place?”
Yuri offered Vladimir a light. He rarely joined in the conversations.
“We installed a keylogger on his computer,” Anton said. “For him, it is better than a phone bug. We see everything the man types, and he’s taken interest in a woman from Sausalito. Vonda Creevy.”
Vladimir puffed life into the Dunhill. “What’s special about her?”
“She knew O’Mara. Maybe they were close. We don’t have details. She is a litigation attorney and investor with a friend on Supreme Court. The last three governors offer her a seat on appellate court, but she turned them down. She likes the courtroom.”
“Interesting lady.”
Anton sat upright. “Wade Staunton sent a message that you want us to consider hackers.”
“This disappearing money act bothers me.” Vladimir noticed the brothers exchange a glance. “I mean the way it disappeared. All the money moved electronically.”
“The SEC tried to follow money trail, but they haven’t gotten anywhere. Money leaves an account but does not reappear.”
“Patty O’Mara is a thieving little govno . But I don’t want that to cloud my judgment. Maybe someone stole the money from him.” He watched the brothers’ faces for a reaction. “Who wrote the software he used on his servers? Computer geeks don’t make the kind of money O’Mara had floating around. Maybe someone got greedy.”
Anton nodded. “We’ll find out.”
“I want the name of everyone on the software development teams—anybody who was in the building. If someone jacked my money, I want to know where that bastard is.”
Yuri poured another round of vodka. “Maybe he bought a small island.”
“Then get me the GPS coordinates, so I can nuke it.”
Chapter Ten
Maggie poured stiff coffee into a battered mug. Normally she added milk, but after losing her only line of income, drinking it black was fitting punishment. She sat the mug on the foreclosure notice. A dark ring seeped onto the page. However much she enjoyed bashing Peter’s nose, he wasn’t worthy of her sacrifice.
Benito and his friends had found the problem with her car. A distributor wire rattled loose. They were surprised her car even had a distributor. Such was the state-of-her-art. When they reattached it, the car sputtered to life. The drive home seemed much longer than usual.
Sleep crept over her sometime during the night, and she enjoyed the luxury of dismissing yesterday’s events as a bad dream. But in the morning light, her situation seemed even bleaker.
Bailey and Belli sat at Maggie’s feet while she prepped their breakfast of no-name dog nuggets and some wet stuff she bought on sale. Bailey licked the back of Maggie’s hand as if to sample what was in the bowl. Belli nudged her head into Maggie’s knee. Maggie set the bowls down and gave them fresh water. The beagles were accustomed to an earlier meal, but Maggie couldn’t find a good reason to hurry out of bed.
She slid into a chair at the kitchen table and stared out the window. The back deck was her favorite place to sip coffee and watch the surf. The weather was cool and uncharacteristically sunny. But she felt like fostering her ill humor a little longer. Outside, on the beach, she couldn’t adequately suffer.
The bitter coffee matched her mood but sent a few thousand volts to zap her central nervous system out of her moldy funk. She needed a job. Today.
Their savings was sapped by illness. They tapped the remaining equity on the house for Travis’ futile defense. Of the dozen guitars in her father’s original collection, she’d already sold ten. Daddy received a bit of money each month but not enough to support them all. And her degree, only two more years, or three, the rate she was going. And then law school. But if she didn’t get a job, she couldn’t pay the mortgage. Nothing else mattered. She hadn’t told Travis they’d defaulted on the mortgage and might lose their house. There simply wasn’t anything he
Yuri offered Vladimir a light. He rarely joined in the conversations.
“We installed a keylogger on his computer,” Anton said. “For him, it is better than a phone bug. We see everything the man types, and he’s taken interest in a woman from Sausalito. Vonda Creevy.”
Vladimir puffed life into the Dunhill. “What’s special about her?”
“She knew O’Mara. Maybe they were close. We don’t have details. She is a litigation attorney and investor with a friend on Supreme Court. The last three governors offer her a seat on appellate court, but she turned them down. She likes the courtroom.”
“Interesting lady.”
Anton sat upright. “Wade Staunton sent a message that you want us to consider hackers.”
“This disappearing money act bothers me.” Vladimir noticed the brothers exchange a glance. “I mean the way it disappeared. All the money moved electronically.”
“The SEC tried to follow money trail, but they haven’t gotten anywhere. Money leaves an account but does not reappear.”
“Patty O’Mara is a thieving little govno . But I don’t want that to cloud my judgment. Maybe someone stole the money from him.” He watched the brothers’ faces for a reaction. “Who wrote the software he used on his servers? Computer geeks don’t make the kind of money O’Mara had floating around. Maybe someone got greedy.”
Anton nodded. “We’ll find out.”
“I want the name of everyone on the software development teams—anybody who was in the building. If someone jacked my money, I want to know where that bastard is.”
Yuri poured another round of vodka. “Maybe he bought a small island.”
“Then get me the GPS coordinates, so I can nuke it.”
Chapter Ten
Maggie poured stiff coffee into a battered mug. Normally she added milk, but after losing her only line of income, drinking it black was fitting punishment. She sat the mug on the foreclosure notice. A dark ring seeped onto the page. However much she enjoyed bashing Peter’s nose, he wasn’t worthy of her sacrifice.
Benito and his friends had found the problem with her car. A distributor wire rattled loose. They were surprised her car even had a distributor. Such was the state-of-her-art. When they reattached it, the car sputtered to life. The drive home seemed much longer than usual.
Sleep crept over her sometime during the night, and she enjoyed the luxury of dismissing yesterday’s events as a bad dream. But in the morning light, her situation seemed even bleaker.
Bailey and Belli sat at Maggie’s feet while she prepped their breakfast of no-name dog nuggets and some wet stuff she bought on sale. Bailey licked the back of Maggie’s hand as if to sample what was in the bowl. Belli nudged her head into Maggie’s knee. Maggie set the bowls down and gave them fresh water. The beagles were accustomed to an earlier meal, but Maggie couldn’t find a good reason to hurry out of bed.
She slid into a chair at the kitchen table and stared out the window. The back deck was her favorite place to sip coffee and watch the surf. The weather was cool and uncharacteristically sunny. But she felt like fostering her ill humor a little longer. Outside, on the beach, she couldn’t adequately suffer.
The bitter coffee matched her mood but sent a few thousand volts to zap her central nervous system out of her moldy funk. She needed a job. Today.
Their savings was sapped by illness. They tapped the remaining equity on the house for Travis’ futile defense. Of the dozen guitars in her father’s original collection, she’d already sold ten. Daddy received a bit of money each month but not enough to support them all. And her degree, only two more years, or three, the rate she was going. And then law school. But if she didn’t get a job, she couldn’t pay the mortgage. Nothing else mattered. She hadn’t told Travis they’d defaulted on the mortgage and might lose their house. There simply wasn’t anything he
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