I withdraw all my savings in cash, give them my ID, and ask to have my safety deposit box. They send me to an office to wait. Three minutes go by. Five.
Please let this one thing go right for me.
The overweight manager with a nineties hairstyle returns with the box.
Thank God.
I open it and take everything out. I have passports and IDs in there, along with more emergency cash. I put on my most businesslike demeanor and resist the urge to stuff everything into my purse and run. I keep my movements clean and crisp. Not a wasted gesture or moment, while maintaining the cool, calm, and collected exterior necessary to avoid suspicion.
"Thank you very much," I say to the bank manager with a bright smile. As I head out, I nearly crumble.
If I run now, I will be utterly alone. No Mémé. No friends. No chance of maintaining the normal lifestyle I'd adopted.
But, if I stay, I'll end up in federal prison. Instead of getting in my car, I start walking. Downtown Tucson is small, but there are people everywhere, and I fit in. I hoof it up Congress Street, not heading in any particular direction, just needing to move. To think.
My phone remains agonizingly quiet. Surely the blackmailers know by now the code has been installed.
So, yeah. They have no intention of setting Mémé free.
I find a cafe and pull out my laptop to work once more on tracing the phone call I received the night before. Just having something familiar to do lowers my stress level. I work the rest of the day without luck. By the time the windows darken and the barista is giving me dirty looks, I know there's no hope.
They're not going to call.
I'm somewhat surprised someone from SeCure or the FBI hasn't at least tried to ring my phone, not that I'd answer it.
I leave the cafe and walk back to my car. It's not surrounded by cop cars or impounded, but I walk by it, anyway. Not worth the risk. Instead, I call Uber and use a dummy account to take me to a cheap hotel off the I-10 frontage road. I book a room with my new identity and credit card.
In the hotel room, I kick off my shoes and sit on the bed with my best and only friend, my laptop.
Think, K-K, think.
What do I do now? Drive out of town? Get on a plane out of the country? What can be done about Mémé?
I'm a smart woman, but no answers come to me. I draw my knees up to my chest and rock back and forth.
~.~
Jackson
I squeeze my temples with one hand as the other moves over my keyboard. It's four a. m.
Every employee in infosec and myself have been working all day and night to isolate the fucking malware, but it's gone everywhere. I implemented emergency measures of transferring the financial data of millions of users to new secure servers, but I doubt we are quick enough. They probably already have enough to do major damage. I still don't even know what they're after. This seems bigger than getting at the credit card data. There would be easier hacks than SeCure if that's all they wanted.
"Tell everyone in the department no one's going home tonight until we have the transfer complete," I snap at Luis. "And if anyone breathes a word of what we're dealing with here, I'll have their ass. Understand?"
"I've already told them," Luis says with his infinite patience. "At what point are we getting the FBI involved?"
"Not until we have this entire situation managed. I don't even want the rest of the executive team to hear about this until it's contained."
Luis looks doubtful, but nods. "Yes, sir."
My directive makes perfect sense. We're sitting on an emergency of epic proportions. If word of it gets out to the press, SeCure's stock will plummet, and the nation's populace will turn frantic about their money and information being stolen.
But I have another reason for refusing to involve law enforcement.
I want to deal with Kylie McDaniel personally. She betrayed me, and I need to look in her eyes and understand how I made such a mistake. I need to make sure it never happens again.
And, there's something else. Something I don't even want to admit is a motivator, but it is.
Kylie wouldn't survive in jail.
She's claustrophobic. It would kill her.
So I'd rather take wolf justice on this one. Find Kylie and make her pay the traditional way. Punishment and repayment.
She will fix this.
Even if I have to keep her my prisoner until she does.
"Do we know how they got through, yet, sir? Do you suspect the new hire? I heard she disappeared today."
"I'll deal with the people behind this. You stay focused on containing the disaster."
"Yes, sir."
"You stay here and supervise. I'm going to find who did this and make them pay." The predator in me needs to hunt my prey. I have to find Kylie.
Luis must see the fierceness of my wolf because he pales and bobs his head. "Yes, sir."
Jackson
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I walk to the Range Rover in the solar panel-covered parking. I lift my nose to the air and sniff, but all I smell is the cool spring air of the desert.
The moon beckons me, makes me itchy to shift and hunt for Kylie.
I reach the vehicle and stop.
A dark head is visible in the passenger seat of my car. I know immediately it's her.
My body surges into emergency mode, the shift upon me. I don't know what to think-someone's murdered her and put her in there. Or that she's waiting to kill me. Or she's committed suicide and left her body for me to find.
I know it's Kylie, and getting to her is a goddamn emergency. I rip open the door.
She's not dead. She's not even hurt. And she's not holding a gun.