CHAPTER NINE

Thursday, September 29th

THURSDAY NIGHT, BLAKE SENT KANDICE A TEXT.

 

Blake: We've got the passwords. I've checked, and I have full access. When can we meet?

Kandice: Be at Lance's in 45 minutes.

 

She sent Lance a text.

 

Kandice: On my way over. Blake will be there soon.

 

When she was locking up, her upstairs neighbor was sitting on the stairs. He didn't say a word. She looked at him when she got to the stairs—he stood up and walked back to his apartment.

Good.

She hoped he learned his lesson, and wouldn't try that shit again on anyone else.

She sped along the back roads to get to Lance's house. There were always cops patrolling the main streets. But by staying inside the neighborhoods it was easier to speed without fear of being caught. Her new car was a beast, it was like it wasn't capable of doing the speed limit on any road. The slightest pressure on the gas pedal, and it took off.

When she arrived at Lance's, he had one laptop connected to the TV, and another on the coffee table to take notes with. There was a pad of paper and pen waiting for Slava and Kandice. All they needed was Blake to show up with the passwords, and they would be in business.

After a few minutes, Kandice asked for a drink.

Lance poured a double into a glass. She thanked him and downed the drink in two large gulps.

Her body was starting to crave vodka. The thought of the clear liquor's slight burn made Kandice's mouth water. Turning into her father was her biggest fear, but with shifting being the reason it made it easier to keep the amount of alcohol consumed in check.

Slava said something in Russian to Lance and he walked to the front door before there was a knock. Kandice heard Blake and Lance greet each other, and then Blake walked into the living room with his laptop.

"I've got it all here," Blake said. "Email, calendar, storage drive, I've even got access to his personal phone number and voicemail."

"Here," Lance unplugged the HDMI cable from their laptop and handed it to Blake. "Show us what you've got."

Blake plugged the cable in, and all four of them sat down to take notes. This time around, they prioritized with the mayor's calendar, and backed up all his emails. It took four hours to back up everything, including all the pictures and files the mayor had on his cloud storage drive.

Kandice stretched back in her seat, ready for bed. She wanted to get home and sleep before they started the next phase of surveillance with this new information. With the mayor's itinerary for the next night, Lance and her planned to track him down and see if they could get close.

Blake would keep reading through the mayor's emails to find anything else important.

Lance and Slava planned to stay up longer to comb through the files from the mayor's cloud storage.

Blake left with Kandice, clearly uncomfortable with the prospect of staying by himself with Lance and Slava. They accommodated his quirks, and tried to make him feel welcome, but Kandice knew Blake was unnerved around people he didn't know well.

"Love the new car," Blake said. "When do I get to drive it?"

"Maybe in a couple weeks," she said. "I'm still getting used to it myself."

They drove to the end of the street together. It was well past 3:00 AM, and Kandice's bed called to her.