Chapter Four

Vivi

Lunch with Jeremiah reminded me why I kept my profile low and my life solitary for the most part. People were unreliable. Just when you thought you knew someone, they did something to betray you or, if you were lucky, just reminded you that people couldn’t be trusted. In the case of Jeremiah—now Jag—they changed altogether.

It didn’t matter. In the end he’d done me a favor by reminding me that I was much better on my own. I returned to my campsite and then moved to another one before I got back to work. Digging into the encrypted data that had started this mess was the first step to trying to end it.

I’d found a few things that I wasn’t looking for the first time around, starting with the name of the asset. Some of the file creator data called him Jonas but that was likely an alias. As I went back through the backups of backups I went back to the photos. Five in total, two were of Governor Blaise and Angela, his seventeen-year-old girlfriend. They were holding hands in one and she was straddling his hips as they made out passionately on the beach in Miami in the other. My money was on Blaise because he was deep into his second term and people were already whispering the one word that would make these photos a dream killer.

POTUS.

The other three photos were clearly of a gangster. If not because of his Italian last name then because of the leather vest he wore and the bandana around the lower half of his face. In all three photos he was with the same two men in suits, definitely federal agents. They were in a park in one, a diner in another and outside a cheap motel in the final picture. It was pretty obvious the man was an informant.

Whoever it was, I was clearly fucked six ways from Sunday because none of it made sense. Most of the data, especially the photos, were out of context, and assuming someone knew Jonas—whoever the fuck he was—they still had a lot of damn dots to connect before they got to me. That was why I figured Blaise had done it; he might have access to someone with access to the right information.

Either that—or Bob was dirty.

Digging into any politician was dangerous, simply because I never knew who else I might run into while searching. But there was also the whole criminal act part that I had to ignore because survival was my top priority. Blaise made it easy to dig into him because his work and personal devices were one and the same. One laptop. One phone. One tablet. He had a great security set-up, most government agencies thought they were invulnerable, but hacking into his shit was easy for a geek like me.

That made it easy to find everything he tried to wipe and a few things he probably thought no one would ever discover. There was a bigger skeleton than his young side piece, so I uploaded everything I had on him to several different sources because backups came in handy when dealing with shady motherfuckers.

And this lying, cheating cradle-robber was the shadiest of them all.

I hesitated for a few minutes on whether or not I should send the other photo to Peaches. She was already too involved. But identifying this guy could tell me who was after me. Maybe. Hopefully.

I decided to sit on it for now while I did more digging into Blaise. He had so much more to lose and a greater need to keep his distance from any whiff of scandal. I needed to find evidence of payments to an individual or company in the last few weeks, but financial records were a bitch to access. It was even worse with banks outside the US and in particular with those financial institutions located in places that helped the rich people hide their money.

But it was a necessary step so I put on a pot of coffee, grabbed a bag of pretzels, some mustard for dipping, and got down to work. It took me hours to find no trace of a payment to anyone or anything suspicious. Dammit.

That was the downside of my job. I could spend sixteen hours sitting in front of a computer, digging and coding and still wind up with absolutely nothing. It was frustrating as hell but it was also the nature of the beast.

A knock startled the shit out of me and instinctively, I reached for my knife. It was a six-inch blade with one serrated edge and spring-loaded hinges. Perfect for personal protection. I gripped the handle and took several deep breaths to clear my mind. If I needed to fight or defend myself, then I needed to be calm. Rational. That was hard to do when I slid open the small window on the door and caught a glimpse of my visitor. “What are you doing here?”

Jeremiah grinned like he was some adorable schoolboy instead of a grown ass man with big sexy muscles. “I was in the area and thought I’d stop by. Bad time?”

“Yep. Maybe next time pick up the phone.” I didn’t like unexpected visitors and I liked them even less when someone was out to get me.

“I tried that but you never answer and you don’t call back.”

He wore a smirk that I shouldn’t have found sexy, but I did. I so, so did. That was another very good reason to keep myself on one side of the door and Jeremiah on the other.

“Why?” he asked

“I realized you were right. I don’t need anyone else’s help and I’m perfectly capable of handling things on my own. So, thank you Jeremiah. And it was good to meet you. Finally.”

I gave him one last look and shut the door. No matter what happened, I was sure I’d never see Jeremiah again.