28. Naz
TWENTY-EIGHT
NAZ
“That slimy sack of shit! He’s lying! Scott has to know he’s lying, right?!”
“I’m sure Scott knows,” Cory says, putting a calming hand on my shoulder. “He’ll be in touch when he makes it back to his room. That’s not the most important thing right now, though.”
I know he’s right. Sunni managed to get us access to Curtis Howard’s dossier of filth and lies.
The worst part is that it’s not all lies.
The partying, a few accidents where no one was seriously injured, and a host of other stupid behavior.
Nothing illegal outside of the drug use, and nothing that hurt anybody else.
Nothing like what all these bogus records are suggesting.
The sickest part of it all is how believable he makes some of this look. It makes me hate myself even knowing what’s true and what isn’t.
Sunni whistles low, her voice coming through the speaker on Kit’s phone. “This is some pretty sick shit. Most of this can be easily proven false, though. I mean, the photoshop on some of these pictures is terrible. And don’t get me started on the AI.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s true. People will believe it.”
“Well, we’ll just have to do what we can to take them down first.”
“And how exactly do we do that? You hacked his information, so it’s not like we can turn it over to the police.”
“No, but we can lead the police to the right place. I promise you he’s hiding a lot more than this bullshit book report.”
“Thank you, Sunni,” Blake says. “For everything you’ve done for us today. You went above and beyond.”
“Are you kidding me? This was fun.”
“I’ll see you at the office tomorrow, Sunni,” Kit says into the phone before disconnecting.
“Sunni is going to play around a little more. Apparently Curtis has an interesting encryption system on his phone that she’s very curious about,” Kit says after hanging up. “She’s in cyber-nerd heaven.”
“She’s really remarkable,” Blake says. “Please don’t let her get into any trouble on our behalf.”
“If I thought she’d be at risk, I wouldn’t have put her on the project in the first place. I know her and I knew exactly what I was doing when I chose her for this. Trust me.”
“Thanks, Kit,” Blake says, reaching for their hand. They roll their eyes and pat him on the shoulder.
“Anytime, Blake. And I’ll send you over the report of everything Sunni showed you today. Actually, two reports. One you can use officially, and one you can’t.”
“Thanks, Kit,” I say, giving them a half-hearted wave.
“Chin up, Naz. It’ll work out.”
Once it’s just the three of us, Blake does something I don’t think I’ve ever seen him do before. He loosens his tie. Not just a little, either, he yanks the knot side to side until it’s half undone and then unbuttons three buttons.
“You alright, bossman?” Cory asks, giving Blake the same concerned expression I am.
“This is all a much bigger mess than I thought it was.”
“What do you think about the thing with the new hires? That seems super sketchy,” I say.
“It is, especially because it was secretive. No one mentioned it to me, not once, and it wasn’t obvious, either. I think we only knew about Kathy in IT because Emmy was friendly with her. And I’m often in the office after hours, so I noticed a different janitor.”
“It’s weird that the janitor was part of this.”
“Is it?” Cory says. “He has access to every room in the building. For all we know, he’s the one who planted the camera in Blake’s office. It’s a perfect cover.”
“Actually, you’ve just given me an idea,” Blake says, picking up his phone. “Hey Kit, sorry. I know you just left, but I thought of something. Can we legally access the security camera archives for my floor? Yeah. Anyone entering or exiting my office without me. Perfect. Thank you. I owe you big.”
We spend some more time going over everything we learned today and trying to come up with a plan. The trouble is that we have so much information we can’t actually use to prove anything.
We know there’s something going on at the label, but we can’t question the higher-ups without letting them know how we got the information. And when you say it out loud, it sounds like an unhinged conspiracy plot, with no idea what the endgame is.
We know Francis is involved, but we don’t have any physical proof that he is, or that he is directly responsible for any illegal behavior.
All we have is the recording of Scott’s phone call with him, but that doesn’t prove it’s him.
Curtis said his name today, but that also doesn’t prove he committed a crime.
We know there’s a plan to ruin us, to accuse us of heinous crimes, that may or may not work because of the quality of the ‘evidence,’ but we can’t really do anything about that, at least not yet.
We know a lot of little pieces in a very intricate puzzle, and none of the pieces seem to go together in a way that doesn’t sound like absolute madness.
The door to the apartment opens while we are lost in thought. Emmy strolls in carrying a few takeout bags and a briefcase, stopping short when he walks into the kitchen and sees us.
“I didn’t know you had company,” he says.
“Sorry, I lost track of time. Today was a lot.”
Emmy’s brow immediately creases. Putting his bags on the table, he walks right over to Blake and stands between his knees, cupping his face. To my surprise, Blake allows the affection and even wraps his big hands around the back of Emmy’s thighs.
I cut my eyes at Cory. Did he forget we’re still here?
Cory cocks his head, indicating that we should get out of here, but we get sucked back in before we get a chance. The way they’re interacting is fascinating. Blake almost seems human.
“What’s all this?” Emmy asks, looking at the several sheets of notebook paper where Blake had written copious notes in his small, neat print.
“Notes. My cybersecurity contact came through today.”
“Is this what you’re so stressed out about? Is it bad?”
“It’s not good. I can’t say how bad it is just yet, there’s still a lot we haven’t figured out yet.”
“Mind if I take a look?”
Blake shrugs. “Go ahead. I’m not sure I can look at it anymore. My eyes just cross, and it somehow gets more confusing.”
“Why don’t you go have a shower, and I’ll tidy this up. I brought dinner from your favorite Thai place.”
“What would I do without you?”
“Pick up your own dry cleaning?”
Blake scoffs. “I would never.” But he’s grinning now, and Emmy swats him out of the kitchen.
When he looks up and notices we’re still here, and that we watched that whole scene, his cheeks turn pink.
“We’re going to go before we’re accidental witnesses to whatever that is leading to,” I say, making a little circle with my hand to gesture to all of him and Blake being all domestic and shit.
As Cory and I are making our way to the elevator, he shows me his burner phone. There’s a text from Scott with an address.
“Let’s go check on your man.”
The bar we walk into is dark, a little decrepit, and a lot sketchy. It also doesn’t seem like the kind of place where you can run into another dude’s arms, so I settle for a lingering bro hug when we find Scott in a booth near the back.
I take a seat across from him, next to Cory, to avoid putting my hands on him.
He looks tired and tense, but otherwise he looks a little too good in a white tank top and relaxed-fit jeans.
Either he’s dehydrated or he was working out right before meeting us, because his arms are cut and bulging, with a raised vein snaking down the inside of one bicep.
My mouth waters at the sight of it, and I have to clench my fists to keep from jumping over the table and licking that vein while I rub myself on him until one or both of us come.
Get yourself together, man!
“Please tell me the cute girl with the gap tooth was with you, and that this is a listening device and not some kind of brain probe,” Scott says, holding what looks like a small, circular bandage with a tiny transmitter.
“That’s Sunni. She works with Kit, and she’s basically the coolest person I have ever met.”
“Didn’t you sit next to Billie Eilish at an awards event once?”
“I also jammed with Dave Grohl. Zero contest, Sunni is a badass.”
Scott looks at Cory. “Should I be jealous?”
Cory pretends to think about it, then shakes his head. “Nah. A little young for his type.”
“She’s also not a six-foot five powerlifting happy shadow,” I say, my voice lowering into a softer, more serious tone.
Amber eyes flash to mine, holding me captive. I don’t dare look away. I don’t want to. This time I want him to see into my soul, past whatever barriers I’ve kept between us.
“The picture was from before you started,” Cory says matter-of-factly, interrupting the moment. Considering how coldly he’s treated Scott since finding out about the texts, I’d count that as a peace offering.
“I know,” Scott says before tearing his eyes from mine. “I never questioned it, but thank you.”
A server comes by and drops off several baskets of fries, onion rings, and potato skins.
“I’m starving and I figured you might be hungry too,” Scott explains. “I ordered a bunch of apps.”
The server takes our drink orders, and once she’s dropped them off and left us to our greasy meal, Cory gets back to business.
“We got a lot of information today.”
“Understatement,” I snort.
Cory does most of the talking, giving Scott a rundown of everything we learned from Kit and Sunni earlier today.
Scott leans back in his seat, running his hands through his hair and looking as confused as I’ve felt since Sunni started talking a mile a minute about patterns and numbers.