Yet.
I take another bite of sandwich and stare at the darkened television screen. Carson’s getting better at the whole press junket thing—clothes, hair, manners. He actually said thank you to one of the reporters. I had no idea he knew the words. Maybe it’s all part of his whole rising-star career thing. He wants to look more like a hero and less like, well, Carson. I grin, thinking about how he’ll probably want an assistant next.
Wait a minute. An assistant. Judge Bay isn’t the only connection among the victims.
So is Carson.
At school, Lauren said she saw him talking to Chelsea on several different occasions and she looked miserable during all of them. I’m sure I don’t look real thrilled when I get stuck with Carson either. What if Chelsea was like me? What if she was informing? The killings feel like revenge. What if it’s because Chelsea betrayed the judge?
I pick off the crusts on my sandwich, suddenly no longer hungry. What if Carson was using Chelsea the same way he’s using me? It could mean something.
Or nothing. It could be my hate talking. It’s happened before. Look what I thought of him during the Tessa debacle. I thought he was after her. I missed Todd entirely because I was too focused on the people I wanted to be evil.
Then again . . . no one hates Bay more than Carson. He’s convinced the judge is corrupt.
Enough to frame him for murder?
No, that’s stupid. Still . . . if all the victims worked for Carson that would make them valuable assets.
Or loose ends.
Shit. What does that make me?
23
Carson sets everything up for the next night, which works well for me since Bren is going into Atlanta for a business dinner and Lily’s doing her dinosaur diorama at a friend’s house. Griff and I are supposed to take the side entrance into the courthouse, the one closest to the employee parking lot. After seven p.m., Carson will take down the security system for a two-hour period, plenty of time to get in, get out.
And get on with my life. The thought makes me smile even though cold sweat rolls down my spine.
“Here.” Griff passes me an earbud with an embedded mic so we can communicate even though he’s staying near the entrance, watching in case anyone arrives.
“Thanks. You ready?”
Griff nods and we stash his motorcycle in the shadows, make our way across the deserted courthouse parking lot. My stomach is queasy with excitement . . . and something else I refuse to name, but I know I’m remembering an unlit church parking lot when Griff and I walked into the dark to save my sister.
If we can do this, we can do anything. I squeeze Griff’s hand, smile at him.
He doesn’t smile back. “Let’s make this fast. You know where you’re going, right?”
“You asked me that already.” I focus on the double doors, check my pocket again. The jump drive is still there, still loaded with the virus. “Second floor, fifth door,” I repeat.
But only after I hit the second floor, third door, and upload my virus onto Bay’s computer. Ideally, no one will ever know I was there, but it’ll look like Carson made himself right at home in the judge’s computer.
“Right. Okay.” Griff turns the lock and both of us hold our breath as he nudges open the door.
Nothing. No alarm. Griff exhales hard like he really can’t believe it. He starts to motion me forward, but I’m already through. I run the length of the hallway without looking back.
Ed Price’s office is a total waste. There’s nothing.
Less than nothing, actually, unless you count a metric ton of paperwork and a collection of those perpetual motion machines. There must be five or six of them and they wiggle as I mess with Price’s CPU.
Corey was right. The computer is off. I hook my laptop into the CPU, bypassing the operating system and turning the attorney’s computer into a slave drive. After that, it’s just a few more minutes of searching his image files and finding . . .
Nothing. No pictures—unless you count an awful lot of Ed Price head shots.
Unease squeezes my lungs and I spend a second glaring at the silver motion machines, thinking. If the pictures aren’t on the computer then where are they?
I close the search program, check my phone. I need to get going. I spent my first few minutes loading the virus onto Bay’s computer, which wasn’t too bad, but I spent longer than I should have going through Bay’s files. Pointless really. I wasn’t going to find anything on my mom—not after this many years. I couldn’t help it though, and, going through his things, I couldn’t stop thinking about how many other people he might have used the same way.
I wasted time, and now I’m running behind and still empty-handed. If the pictures weren’t emailed then that leaves . . . the in-box?