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"Actually, could you give me a moment, Jeffrey?"
He smiled at the mention of his name, but I could see the wariness in his eyes.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to miss the press conference today."
"Yes, ma'am."
Grabbing my phone, I pulled up the news article about Quinn's death and turned the video to mute.
It was a short clip—not more than six or seven seconds—and as I watched it now, I realized how odd it looked.
I'd walked down this very hallway. Quinn was at least six inches taller than me, but in the video, his shoulders were barely level with the edging along the wall. And even stranger, as he walked, I noticed that his steps were short and stunted, his arms swinging wider than Quinn's usually did.
In fact...the way Quinn walked.…
"No fucking way."
I threw up my hands, as I paced in front of the brick fireplace in Adam's living room. "That's exactly what I said."
Adam pinched the bridge of his nose. "No, Olive, I don't mean that as a term of shock. I mean that as a term of, what the fuck have you gotten yourself into again?"
Adam had known about my previous hacking jobs. It was what had divided our friendship over the last few years. And while I had lied about my current position—mainly because I thought it would be the last job—I couldn’t hide this from him anymore.
Beside Adam, Mike leaned forward on the couch, cocking his head from side to side as he squinted at the video of Quinn on his phone’s screen. "I mean, if you look sideways, I guess you could say he kind of walks like you, Olive."
I threw out my arm. "See! Exactly!"
Adam dropped his hands in his lap and glared at Mike.
"What?" Mike shrugged, glancing at Adam. "I'm just trying to help."
"And I appreciate that, Mike," I said. "See, this is my theory. Quinn knew he'd gotten himself in over his head. He knew the mayor's people were after him. And he knew I'd be next. So he protected me by hacking into the footage of the masquerade night, pulling up the exact moment I went to Isaacs office, and then, he essentially replaced my face and body with his. That way, he could make it look like it was him who had done the crime and not me."
Mike and Adam both had their arms crossed and were staring at me with the same perplexed disbelieving expression.
Finally, Mike stood up. "Right, well, why don't I get us some water?"
Adam's eyes closed. "Make it a whiskey, please."
Ignoring him, Mike gave me a pathetic smile and disappeared into the kitchen.
I glared at Adam. "You don't believe me?"
"What's there to believe?" Adam asked. "That this guy, Quinn, who supposedly robbed the mayor of Boston, actually hired you to commit the crime, then not only faked his own death but also photoshopped a video of you to look like himself to cover your ass. Did I get that right?"
"Exactly!"
Adam shook his head. "You told me you were done with this. You said no more hacking. And now this. Honestly, I don't know what's worse; if this is true or if you made this up. Because the second one means you've lost your mind, and well...the other means you went back to being a hacker, the one thing I told you not to do for your own safety."
"I'm not crazy," I snapped, grabbing my phone out of my pocket. "Quinn is alive. Look!" I showed him my bank account. Twenty minutes after I'd seen the video—and came to this potential conclusion about the video—I'd checked my account. "Fifty thousand dollars. In my account. Just like Quinn had said would happen when he was in the clear."
"Olive, what all this shows is that you got paid for committing some crime. He easily could have sent that before he died. And even if he didn't, even if he's still alive, so fucking what? That doesn't mean shit. If everything you're saying is true, then congratulations, you escaped another fucked-up situation. And ignored my advice in the process."
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, because you lying to me about Lucas and sending me an article about his ex-girlfriend from high school is you warning me."
Shaking his head, Adam pinched the bridge of his nose. "I can't do this anymore, Olive. Seriously, why are you here?"
"Because this isn't over yet."
