Page 81 of Raff
“Hacking isn’t like the movies. Most things can’t simply be broken into. It happens. But it takes a long time. Years, sometimes. It’s complicated. People aren’t. They believe anything that looks halfway legitimate.”
“You’re saying to work some kind of phishing scheme?” I asked.
No, I was no expert on them. But I was forever warning the Murphy brothers never to click links in their emails because they could be letting eyes in on their phones and computers.
“Exactly,” Arty said, nodding. “Conmen usually think they’re smarter than everyone else, so they don’t think they can fall for a scam. That works in your favor.”
Something small and bright started in my chest. It felt dangerously close to hope.
Could it be that simple?
He clicks the wrong link, someone gets in, gets my money, and gives it back to me?
Could my life really be that close to being on track again? Could I build a few of the houses, pocket that money, and use it to fund building my own? Could I, possibly, move out of the hotel and into an apartment while all that happened? Go back to the nail salon? The salon? My Pilates class?
I felt Raff’s gaze on me, saw a smile curving his lips. Because he was happy. For me.
“Could you do that for us?” Raff asked.
“Yeah. But it could take weeks. Or months. You can’t do it more than once or twice without him getting suspicious. We don’t want that.”
“That’s fine. The time is going to pass anyway,” I said, that light in my chest growing brighter by the minute. “Thank you.”
Arty shrugged at that.
“Come on. I’ll walk you out,” Raff said.
I knew what he was doing.
He was taking Arty away from me to discuss payment. I made a mental note to figure out exactly how much that would cost, so I could add it to my list of money I owed Raff for everything he’d done for me.
I took my room-temperature coffee with me to the couch, opening up my laptop and getting some work done while I waited for Raff.
I was aware of him coming back. Seeing me busy, he left me alone to work. But I couldn’t focus. My mind kept drifting, kept hoping, kept dreaming again.
I slammed my laptop lid, deciding I could handle that later. It wasn’t like the books were going anywhere. And I had a long flight back to Shady Valley ahead of me in the near future.
Alone.
Since Raff had to do his whole gun show thing on the way back.
At that, my stomach twisted.
I’d gotten so accustomed to having him around that suddenly the idea of traveling solo filled me with something that, if not dread, was a close cousin.
Not to mention going back to our old lives. To working at The Bog and seeing him chatting up pretty girls. Leaving with them.
My hand went to my stomach, where the knot just twisted tighter and tighter.
And then he would disappear, like he always did, for weeks at a time. Driving down South, hitting up all the food joints that suddenly felt like they belonged to the two of us.
Maybe… maybe I didn’t care so much about the guns. Maybe I could road trip with him back to California. Get it out of my system.
Or, at least, that was what I was telling myself.
I got up from the couch, walking through the hotel room to find Raff, to tell him my plan, to see what he had to say about it.
“Hey, Raff, I was thinking maybe—”
