“Yes,” Lila said. “There’s an office upstairs. Hopefully it won’t be so messy.”
Lila followed the light up a familiar staircase. Alex had dragged her to the restaurant many times when they were younger. She’d even met the owner, Mr. Farthing, a man who had left the Wilson family years before by buying his mark from his matron. She remembered not being sure what to make of him, with his wispy sideburns, thin mustache, and ivory cane carved into the shape of a falcon’s head. The man was determined to own a business instead of staying with his family or marrying into a new one. He’d even proclaimed that one day he’d own enough restaurants to sit on the Low Council of Judges. When Lila had laughed and told him the council, even the lowborn council, was only for women, he had swiped the bottle of beer she’d been drinking and wandered off with it.
What had become of him after the business failed? Who had bought his mark? She couldn’t imagine such a proud man in the mines.
Tristan prodded her in the shoulder when they reached the top of the stairs. She retraced the route from memory and found Mr. Farthing’s office. The room was smaller than she remembered, even without the furniture. Several filing cabinets rusted against the wall, and a few open drawers revealed that they had been emptied. Scratches on the cherry wood floor betrayed the location of Mr. Farthing’s desk and liquor cabinet.
The rotting stench was absent. At least the birds had not ventured inside yet.
“Watch the truck and the back door, Frank,” Tristan ordered the man with the navy coat. “Whistle if you spot something off. We’ll do the same.”
Frank slipped away, shaking his own green light.
Dixon leaned against the office door, watching him go. He fingered the revolver in his holster, gaze locked on the hallway and staircase.
Lila sat down in the middle of the room, glad that Tristan had posted lookouts, glad that she only needed to focus on the hack. The first and relatively easy step involved shoving open the door to the Wilson-Kruger network. The password was not difficult to guess, not after logging on for so many years as Alex’s guest.
Toxic sat behind her as she worked, huddled in a corner, giving Lila her anonymity.
Lila pulled off her hood so that she could work freely, relieved that her identity and her work would not be compromised. As soon as she muttered the password, Toxic connected to the network, eager to assist. “Reaper was too busy for the Bullstow job. I coded the virus and uploaded it myself. I can help.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Lila soon she forgot about Toxic, though, too immersed in her task to care about anything but the Liberté. She prodded her way inside, exploiting the hole in the server’s operating system she had used over a decade before.
The entire system now belonged to her.
Lila opened her snoop programs in a small window and created a new employee account. She then logged in as the newest bank account manager for Liberté and looked up two accounts, pulling transaction histories for the past three years. She then saved them to her laptop and star drive. Though she had no intentions of reviewing the data before logging out, her eyes strayed over the second account and lingered on a familiar number.
Natalie Holguín. Lila sometimes bought Sangre de las Flores from her, with both women using cash or untraceable accounts so that their matrons would not catch wind of the trade. Acting quickly, she ventured to Natalie’s bank account and saved the transaction history. She then returned to the second account and scanned the list, picking three more Liberté accounts, two of which looked strangely familiar. She saved their transaction history and account information as well.
Time was running short.
She deleted her new employee account and erased all traces of it in the system.
The hack had taken less than fifteen minutes.
Her snoop program still burned with a green light.
“Done,” she said, opening the data while her programs deleted the evidence of her work. Tristan looked up from his post at the window, as did Dixon. Even Toxic peered over her shoulder.
“That quick??
?? Tristan asked.
“Yes, that quick.” Lila scrolled through the information on her screen. “Edward Teach. It must be a workborn name. Toxic, see if you can find a record of him in the state registries.”
Dixon snorted at the door, and Toxic covered her mouth, a stray giggle escaping.
“Did you say Edward Teach?” Tristan asked, striding forward.
“Yes.” Lila shoved her hood back over her face and eyed them all warily. “Is he a friend of yours?”
Tristan peeked at the screen. “You could say that. What did he do?”
“He’s the owner of Chairwoman Wilson’s account, or at least the account you think belongs to her.”
Dixon chuckled again.