Page 86 of Dirty Little Secrets
I bite my lip. This is insane. Why do I care? Why can’t I let it go? “Remember that underground coding collective you were a part of?” I ask, silencing my moral compass. “What was it called again?”
“What?” he asks. “Why?”
“No reason,” I mutter, wincing. “Just forgot the name is all.”
“Emery…” Tom's tone falls soft. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing, I just…” Truth or lie? A nice dash of both? “I’m locked out of a system at work, and I, uh…I entered my password too many times. It blocked me.”
“Okay… So? Contact your IT department.”
I cringe. Stupid. “I can’t. It’s, umm…” For fuck’s sake. This was a mistake. “Never mind. It’s fine. I’ll figure it out.”
“AnonCo,” Tom sighs. “It’s called AnonCo.”
“Oh… Thank you,” I mumble, jotting down the name. “Got it.”
“They’re not searchable, Em,” Tom says slowly. “In case you were planning on Googling it.”
“Oh…” Dammit.
Tom grumbles. “Fuck… Tony. That’s the head of the group, okay? I’ll send you their details. But, Em?”
“Yeah?” I chew on the inside of my cheek.
“Whatever you’re doing…” he trails off. “Maybe…don’t.”
“I’m not doing anything,” I say, glancing down at the phone screen as a text from Tom pops up in my notifications. “Thanks for this. I owe you one.”
“Uh-huh,” he hums. “Sure.”
“Well, take care, Thomas,” I say. “I hope everything works out with Ellen. You, uh… You deserve to be happy.”
“Mhmm. I wish I could say the same. Goodbye, Emery.”
And he hangs up. I don’t give Tom’s icy comment another thought before I type out a long-winded text message to “Tony” with my request. I get a reply within seconds.
Five minutes
That’s it? Flicking my nails, I stare at my computer screen. Five minutes until what? Until they call me? Until they show up here? The seconds tick by and nothing happens.
Nothing—
My heart jumps up my throat as I notice my cursor moving across the screen, but I’m not controlling it. Jesus. Shaking my head, my gaze floats to the various dialog boxes popping up on the screen and the dozens of perplexing codes written in neon green. What the fuck did I do?
My phone vibrates with a text message.
You’ve got three minutes of being incognito then it’ll shut off. Good luck.
My head snaps up to the monitor, and I gasp at the dozens of payment files filling the screen. Shit. Three minutes. Okay. I begin scrolling through the transactions.
All outgoing. All on the same day each month. Twenty thousand dollars monthly. Dates back three years.
I click on the account details, and the only section filled in is a routing number and name. I jot down the numbers in my notebook, frowning as I read the name. It’s not even a full name. Just initials. M. N. What the fuck? I try to click on a secondary document, but the screen freezes, and just like that, the window closes.
I’m left baffled, gawking at the sleek Cavanaugh Industries logo, my brain attempting to process what the fuck I just saw.
Payments. Those were payments, right? But for what? Services? Information? If that was the case, why the secrecy? Why the limited access? I know the answer. I hate that I know it—silence.
