Chapter 36 #2
“Sure it is. This is some of the most beautiful acreage in North Carolina. To be able to come here whenever I want is a gift. Not to mention that you have a few waterfalls I haven’t seen since you snuck me onto the grounds when we were fifteen.”
Finally, a smile. “We had fun, didn’t we?”
“We did. Bet we’ll have even more fun now.”
“Are you going to tell me what you found?”
“As soon as I have it. I’m so close.”
“You told Gray.”
“No, I sent Gray an encrypted file and instructions about who will be able to access it. He won’t be able to make any sense out of it without Sabrina’s help.”
Beside him, Bronwyn sat straighter. “Sabrina?”
“You sound jealous.” Mo took Bronwyn’s hand and brought it to his lips. “To be clear, I like it.”
She scoffed. “I’m not . . . okay. Maybe a little. Jealous sounds too vindictive though. Curious is a better word.”
“Curious with a side of ‘that girl better not have ever dated you’ is what it sounds like to me.”
She cut her eyes at him. “That sounds about right.” Her tone was frosty.
“Sabrina Fleming-Campbell is one of the nation’s leading computer forensic experts. She can also hack anything. She teaches at UNC–Carrington. Our paths have crossed quite a few times. I think the world of her.”
“Huh.”
Funny how one sound could hold so much hostility. Although maybe it was too soon to mess with Bronwyn this way. “She’s happily married. With two kids and a husband who believes he’s the luckiest man in the world.”
“She sounds lovely.” Bronwyn’s tone had softened. A little.
“She is. And I trust her completely. She’s the one who got me the facial recognition info about Peter Brown and told me that he also goes by Glen Masters. I had no idea you would recognize that name.”
“Is that legal? Because we need everything to be legal, Mo.”
He nodded. “She knows we’re in the thick of a serious situation. She’ll have everything documented.”
“Wait a minute. Why would Gray need this stuff when you don’t have it finalized? Do you think something’s going to happen?”
“I think we’re in the deep end, and we need to be sure we take all necessary precautions.”
“Okay. I trust you. What’s our next step?”
“I think it’s time to check out your servers.”
“Yeah, so . . . I don’t know much about that.”
“Do you know how to give me access?”
“Of course. I know where everything is. We paid a small fortune for a secure system.” She made a sound in the back of her throat. “And my stupid relatives still managed to sneak in there and make a mess of it.”
“We’re going to fix it. And then we’re going to set up a new system, and we’re going to have it monitored so heavily that no one will dare play a game of solitaire unless they’ve been given written permission.”
Bronwyn bit down on her lip. “I don’t want to do that to my people.”
“I’m kidding. Kind of.” He hadn’t been, really.
“No you weren’t.”
“Okay. Fine. They can play solitaire. But you’ll know how much time they’re spending on it.” She didn’t look convinced, so he added, “You don’t really want to pay people to play games, do you?”
“It depends. My night desk clerk needs something to keep herself awake. I’d rather pay her to play solitaire than to sleep.
Now, if we’re talking about the security guards, they’d better not be playing solitaire.
But if Juniper wants to play a game while she’s waiting on me to finish a meeting, I don’t care. ”
“Juniper?”
“June. Her full name is Juniper, but she thinks it sounds too hippie.”
“I’m so glad I know this. Did they name her after the prickly bushes around here or the tree in the Bible?”
“I have no idea.”
“I’m going to ask her.”
“Mo, you can’t. She’ll strangle me for telling you.”
He winked at her.
“You weren’t serious?” she asked.
“Of course not.”
She shook her head, a slight smile on her lips. “You’re very good at distracting me.”
“You were getting a little tense.”
“I’m still tense.”
“Yeah, but now it’s about Juniper and not about your relatives.”
She gave him a sour look. “And now I’m back to thinking about them.”
He parked in front of her office. “They’re going to be hard to avoid. We have to take breaks when we can.”
He jogged to her side of the Jeep and opened the door. “Lead the way, my lady.”
He followed her into the quiet office building. She scanned them in, then spoke to the security guard and told him where they were going so he wouldn’t sound any alarms if he saw them on the cameras.
Bronwyn opened the door to the server room, but Mo didn’t immediately walk inside. She stood slightly behind him. Then she leaned against him. “Mo, I’m not sure if you know this, but this equipment can’t talk.”
“That’s what you think.” Then he entered the room.
He studied the layout. He estimated it was 20’x20’, which was larger than it needed to be, but he wasn’t surprised. Bronwyn thought ahead, and this room had several rows of empty server cabinets that would be needed in the future.
The space was well designed, well ventilated, and well protected.
Hardware wasn’t his area of expertise, but he liked what he saw.
There were cameras in the corners of the room, but based on what he knew about security at The Haven, he suspected that William, Ronald, Nathan, or—he truly hoped not—Bronwyn’s father could have paid someone to look the other way while they removed files from the main server.
Mo took three minutes to walk around the space and orient himself. Each server was labeled. “Who did all this?”
Bronwyn named a company out of Charlotte. A good one. “Has anyone made changes in here since they set everything up?”
She bit her lip. “Not to my knowledge, but . . .”
Mo found the server he was looking for and plugged his laptop into it. It took him ten minutes to be sure the data he’d been looking for was downloading.
“Can you explain what you’ve found?”
Mo glanced at the cameras. “When we get back to your place.”
“Okay.”
It had to be infuriating for her not to have all the information, but he hoped and prayed that the data he was downloading would clear her father.
Her uncles were going to jail. Hopefully.
And possibly Senator Carlsman too. Although there was something about the senator that Mo still hadn’t been able to sort out.
Carlsman had paid, and paid dearly, for almost fifteen years. Mo couldn’t prove it yet, but he was almost certain that the senator was still paying, although in a different way. Once upon a time Carlsman had been a partner in the law firm representing Steven Pierce.
On paper, that affiliation no longer existed. But no senator running for president had ever let go of a potentially profitable alliance.