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Cassie wished she knew the answer.
13
Cassie opened the door to their hotel room and scrunched her nose at the overly powerful scent of lavender and bleach. She popped her head into the bathroom and flicked the light switch. The bathtub gleamed. Maybe it didn’t smell the best, but at least everything was clean.
“Is it up to your standards?” Harris asked. She was still standing in the hallway, waiting for Cassie to keep moving.
“Oh, sorry.” Cassie shuffled forward and turned on a couple of lights. She pointed between the two beds. “Do you have a preference?”
“Closest to the door.”
“Got it.” Cassie tossed her duffle bag down on the second bed. “Is that so if something happens, you can escape faster and leave me behind to fend for myself?”
Harris didn’t bother looking up. “It’s so if someone breaks into the room, they’ll attack me first, and I can take care of them before they ever get to you.”
Cassie froze. That was a very real possibility now, wasn’t it? “Oh.”
Harris laughed. “Relax, it’s not going to happen.” She tossed a backpack onto the bed and then flopped down next to it, shimmying up toward the pillow. “Bed’s not half bad. Could be worse.”
“We could’ve gotten a motel—”
“Nah, too far out of town. I wanted to stay close.” Harris sat up and undid the zipper on the larger section of the backpack. “Plus, I wanted to use some points. Did you know they never expire? Got this room for free.”
“Really?” Cassie stood up a little taller. “Good to know.”
“Just don’t go breaking anything.”
“I wouldn’t—”
“Joking.” Harris tossed Cassie a look that told her she needed to lighten up. Then she held up her computer. “You ready for this?”
“Ready for what?”
“The flash drive.”
The weight settled back onto Cassie’s shoulders. She wasn’t sure what to expect from this little piece of technology. The last person to hold it in their hands, besides Harris, was a dead man. Randall Sherman had met an untimely end because of what was inside. Not to mention, his coming forward with this information was also the reason David was dead. Then there was the issue of Harris having never turned it in to the Chief in the first place.
A little knot of dread settled in Cassie’s stomach, but she looked up at Harris and gave her a nod anyway.
“Right.” The detective plugged the flash drive into her computer and waited for the window to open. “There are nine folders. They all have miscellaneous names. Names are random or code for something only Sherman knew.”
“Why would he want to give David a flash drive he couldn’t even read?”
“My best guess is that Sherman wanted to make sure David still needed him after handing over the flash drive. He trusted David, but Sherman also didn’t want David to dump him as soon as he got it.”
Cassie turned back to the folders. There were a few names on there: Caine and Mary and Hermes. But there were other random words too. Like Blue, Push, and Clean.
“Okay, which ones have you figured out?” Cassie asked.
Harris double clicked on the folder that read Caine. “This is where I found the address.”
Cassie leaned closer. The folder was full of excel spreadsheets. Each of these had a codename. Harris clicked on the first one. “I see a bunch of dates and some dollar amounts.”
“Transaction dates and amounts. It’s essentially an invoice.” She scrolled down. “See? This one takes place on the date David died. I haven’t matched up the other dates yet, but I think each of them represents another murder.”
“How can you know—” Cassie paused. “Caine.” She rolled her eyes. “The first murderer.”
Harris nodded her head, her eyes alight with excitement. “Exactly. I think each spreadsheet represents a killer for hire. Aguilar will have different people on his roster, all with different specialties. He doesn’t want to get his hands dirty, so he’ll put as many people between him and these guys as possible.”
