Holly turned from the sidewalk into the shadowy alleyway. She eyed the trashcans and peered into the shadows of the fire escape stairwells to be sure no one was lurking there. It was the middle of the day, but you could never tell.
Especially now that she was thoroughly paranoid about everything.
She climbed a set of metal stairs and knocked on the door. The black paint was peeling, and the lock was so badly scratched and worn that the door looked abandoned. No one would suspect that anyone lived beyond it, which was probably exactly what Jazz was hoping for.
Holly heard the sound of movement, and then the sliding of the cover on the peephole. She smiled and held up the takeout bag.
The door opened, and Jazz gestured for her to hurry up and come inside.
“Thanks for seeing me,” Holly said once she was in the cramped, dimly lit hallway.
“That’s Thai food, right?” Jazz asked, taking the brown bag from Holly’s arms.
Holly barely had time to reply before Jazz left. She blew out a breath, removed her coat, and hung it up on one of the nails sticking out of the wall which acted as a makeshift coatrack. If something that had clearly been around for years could be considered makeshift.
Holly followed Jazz into the main room of the apartment. It had grown since the last time she had been there: an extra desk with machinery and equipment sat beside the enormous table that housed four large computer monitors. Above them sat an array of shelves with computers and external fans whirring away.
A sofa with a large television completed the furnishings.
Jazz was in the modest kitchen, plating up food.
“You want?” Jazz asked, indicating a box with a chopstick.
“No, I’ve eaten,” Holly said. She’d learnt her lesson from a previous visit. Jazz could put away large amounts of food and didn’t particularly like to share.
There were two chairs set up in front of the computer screens, a beaten-up and yet luxurious office chair with padded armrests, and a foldable wooden chair with a slat missing.
Holly sat on the wooden chair and looked at the screen. The doctored image of Victoria and Ashley was on display, large and in high quality. Despite knowing it was a fake, Holly found it no easier to look at.
“It’s a fake,” Jazz said, walking into the room while precariously balancing an enormous plate of food in their hand.
“I know,” Holly said.
“She your girlfriend?” Jazz asked.
“Yes.”
Jazz sat down and nodded. “Nice. Victoria Hastings, editor-in-chief of some big deal fashion magazine, right?”
“Arrival, yes.”
“Never read it.”
“You’re not really the target market,” Holly pointed out.
Jazz laughed. “No, I’m really not. I’ve done some research, though. It’s big on LGBT rights. Not surprising if the chief is…” Jazz looked at Holly and smirked.
Holly pointed at the image. “Does it have to be so big?”
Jazz sat forward and pressed a couple of buttons on one of the three keyboards on the desk. The image vanished.
“Sorry, didn’t think. It’s a fake, but it’s a very good one. I couldn’t see any of the usual markers. Whoever did it is a very clean worker,” Jazz explained.
Holly bit back a sarcastic retort which would have been more at home coming from Victoria’s lips. “Any idea who did it?”
“Nope. There’s not a lot to go on in the image, so I started to focus on the emails. They are sophisticated, I got bounced around a lot, but I managed to find the source.”
“You did?” Holly sat up straight.
“You’re not going to like it,” Jazz warned.
“Tell me,” Holly demanded.
“Arrival.”
“What?” Holly’s eyes widened.
“The emails were sent from somewhere in the Arrival offices. I can’t tell where exactly, but whoever sent these either works for or has access to a computer plugged into the Arrival mainframe.”
Holly felt her jaw drop open. She’d been right. It was someone at Arrival. But that didn’t make it any less shocking or horrible. She suddenly thought of Victoria, working side by side with the perpetrator. A shiver ran down her spine.
“Can you find out anything else from the emails?” she asked.
Jazz tilted their head from side to side in thought. “Maybe, dunno yet. I need to look into it and see what else I can shake loose.”
Holly worried her lip. She’d cut her suspect list in half, but she didn’t feel any better about things. In fact, she felt worse. The knowledge that she was getting closer just made her feel more fearful.
“But it definitely came from inside Arrival?” Holly clarified.
“One hundred percent,” Jazz confirmed.
“Then I need to cross-reference who was in the building at the times I received emails,” Holly muttered to herself, coming up with a plan of action.
“I can do that from here,” Jazz said, sliding their plate to one side and pulling a keyboard close.
Holly felt her eyebrow raise at the knowledge that Jazz was able to very quickly access Arrival’s security logs. She knew, of course, that it wasn’t legal, but she couldn’t find it in her to complain. Jazz was no doubt about to compile a list in a matter of minutes and keystrokes, something that would surely take Holly many hours. And that was if she was able to obtain the data at all.
Jazz’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “I’ll cross-ref this with the timestamps on the emails and on the server.”
“Thanks, that’s great.”
“Do you know why someone would do this?” Jazz asked.
“No. We can’t think of who or why. That’s what’s really hurtful, the not knowing.”
“People do stupid shit,” Jazz muttered.
“That’s true. But this is really time-consuming stupid shit. Someone must really hate one or both of us to do this,” Holly pointed out.
“Or they are trying to protect one of you from the other?” Jazz suggested.
Holly laughed. “Well, it’s just bringing us closer together. And why would someone do that anyway?”
“Well, you did have an accident and you lost your memory, and then eighteen months later, you’re in a relationship with your former boss who is known for being a dragon.” Jazz stopped typing and glanced at Holly.
Holly allowed that to digest for a moment. “Yes, okay, it’s a weird setup. I agree. But it works, Victoria is lovely. She’s not what you think.”
Holly spent a lot of her time telling people that Victoria wasn’t at all what they thought she was. It was pretty exhausting. She could understand why people worried about her, but she wished they wouldn’t. She was an adult and could make her own decisions, no matter what society thought of her relationship with her former employer.
Jazz held up their hands. “You don’t need to justify it to me. I’m just saying it could look weird to some people.”
“Then those people need to come and speak to me rather than doing all this,” Holly said, anger lacing her tone.
“I agree. I’m just saying there’s another avenue of investigation you might want to consider,” they said softly.
Holly took a deep breath to try to push her irritation to one side. “You’re right, I’m sorry. It’s just this is causing a lot of stress. I… I moved out. Just to make it look realistic to whoever is doing this. I mean, if they release these pictures to the press, then Victoria’s going to suffer at work. Our kids will as well.”
Jazz looked sympathetic and slowly nodded. “I’ll do what I can to find whoever it is, Carter.”
Holly tried to smile, but she was finding it increasingly difficult as she unpicked more of the mystery. “Thank you.”
“Just keep bringing the food.” Jazz winked.
Holly chuckled, and Jazz went back to work. Holly watched as the computer genius accessed various things that they probably shouldn’t have access to. Holly wasn’t going to worry about the legality of anything at the moment; she was too determined to find answers.
Now she needed to arrange another meeting with Victoria, tell her that the suspect resided within Arrival, and try to convince her better half to not murder everyone within the building.