AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Amaya hasn’t handled it well either,” he says.
“It doesn’t change how short we’ve fallen,” Finn cuts in. “We need to do better by her. You saw the look in her eyes, Kace. The hurt. It was real. And it had nothing to do with a charade falling apart. Besides, Ramada was way too happy about it. And I wouldn’t put anything past that snake, Derrick.”
Kace takes a deep breath and settles on the sofa, silent for a long minute. “I know. But we’ve both seen and been through enough to understand how life works. If it quacks like a duck…”
“Which is why I’m here, doing this,” I say, pointing at the screen. “I’m not sure it’s a duck. It sounds like a duck, but I’m more and more inclined to believe that the photos and those DNA results are somehow connected.”
“Our PIs didn’t find anything concrete on either Derrick or Ramada,” Kace reminds me. “Right now, there’s more evidence against Amaya than there is against those two. It’s not incentive enough to actually do business with them, though, and I’ve already threatened both with a permanent ban from the estate if they keep pushing this whole crypto bullshit on us.”
“At least we got the board of directors back on track,” I concede with a slight nod.
Tanya comes in after a single knock on the door and leaves a folder on my desk. “This came in from accounting. You can return it tomorrow, they said, after you approve it. It’s next month’s budget,” she says, then takes a moment to look at each of us with a contemptuous scowl. “You three are pathetic.”
“Excuse me?” Kace replies, his eyebrows jumping with astonishment.
“Moping in this office, day in and day out,” she says.
“Tanya, I’m in no mood for one of your pep talks,” I groan with frustration. It’s not the first time she’s taken the liberty to berate us over how we left things with Amaya. She’s a great person, but I think she has forgotten that she is our employee. I do not tolerate any form of disrespect, regardless of how well we may get along. “If there isn’t anything else, Kace, Finn, and I need some privacy. Thank you.”
Tanya’s eyes narrow to slits as she looks at me. For a second, I’m tempted to sit back a few inches.
“You’ve been struggling on your own for too long, Elias,” Tanya says, then comes around the desk to look at the screen. “And I think I can help you. I’ve been doing some digging through the footage, as well.”
“How the hell do you know what we’re doing in here?” I reply, somewhat surprised. “You work in reception. You barely come over to this side.”
“I’ll be honest, I didn’t come by for Accounting,” she giggles. “And you three can get way too loud when you’re arguing. I overheard a few things.” She pauses when she realizes that the three of us are practically paralyzed and holding our breaths upon identifying the implications of her casual statement. “Relax, I’m the only one who figured it out,” Tanya adds. “Like I said, I did some digging too.”
“Okay,” I mumble, still staring at her.
But Kace and Finn are already up and joining us in front of my computer screen. Tanya smiles as she takes control of the mouse. “It may surprise you to hear this, but you don’t know your own security system as well as you should,” she says.
“What do you mean?” Kace asks.
“Well, it runs on two different circuits,” Tanya replies. “There are so many cameras on the estate and so many motion sensors that a single DVR can’t centralize everything. The security engineers set up two DVR systems instead. One with the main cameras, about a hundred of them. And an auxiliary system with another fifty, most of them in and around the staff quarters and the storage sections, covering the dead angles. What you’ve got here in terms of footage to peruse through is just the main DVR circuit.”
“And the second one?” Finn mutters, his brow quick to furrow.
“I pulled it up and made copies the other night,” Tanya says. “I figured that whoever was snooping around your private residences had a good lay of the land. They had to have known where all the key cameras are, including the auxiliary ones. I’ve spent the past few nights digging through those dead angles.”
“Is that why you’ve been consistently late for work?” Finn quips, and she nods once.
“You won’t be too mad once you see what I found,” she says, then pulls up footage from another angle near Kace’s house on the estate. “It took a while, but here it is…”
I am glued to my chair, hands gripping the armrests so tightly that my knuckles have turned white. I hear Kace gasp when he sees it. Finn curses under his breath. Different reactions to the same scene, as the three of us watch Derrick follow us and Amaya one night.
He thinks he’s got his ass covered, looking in certain directions where I know the main cameras are set, then hides behind the sycamore tree and bides his time before he takes his camera out.
“That son of a bitch,” Kace whispers. “I will fucking kill him.”
“He almost got caught, look,” Tanya says.
It’s true. We watch as one of the night guards walk by the sycamore tree. Derrick manages to dodge the guy, but he doesn’t get to take any more photos, either. I’m guessing it’s why Amaya never received additional photos or videos. What was in that envelope was literally all that Derrick was able to gather. But there was never a blackmail request. We still haven’t figured out what the endgame was.
“What was the point of all this?” Finn asks, still looking at the screen. “It clearly wasn’t blackmail.”
Tanya scoffs. “I think he just wanted to rile Amaya up really good. I think he timed the delivery of that envelope to match your meeting with him and Ramada.”
“Wow, you are way sharper than you let on, girl,” Finn mutters.
