Page 86 of Own

What proved even more frustrating was thelackof current information. She’d been missing for months and not even a whiff of her flirted with the headlines. Nothing popped up in front line searches. In fact, someone had done a damn good job of muddying the waters with search-engine poisoning.

If you looked for Grace Black or Amorette Black, there weren’t stories about them being missing. Hell, you could barely get a photo to even pop. It was all spam and scammer sites. Instead it was a lot of noise.

A lot of it.

Search for her dead manager. Same thing.

The photographers? A blip. Their website had even beenerased. Time Machine didn’t turn up even a memory of it. The manager’s agency had “closed” and currently turned up… nothing. The effort poured into the distraction campaign had to be ongoing or you’d think we might pop a mention on a gossip site.

But nope, even Grace’s social media profiles were no longer available. At all. Not the legitimate ones, but the fake ass posers and scammers?

They were everywhere.

Goblin ran races in his sleep, little yips escaping him as his claws scraped at the floor. I nudged him gently with a toe. He let out a grunt, then a sneeze as he sat up abruptly and looked around.

“Sorry bud,” I told him and rose myself. My back cracked along with my shoulders as I stretched. Too many hours hunched over the laptop and my ass was also numb. I carried my empty mugs—both of them—back to the counter and rinsed them out.

The coffee pot was empty, and thankfully had turned itself off. If not, I probably would have scalded the damn thing. That would have triggered a shitstorm when the others started to wake up. After washing it out, I started another pot brewing then pulled on my gun holster and a jacket over it before heading for the door.

I swore more of my joints creaked with every step. Goblin dragged himself up. Once on his feet, he took his time stretching before he followed me over to where I waited by the door. “Shall we?”

When I opened the door, he trotted out and gave a little shake. The sunrise was just at the edge of the trees, all pinks and reds and hints of purples where it slammed up against the dark gray clouds. Rain today would help. Even if Reznik’s guys managed to track evenoneof the SUVs, they’d find picking up the rest of our trail next to impossible.

Smothering another yawn, I limped my way out to the garden behind the safe house. It wasn’t kept in the neatest rows, but it was definitely lush enough. The path was visible enough to let me stretch my legs as I moved.

I rubbed the back of my neck as I ran the last set of decryptions through my head. We had more than enough to bury the political careers of at least a dozen different buyers. We had five different hedge fund investors that also sat on multipleboards, three CEOs, more members of the aristocracy than I wanted to count, a fuckton of so-called NGOs including some that were “founded” by so-called influencers.

That was just what I’d confirmed so far. The lists of movers, shakers, journalists, legislative, congressional, executive, and even judicial clients continued to grow. No wonder they’d been able to hide so much of this. They had people everywhere and in every government.

The bureaucrats. They were the ones who could bury just about anything. Repackage it, rename it, and then even sell it as something else altogether. Crowdfunding based on a network of half-truths and false identities. The crowdfunding proved to just be another way to make bids. Some of the anonymous bidders dropped huge chunks of change, while smaller bidders just added to the coffers.

So not only did they make money selling people, they hid it and washed their funds using the same types of services that also provided them with funds from people looking to help or to hurt. It was downright nauseating.

Though, currently, I wasn’t sure what was worse in all of this… Was it the funds dedicated to raising money for the most reprehensible of people? The kind you wouldn’t expect to generate sympathy of any kind. Or was it the false, misleading tales designed to shred the heartstrings so you donated immediately? Only, if you took the time to dig, you found the lie. It wasn’t even that well hidden.

Goblin raced ahead then back to check with me before he took off again. My dude was restless and I didn’t blame him. I was feeling it too. We had apocalyptic levels of information that could absolutely destroy careers and end reputations. Beyond selling people, and laundering the money—because sure that was more than enough—they feathered their nests withblackmail. Their leverage could be paid out in cash, materials, or favors.

Insidious, disgusting, and bafflingly clever. They increased their profits and avoided taxes all at the same time, while adding multiple shields between their activities and law enforcement. I’d actually dug into the terms and services for one of the crowdfunding sites. Sure enough, buried practically six feet deep, was a provision shielding them from having to reveal certain key identifying bits of data.

You couldn’t indemnify someone from revealing blackmail or illegal activities. Non-disclosure agreements regarding illegal activities were non-enforceable. Didn’t stop people from agreeing or fearing the repercussions.

Travel agencies, online as well as brick and mortar establishments along with retail warehouses based in foreign locations, offered other inventive ways to make sales and transactions. Spread it out enough and it turned into a near impossible set of needles hidden amongst an infinite number of haystacks.

Thirty minutes later and with my head clearer after the walk, I returned with a more relaxed Goblin too. Despite having left a mostly slumbering house, Lunchbox was at the stove working on breakfast, while Voodoo, Bones, and—there she was, I sighed as she cast me a swift smile—Gracie studied everything I had laid out.

The smell from the coffee pot said they’d made more. Excellent. I got Goblin his breakfast before I poured coffee of my own. “That’s about a third of what I managed to decrypt so far. There’s going to be a hell of a lot more.”

“There’s enough here to bury at least a half-dozen buyers I recognize just from their names,” Voodoo said, his icier tone suggesting he had no problem with it at all.

“We could ruin lives with all of this,” Lunchbox commented over his shoulder, but I didn’t miss the way his gaze went to Grace.

“Weshould,” Bones said flatly.

“Do we know that everyone on those lists is actually guilty of something? Or were they just put under the thumb of this particular organization?” The almost too damn reasonable question from Grace made me study her.

“That’s a lot of evidence to manufacture based on the hope that someone will do what you want to keep a blatant lie out of the press.” Or so I believed.

“Is it?” She tapped one of the lists that was attached to a series of payments. “Do you know how swiftly people fall for gossip? Especially salacious gossip? Maybe it all turns out to be bullshit, but the stories debunking the bullshit never have the traction of the ones who wreck reputations and end careers.”

---