8. Maxwell
CHAPTER 8
Maxwell
Almost a week had passed since the incident at City University and the brief conversation with Charles Dennis. Kamaya was spinning her wheels, looking at whatever tech stuff she normally used, and I was doing my best to help her with research. Each night I spent in her apartment, we talked mostly about work until we were too tired to stay up any longer. Work now seemed to be the safest topic, and I sat at her dining table while she sat on the sofa. We did not need any repeats of the kiss.
My area of expertise was getting out there on the streets. On the ground and in on the action. With my background as a protection agent and bounty hunter, I was not used to all this desk stuff. That was definitely more her thing, but Brandon asked me to partner with her, and with Kamaya being my girl, I couldn’t say no. Although the time spent in the office was certainly new for me. I wanted to be like Bree and Westin, out on the streets with more freedom. I could feel we were getting closer to solving the case, but something was missing. Or someone.
A restlessness envelops me, and I desperately want to shake it off. Too much was happening at once—the incident at City University and my increasing feelings towards Kamaya. I felt anxious for this assignment to end.
Brandon was due back soon from his honeymoon, and thus far we did not have a narrow list of suspects to present to him, Cecily, or Zach. How could I broach that I thought his longtime friend was possibly behind this credentials leak and was a mole for his own company? Brandon was my friend, and I did not want to create an awkward situation for him until I had concrete evidence. All I had was my gut feeling that Zach was shady and that single one-sided overheard conversation. That wasn’t enough to approach Brandon with, and certainly not the authorities or Cecily van Zandt.
If I said anything too early, I would be vilified, and we couldn’t have that now. Not when we were slowly getting closer to the truth.
All we had was circumstantial evidence and not much else. Even with Harry’s confession of being the one supplying the subscription log in to other students, it would all be his word against ours. His only “crime” was the equivalent of sharing a Netflix password. Wrong, but not enough to serve prison time according to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Harry clearly had no qualms about the password sharing. After the incident at the college, I googled his current name. Tons of hits came up in the search for Harry Cooper and his End Elitism crusade—chaining himself to the bike lock area to protest rising tuition rate at the school, going on hunger strike to demonstrate the starving kids in America and passing out in class, and his most recent stunt was a protest in front of the student union.
Harry wasn’t at the top of my list, but he was certainly a person we needed to keep an eye on. Why did he hate his mother so much, and why did she hide the fact that she even had a son? Something wasn’t right about the Van Zandt family.
Even Charles Dennis expressed animosity toward Cecily. Was she a likable person? Not from what we’d seen so far, but unlikeable didn’t necessarily equal criminal. For her and Zach, bad vibes alone weren’t enough to go on either. Again, no real proof and dysfunctional family doesn’t equal guilt. If that were true, we’d all be in trouble.
My gut told me this was bigger than just some password sharing. That possibly embezzling or even fraud was the real culprit behind this. But who and how? How did Kamaya and I connect the dots? We were stuck with a bunch of puzzle pieces that did not fit together.
“Any luck?” I ask, coming back from the kitchen. I hand Kamaya her second cup of coffee for the day. She’s peering at several monitor screens at once. This many screens gives me a headache, and I don’t know how she does it. I admire her acumen and intelligence because there’s no way in hell I could do all this.
My main focus right now is keeping her out of harm’s way. I still didn’t like the idea that we were being followed, but I couldn’t prove that either. Manhattan was full of black town cars, and any number of them could be filled with politicians, celebrities, or other wealthy people. It didn’t prove that anyone was following us.
Though I couldn’t say why I felt this way.
At least I felt some assurance that staying with her in the apartment meant she had twenty-four-hour protection with me there.
“No,” Kamaya says with a deep sigh before taking a sip of the hot liquid. “I was thinking that maybe this was intended to be malware for Financial Journal . A way to give them some kind of virus or to hack into their system of payments. Looking at their client list that Zach emailed me this morning, it’s a lot of influential and high-profile universities and financial marketing firms. Wouldn’t it make sense that someone would try to hack into the accounts of institutions that are worth millions or even billions of dollars?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Of course it makes sense that somebody would do that. Have subscribers reported any missing funds from their accounts?”
“I asked Zach the same thing, and he’s advised that as far as FJ is concerned, nobody has expressed any unusual activity in their accounts.”
“So theft isn’t the issue. Whoever is behind all this was not interested in getting into accounts to access large quantities of money.”
“No, it doesn’t look like it, which makes me go back to my original thought that it’s a vendetta. Revenge to get back at FJ . The fact that only City University was given the credentials feels pointed. Like maybe Harry is behind this. Or maybe Investments Daily is behind this. Charles Dennis wouldn’t be the first rich man to hire someone to do his dirty work.”
The wheels were spinning, and I was trying to connect the dots that Kamaya was throwing out. Harry was our most probable lead.
“Do you think Harry lied about someone anonymously sending him the credentials and it’s actually him who was able to do this?”
“Well, the link that he forwarded to us was encrypted and asked for a passcode for access when I clicked on it. Whoever did this is really good. Now that the link has been opened once, it’s nearly impossible to get into it again. If Harry didn’t think to take a screenshot of the login credentials, it would have been lost even to him after initially opening the link.”
I shook my head. “In English, please?”
Kam laughs. “OK, basically whoever set this up did it in a way that would make it hard to trace them. All this proves that they knew Harry well enough to get it to him. If somebody did in fact send it to him and he’s not behind it himself.”
I smooth a hand over my short cut of hair. I can feel the tension headache forming as I try to keep up with all this. “I’m glad you understand what is going on with all this. This tech shit is crazy. The things that people can do.”
“Yeah, I love technology when it’s used for good. Unethical hacking and cyber theft, of course, is the downside to it.”
“I propose we wait until Brandon gets back and see what he advises on what steps we should take next.”
“Agreed. We’ll see what he says. Right now, we have several potential culprits. Jacob, Franco, and Harry are still real possibilities.”
And Zachary , I wanted to say but kept that one to myself. I didn’t think Kamaya was ready to consider Zach as a real possibility. Something was not right with Zach and whatever was going on in his department.
I head over to my desk, and I get a text that Brandon is on his way into the office.
“Thank God,” I utter under my breath. Finally we can get back to work, and I long for the opportunity to expose Zach’s ways to everyone.
“Look who’s back!” I hear Kamaya say.
I look up and see an extremely sun-tanned Brandon walking towards us.
“I missed you guys,” Brandon says, greeting us.
“Really?” I ask.
“Nah, not really,” Brandon quips. “Glad to be back though and see this place is in one piece. Any developments on FJ ?”
Kamaya exchanges a look with me but speaks first. “Yes, quite a few actually,” she answers. “Meeting in ten minutes?”
“Perfect,” Brandon says, moving to his office.
Before heading into Brandon’s office, Kamaya says, “I can take the lead with the suspect list. I’ve narrowed it down to five names.”
I nod. “Fine. The floor is yours.”
Right on time, Kamaya and I begin heading to Brandon’s office together.
“What have you got for me?” Brandon asks, looking to Kamaya.
“So in the week and a half you’ve been gone, Max and I have narrowed down to five potential culprits.”
“Let’s have it,” Brandon says, beckoning forward with his hand that now sports a gold wedding band.
“So when we visited FJ , we spoke with an employee under Zach by the name of Katie Lucas. She wasn’t much help, but while we were speaking to her, another employee came across by the name of Jacob. He let us know about another employee, Franco, who was recently fired for some nefarious thing surrounding his role as head of IT.”
Brandon’s eyes widen. “So, this Franco is the probable cause behind all this. Retribution for what he may feel is wrongful termination?”
“That’s what we were thinking,” I say. “Kam and I found an address through the Accurint database search, and the most recent address was for a building that the city has shut down.”
“And no other leads as to where he may be living and working now?” Brandon asks.
“So far, no, but Kamaya and I have been tirelessly searching.”
“Well, I can get in contact with Zach and see if he’s able to give us any last known info. Human Resources should still have access to that info. Okay. That’s one. Who else do we have?”
Kamaya swipes on her tablet and presents the next lead in our assignment. “Since you’ve been away, you haven’t kept up with social media, I see, but my sister was able to get her friend to tell us that he was one of the students who used the bogus credentials to log in and use one of the FJ articles for an assignment source. He told us it was offered to him by Harry Cooper.”
“Does that name seem familiar at all?” I ask.
Brandon shakes his head. “Should it?”
“Well,” Kam says, clearing her throat, “in the plot twist of the century, Harry Cooper is actually Harrison van Zandt. He’s the estranged son of Cecily and legally had his name changed to his nickname and middle name. He’s no longer using his Van Zandt surname, so we weren’t able to find him in association with his mother during our initial search.”
“Wow,” Brandon exclaims. “In the years I’ve known Cecily, she’s never mentioned having a child who is apparently a student at the very same school that started all this shit.”
Kamaya and I nod. “And Harrison—I mean Harry—claims someone anonymously sent him that info.”
“But we’re not sure we believe him,” I add. “Of course, we don’t have jurisdiction to search his computer. He could be lying to us, and this might all be part of his End Elitism crusade.”
Kamaya quickly fills Brandon in on the End Elitism campaign that Harry started up.
Brandon leans back and steeples his fingers. “I missed quite a bit. I could also ask Zach about Harrison or Harry. Even though she apparently doesn’t have a relationship with Harry, maybe Cecily has some info on him. One of you should get in contact with Bree. Maybe some of her old police contacts can get us through to the organized crime unit—if that’s what we’re dealing with here. Law enforcement will be able to go over our heads with this.”
“Noted,” Kamaya says, typing into her tablet.
“All right, who else?” Brandon asks.
Now didn’t feel right, after he’d just come back from his honeymoon, to tell Brandon that a longtime friend of his may be a suspect. I didn’t want to be the one to bring up Zach first.
“Lastly, Charles Dennis. While you were gone, Cecily saw the commotion for the protests on the news and came in here. She mentioned Charles Dennis, head of Investments Daily , which is Financial Journal ’s competitor. He’s another person of interest,” Kamaya interjects, saving us both from having to bring up Zach. “I guess I was mistaken about possible suspects. Jacob, who gave us limited info, is a person of interest, but I don’t think we can consider him yet anyway.”
“Okay,” Brandon says.
“I don’t have anything else for now. I’ll go contact Bree,” Kamaya says, standing up and heading to the door.
“Sounds good. Sounds like we have a plan. Max, anything else to add?”
Brandon turns to me, thinking there’s more for us to discuss. There is, but this requires Kamaya’s absence.
“I’m gonna hang back here and talk to Brandon for a bit.”
“Okay,” she says. Her brows are furrowed. Maybe she’s thinking that I’m discussing this case without her. I have other things I need to discuss with Brandon. I must inform him about a decision I made before entering this office today. Something that’s weighed on me for the past few days.
I wait for the click of his office door to shut before continuing.
“So, what’s up?” Brandon asks, leaning back in his leather chair.
“I need you to take me off this assignment with Kamaya.”