Sixty-three

THE women’s voices echoed strangely through the aluminum pipe, but I could make out every word. And though I’d missed Sydney’s phone conversation, I quickly got the gist of it.

“I warned you that someone’s been tampering with our app,” AJ said, “and I told you it wasn’t an outside hack!”

“You claimed it was Haley, and you were right,” Sydney returned. “She created a backdoor and buried it so deep it took a week for my digital forensic investigators to find it. I hired the best in the business, and they still can’t tell me who used it, or why.”

“Well, I can’t ask Haley. She’s dead.”

“I don’t need excuses, AJ. I need solutions.”

“Hey! If I hadn’t figured out that those user complaints and abuse reports were being deleted, you’d still be in the dark. I’m doing my best to help your investigators find a digital trail that leads to the saboteur—”

“I’ve got my own suspicions about that,” Sydney said bitterly.

“Who?”

“Someone from my past. But that doesn’t concern you. Just do your job. I want that backdoor closed. Permanently.”

Finally, Cody spoke. “The backdoor is the least of our worries. None of this explains the account surpluses. More than one hundred seventy thousand dollars—and it’s still coming in. I’ve spoken to a few users, and I don’t like what I’m hearing. This is far more serious than deletions of abuse reports. I think someone is setting us up for—”

“Enough!” Sydney said. “We’re not going to solve anything tonight in this alley. Let’s put our game faces on and get back to the party.”

Slapping brick dust off my apron, I raced back up the stairs.

By now, Vicki was gone from the pantry, leaving Dante’s sketches in clear view. And that’s where I found Sydney, frozen in place, staring at those portraits.

Sydney’s “game face” was nowhere in sight. She looked positively livid with her fingers gripping her smartphone so tightly that I thought the quartz face would crack.

Cody appeared confused but concerned. And poor AJ seemed completely clueless. None of them noticed me, so I waited a moment, hoping somebody would say something. Finally, I asked—

“Do you recognize him?”

Sydney’s tiger eyes remained on the sketches. “What are you doing with these, Clare?”

“This guy is the one in the viral video with Carol Lynn Kendall, the mystery man who started this mess. He’s wanted for questioning by the police for giving them a fake identity. He’s been abusing women he meets on your app. And I think he has something to do with Haley Hartford’s death.”

Cody’s expression turned fierce. “What makes you think so?”

“One of my baristas saw this man sitting with Haley, having some kind of meeting. She showed him something on her laptop, and he handed her an envelope.”

Sydney’s face went white. Then she locked gazes with Cody.

“What is it?” I asked. “What’s going on? Did this man hire Haley to sabotage Cinder?”

Suddenly, Matt burst into the pantry, pulling Joy behind him. “Clare! Clare! Oh, there you are. We have to talk. Now!”

As Matt moved toward me, Sydney and her Tinkerbells fled, leaving my question unanswered. Determined to corner Sydney later, I turned to deal with my bellowing ex-husband.

“What?” I said, throwing up my hands. “What do we have to ‘talk’ about?”

“Dad’s acting crazy,” Joy said. “I don’t understand why he’s freaking out. It’s no big deal.”

Matt shook his head. “This is a big deal, Joy, bigger than you think. Now tell your mother. Go on, tell her what just happened to you.”

Baffled, Joy faced me. “Some guy mistook me for someone else. That’s all. He thought my name was Kara.”