ands.”
She took a look at the paper and wrinkled her forehead. “Are you sure you wrote the
numbers down corre ctly?”
She handed me the piece of paper back. I knew I had copied them exactly as they were
on my pen dant.
“They’re the numbers that were given t o me.”
“Well, your numbers don’t add up,” she told me. “They’re not bank account numbers
anyw here.”
She turned her computer screen and showed me what she meant. “All banks follow a certain
code in setting up bank accounts. The codes may not be the same in all countries,
but each country has its own identifier so that there is no repetition in bank account
numbers across the w orld.”
She showed me what the numbers for a Cayman Islands bank account should look like.
It was obvious that the sequence on my pendant was far too long and complicated to
be a bank account nu mber.
I thanked the account manager for explaining something that she had probably learned
on her first day of training and left the bank empty-ha nded.
I knew that Bill would not have made a mistake. And I knew that Cameron would not
have lied about the money that Bill had left me. Cameron had once showed me something
Carly had devised to avoid detection by the authorities—an encryption sy stem.
I sat on the bank’s steps and unfolded the bubble-gum wrapper. Now that I took the
time to really look at the sequence, it looked a lot like their encryption system.
And I realized that I would not be able to access Bill’s inheritance unless I could
crack Carly’s code.
“ Merde ,” I muttered. I never swear in Eng lish.
I stuffed the wrapper back into my bag and stomped away.
People like Spider and Carly did not exist in the normal world. They only existed
in Cameron’s world. So finding Spider was going to be tricky, especially since I didn’t
even know his pre-underworld name. But I had an idea where to find Shield, also known
as Victor Orozo, my brother, Bill’s uncle. He trekked between wo rlds.
When I got to the police headquarters, it was almost dark; the days were already getting
shorter. There were so many steps leading up to the edifice doors that I almost did
a Rocky dance at the top, but I was way too winded and t ired.
I pulled the hood of my jacket over my bright red hair before walkin g in.
Past the doors of the Callister City Police Department, it was total mayhem. People
getting lugged around in handcuffs. Two women screaming at each other by the water
fountain. Some guy in pajamas walking around with a sign that he had written in blue
crayon on the back of a cereal box. According to his sign, only God could make him
pee in a cup.
Luckily, the line up to the desk was fairly short and moving quickly. It wasn’t until
I got to the front of the line that I realized that this was a lineup just to get
a number, and the number that the little red printer spit out told me that there were
at least fifty people ahead of me. And there was only one clerk serving clients. Seemed
like the whole city was ahead of me t oday.
I took a number and looked for a seat. The only one available was between someone
who looked like she was possibly a hooker and an old man who was doubled over and
seemed like he might have already peed himself. I was exhausted but stood and waited
my turn. I found free wall space and leaned agains t it.
It wasn’t hard to eavesdrop on the reasons why people were there because all of them
were bellowing their issues at the police clerk. And everyone was there to complain
about something. A noisy neighbor. Police brutality. Stolen wallet. Police brutality.
Bailout. Police bruta lity.
I, too, was there to complain, in some measure. The difference was that I would be
asking for the sheriff and my complaint would rock law enforcement and the underw orld.
Victor was a police officer, who longed to rule the underworld. He had abused his
status to steal me from Cameron with
She took a look at the paper and wrinkled her forehead. “Are you sure you wrote the
numbers down corre ctly?”
She handed me the piece of paper back. I knew I had copied them exactly as they were
on my pen dant.
“They’re the numbers that were given t o me.”
“Well, your numbers don’t add up,” she told me. “They’re not bank account numbers
anyw here.”
She turned her computer screen and showed me what she meant. “All banks follow a certain
code in setting up bank accounts. The codes may not be the same in all countries,
but each country has its own identifier so that there is no repetition in bank account
numbers across the w orld.”
She showed me what the numbers for a Cayman Islands bank account should look like.
It was obvious that the sequence on my pendant was far too long and complicated to
be a bank account nu mber.
I thanked the account manager for explaining something that she had probably learned
on her first day of training and left the bank empty-ha nded.
I knew that Bill would not have made a mistake. And I knew that Cameron would not
have lied about the money that Bill had left me. Cameron had once showed me something
Carly had devised to avoid detection by the authorities—an encryption sy stem.
I sat on the bank’s steps and unfolded the bubble-gum wrapper. Now that I took the
time to really look at the sequence, it looked a lot like their encryption system.
And I realized that I would not be able to access Bill’s inheritance unless I could
crack Carly’s code.
“ Merde ,” I muttered. I never swear in Eng lish.
I stuffed the wrapper back into my bag and stomped away.
People like Spider and Carly did not exist in the normal world. They only existed
in Cameron’s world. So finding Spider was going to be tricky, especially since I didn’t
even know his pre-underworld name. But I had an idea where to find Shield, also known
as Victor Orozo, my brother, Bill’s uncle. He trekked between wo rlds.
When I got to the police headquarters, it was almost dark; the days were already getting
shorter. There were so many steps leading up to the edifice doors that I almost did
a Rocky dance at the top, but I was way too winded and t ired.
I pulled the hood of my jacket over my bright red hair before walkin g in.
Past the doors of the Callister City Police Department, it was total mayhem. People
getting lugged around in handcuffs. Two women screaming at each other by the water
fountain. Some guy in pajamas walking around with a sign that he had written in blue
crayon on the back of a cereal box. According to his sign, only God could make him
pee in a cup.
Luckily, the line up to the desk was fairly short and moving quickly. It wasn’t until
I got to the front of the line that I realized that this was a lineup just to get
a number, and the number that the little red printer spit out told me that there were
at least fifty people ahead of me. And there was only one clerk serving clients. Seemed
like the whole city was ahead of me t oday.
I took a number and looked for a seat. The only one available was between someone
who looked like she was possibly a hooker and an old man who was doubled over and
seemed like he might have already peed himself. I was exhausted but stood and waited
my turn. I found free wall space and leaned agains t it.
It wasn’t hard to eavesdrop on the reasons why people were there because all of them
were bellowing their issues at the police clerk. And everyone was there to complain
about something. A noisy neighbor. Police brutality. Stolen wallet. Police brutality.
Bailout. Police bruta lity.
I, too, was there to complain, in some measure. The difference was that I would be
asking for the sheriff and my complaint would rock law enforcement and the underw orld.
Victor was a police officer, who longed to rule the underworld. He had abused his
status to steal me from Cameron with
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