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There was something going on with him, she thought as she looked out the window.
It was time she found out.
Morana worked the next day from her study on the drive Dante had given her.
And it did puke out a truckload of information at her, mainly IP addresses that did not belong to Tristan Caine, as they'd been framed to look like. Either Tristan Caine happened to be one brilliant Machiavellian mastermind who'd framed himself so he could look clean –which she honestly wouldn't put past him, not from everything she'd heard and everything she'd seen.
And yet, staring at the screen, she could accept the possibility that he was, in fact, innocent of stealing the codes. But what else was he innocent of?
Shaking her head, she pulled her phone out and called Dante as she'd told him she would. The phone rang and she looked around her study, the scant sunlight filtering in through the window as clouds covered the sky, the wind speedy through the trees.
"Morana?" Dante Maroni's heavy voice came after the third ring. "You found something?" he asked, getting straight to business. Good.
"Yes," she told him, changing tabs on the screen and looking at all the details. "There's a list of IP addresses that I traced back to a warehouse in Tenebrae, and one here in Shadow Port. There is one though, that's popping up with an error every time I try to track it. It's a self-destructive virus basically."
"So whoever is behind this knows computers enough to create and install a self-destructive virus?" Dante asked quietly.
Morana shrugged. "Or they could've had Jackson do it. He was good with computers."
Dante sighed. "Okay. I'll call Tenebrae and have someone look at it. Send me the address."
"Okay."
"Also," he added. "Could you meet and return the drive? I don’t want to risk any information leaking online. But I'd like all the decrypted information."
Morana frowned. "That's fine, but what after that?"
"We can discuss it later. I have to go right now."
With that, he disconnected and texted her the address. It was an apartment complex on the west side of the city, near the coast. That must be where they were holed up during their stay.
Morana got ready in record time, in loose black pants with multiple pockets and a loose sleeveless red top, simple but comfortable flats on her feet and hair in a ponytail. Hiking her black tote bag over one shoulder, with her phone and car keys in hands, the drive safely in the bag with her gun, Morana walked out of her wing towards the main gate.
Her phone rang just as she reached her car. She saw her father's name on the screen and rejected the call, sliding in her red Mustang and pulled out of the space. Two muscle cars pulled out behind her. Oh goody.
Morana looked in her rearview mirror and pulled into the traffic, switching lanes and speeding up, the rush, the hit, exactly the same as it always was. The traffic was light and allowed her to weave in between vehicles and she sped towards the coast, her attention completely on the road and on losing the damn cars.
She lost one, but the other stayed on her tail almost half the way and she realized, aggravated, that he couldn't be shaken. And she couldn't lead them to the meeting point. Fuck.
Gritting her teeth, she pulled her phone up and put it on speaker, calling the last dialed number. It rang. And rang some more, then disconnected with no answer.
She kept looking in the rear-view, noticing the other car hadn't moved at all, like a fly in the ointment, and just stayed on the trail.
It was getting very problematic because she was barely five minutes out.
Knowing she couldn't lose the tail before time irked, but she accepted it and slowed down considerably, redialling the number.
No answer.
She almost smashed her phone down in frustration, before taking a deep breath and cooling her mind. Dante wasn't picking up. Okay. Time to make the hard choice.
Scrolling through her contacts, she found the number she was looking for, her thumb hovering above the icon as her eyes drifted to the car again. And she pressed it down.
Her heart started to pound, stomach knotting.
And this, right here, she didn't understand. She'd faced her father with no reaction at all while he'd been interrogating her, and yet she'd barely heard the phone ring and her body had come to life, all responses functioning and alert. She needed to figure this out, for the sanity of her own mind. She also needed to figure out what the hell to do with her tail and where to go.
"Ms. Vitalio."
