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“He needs to think we’re allowed to be here,” Ry concluded quickly.
“Something like that,” I hedged. I hadn’t told them exactly what I’d be doing in the building. I didn’t want to implicate them, but now that they were too damn stubborn to stay in the car, I could use their help.
“Spit it out, Zali. What are we doing?” Ry demanded.
“There’s something in the research that doesn’t add up. It was public knowledge that the investments Mum had targeted were on shaky ground. Why would she throw money at them when there were obvious red flags? It doesn’t make sense, and it’s certainly not a good investment strategy. Something else was going on behind the scenes. I need access to confirm where the payments went.”
“You think there was a discrepancy with what was reported?” Flynn asked, his brows hiked up high and his eyes wide.
“The liquidators didn’t look beyond the company’s financial data. They didn’t perform an audit. They were so stretched with bankruptcies and liquidations by that stage in the GFC that they were just reviewing the accounts. They saw a payment had been made to a company and assumed it actually went there. The only thing they looked further into were related party transactions that they could claw back.”
“So, what makes you think it’s problematic?”
“Seeing that family’s involvement has made me rethink everything.”
“I’m clueless. What are you getting at?” Ry asked.
The lift pinged, and the doors slid open silently. Flynn stuck his head out and checked the hall before succinctly surmising my thoughts. He spoke in a hushed tone as we stepped out. “You think that it was recorded as going somewhere but went to a different place? But if they were only an investment target, how does that help them?”
Getting into the server room was usually the hardest thing to do—heightened security existed at every stage. But I had a back door in—a spreadsheet recording who had access to the server room and their PIN in a password-protected Excel spreadsheet wasn’t the smartest. Making the password “PASSWORD” was dumber. But at least these were only backup servers for archived data. I hoped that the servers with current financial data had better security.
The architect’s plans had everything noted—both the level and the location of the server room door. It was like placing a giant flashing neon sign above it with an honesty box for keys and expecting that hackers wouldn’t jump at the challenge.
We stepped our way through the hallway littered with construction equipment, and in a whisper, I answered, “What I didn’t tell you earlier is that they were also investors, and big ones. I don’t know if or how it changes things, but I need to find out.”
We were wasting precious seconds that we didn’t have.
The entrance to the server room was on the south side of the building. It would stay cooler in Sydney’s brutal summers, meaning that the standalone air-conditioning systems didn’t need to work as hard to cool it, even though there were no external windows to the room. Being elevated also meant that there was no risk of flooding the room or the utilities units servicing it.
I typed in the PIN I’d memorized on the electronic keypad and shook my head when the lock disengaged. “Unbelievable,” I muttered. “Get in here with me.”
I slipped the cables out of my satchel and passed them to Flynn while I grasped my laptop. “Get the shelf for me?” I gestured to the steel cabinet in front of me that had shelves built in at chest height. I handed the bag off to Ryder and set everything down before plugging into the system. It only took a moment to connect in and a few more to get access to the server. I really needed to speak with them about security.
“What are you looking for?” Ry asked in a whisper over my shoulder.
“Transaction records—account names and numbers.”
“We’re in a bank?” he asked, horror in his tone.
“Not quite,” I hedged, wincing a little at the white lie. Technically we weren’t in a bank. Kind of. “I need to match the records up with the financials, like I said. The banks only keep the data for a few years. After that, it’s destroyed. But because the GFC was so significant, financially speaking, the Reserve Bank ordered that the banks archive complete records of the years leading up to it and during the recovery phase for research purposes. The data is stored here.”
“We’re in the Reserve Bank?” he hissed.
I huffed out a laugh that I didn’t feel. He was making me jumpy when I was already on edge. Flynn had been right—I wasn’t really in an emotional state to be working this job.
“No, just the museum. Relax, I can’t steal anything.”
“Except data, Zee, which is exactly what you’re doing.”
“We need to go,” Ry ordered, grabbing a hold of my arm. “Now.”
I shook him off and narrowed my eyes at him, stomping my foot for good measure. “No. I’m not debating this, Ry. I’m not leaving until I have the information I need.”
Turning back to the computer, I brought up the search function for the archives. I input the bank and started on the dates, but Ry wasn’t finished his tirade.
“You’re going to get us arrested, Zali.” He wasn’t panicked, but that didn’t surprise me one bit when it came to Ry. He was intense but also uber laid back, and he thrived on challenges. Learn how to rebuild my Mustang? Done. Pilot a yacht? He’d excelled. Fly a plane? No problems. No, Ry was pissed. Like I’d personally offended him. Well, fuck that.
“So leave. I told you both to wait in the car, but you insisted on being heroes. You could have been having a beer up the street if you’d listened.”
