaker smirked at his friend. “You know a lot about FBI investigations, do you?”
Marco matched the smirk. “Trust me. I’ve been investigated more times than I care to admit.”
Everyone laughed.
“But,” Marco continued, “they take this digital footprint stuff seriously. It’s how they do things these days.
It takes time, though. They have to look for cooperation from the other resorts and all that.
And you know how Vegas is: those places take privacy very seriously.
Ninety percent will probably tell the Feds to go fuck themselves until they have a warrant. ”
John rubbed his jaw. “I see where you’re going with this. The Daddy Guard isn’t confined to such legalities.”
Xavier wasn’t sure he liked bending the rules that much. Hacking into systems? Well, that actually wasn’t bending.
That was breaking.
His number-one priority was keeping his babygirl safe, though. There was hardly a law he wouldn’t break or bend to that end.
Willingness was only a small part of i.
“Do we have the capability to do this? I know you’ve already accessed some feeds and blueprints,” he said, looking at Marco as he thought about some of the times the former mobster had guided the team while working the computer in the Guard van.
“I mean, this sounds like some pretty sophisticated stuff.”
Marco seemed to be thinking about it for a moment. “We have the tech back home. It all came from Harrison and Stryker. Which means I’m sure they have that same tech here.”
“They do,” Dax confirmed.
“Those guys have everything,” Bo added.
“Figured,” Marco said. “But the ability? Well, I can try. But I’m learning all this as I go.”
“Same as me,” Breaker told the group. “I hacked some in the CIA and all that. But this might take longer than we have with our limited skillset.”
“That’s true,” Dax said. “But I happen to know a Little—the cutest one, in my book—who is a world-class hacker.”
Xavier was surprised. “Stella’s a hacker?”
“Yeah. That’s how she came to Mountainville. She was running from some nasty guys. But that was a long time ago. She has some skills still, though.”
John bobbed his head. “She actually helped the Guard in L.A. with a little mission not long ago.”
Xavier was feeling a glimmer of hope now. “Think she’d mind lending her expertise here?” He stood, eager to get this project underway.
“Let’s go ask her,” Dax said. “I’ll run us over to the waterpark.”
“We’ll stay here and practice,” Breaker said.
“Sounds good to me,” Leah chimed in. “A successful op is a well-planned op.”
“We’ll leave y’all to it,” Dax said as he retrieved his Stetson from the peg on the wall. “Be back in a bit.”
Xavier hurried out behind Dax, on their way to recruit a hacker.