Page 32 of Riptide
Wade was already at the table, laptop open, surveillance photos spread out in front of him. Reagan stood behind him, coffee in hand, studying the images with serious focus. Piper sat cross-legged on the floor, her own laptop balanced on her knees, scrolling through what looked like endless Instagram data.
And Tom. Tom sat at his workstation like he'd been there for hours, which he probably had. Multiple monitors glowed in the dim light, code and data streaming across screens faster than Cara could track.
He didn't look up when she entered. Just kept typing, muttering something under his breath about encryption protocols.
"Cara." Reagan gestured to a chair. "Good. We're all here. Tom's been digging all day. Says he found something big."
Tom's fingers finally stilled. He spun his chair around, and Cara saw the exhaustion in his face. The kind that came from staring at screens for too long, chasing digital ghosts through layers of code. "Blaire Mitchell isn't just a blackmailer. She's got a serious operation going."
He pulled up his main monitor, displayed it on the larger screen Wade had mounted on the wall last month. "Here's what I found."
The screen showed Blaire's Instagram profile. The perfectly curated feed. The inspirational quotes. The success stories.
"Surface level, she looks exactly like what she claims to be. Lifestyle influencer. Identity investigator. Helping people reunite with lost loved ones. All photogenic moments with happy tears." Tom clicked through to her highlights. "She's got forty-seven thousand followers. Posts regularly. Engagement rates are decent for her follower count—about three to four percent, which is actually pretty good."
"But?" Wade prompted.
"But her financial records don't match her public persona." Tom pulled up what looked like bank statements. "I got into her email first—phishing attack, she clicked a fake Instagram verification link I sent yesterday. Once I had her email, I could reset passwords on her cloud storage, her financial apps, everything."
"That was fast," Reagan said.
"She uses the same password structure for everything.” He shook his head sadly. “It took me about twenty minutes to figure out the pattern." Tom's smile was sharp. "Anyway. Her businesschecking account shows deposits ranging from five to twenty-five thousand dollars.”
Reagan paused, coffee mug to her lips. “So people hire her to find friends or family? That’s not illegal.”
“Neither is posting about her successes on social,” Piper added.
Tom snorted. “It should be. The interesting thing is, most of these payments aren’t from people hiring her. They’re from the missing targets.”
"Blackmail payments," Cara said quietly.
"Bingo. And here's where it gets interesting." Tom pulled up a spreadsheet. "I cross-referenced the account holders with her Instagram posts. None of them match."
Cara’s stomach clenched. “So she uses her legit business as a cover for finding people she can blackmail.”
Cara moved to Tom’s station to look over his shoulder. “Can we prove this?”
“Already have,” Tom responded. “But not legally.”
He splashed a driver’s license photo of a tired-looking guy in his 40s on the big screen. “Like this guy, Jeffrey Latimer. Portland. There’s no record of anyone paying her to find him that I can see, and no mention of her search on social media. Totally unlike the media storm she creates around her legit searches. But he paid her fifteen thousand dollars last August. Three months after that, another five thousand."
Another click. "And then there’s this one. Tanner White. Seattle. His mother wrote Blaire a six thousand dollar check and signed a contract. Three months later, Blaire posted this update.”
Another Instagram post, this time with a sad-faced Blaire in front of a house with a for rent sign.
So close, but William remains a mystery. #nevergiveup
A muscle in Tom’s cheek jumped. “The only thing is? Two days after this post, Tanner White withdrew twelve thousand dollars from his bank account. Two months later, another eight thousand. A few days after each withdrawal, Blaire recorded identical deposits."
The room was silent.
"So Blaire sometimes gets hired legitimately," Wade said. "Finds her target. Then squeezes them for money by threatening to expose whatever they're hiding."
“Other times, she goes after her own targets.” Cara tapped a finger to her lips. But why? How did she decide who to hunt?
"That's the pattern. And those are just the ones I found in ten minutes of looking." Tom rubbed his eyes. "Given Blaire’s eight-figure net worth, there are a ton more. Some of her Instagram posts don't have matching financial records—could be cash payments, crypto, offshore accounts I haven't found yet."
Tom leaned back in his chair, the glow of multiple monitors casting shadows across his exhausted face. "This is who Blaire is. She won't stop with one payment. Even if Cara came up with fifty thousand, Blaire would just come back for more. And more. Until there's nothing left."
