The Family by Dustin Stevens

Author:Dustin Stevens [Stevens, Dustin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-01-22T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter Forty-Three

“I was just about to call you,” Reed said, accepting the incoming call as he gave a wave to the same security guard he had encountered outside the gated community Dean Morgan lived in on their previous visits. A fleshy man with a mustache Thomas Magnum would be envious of who had stood and made a show at first of asking Reed who he was and why he was visiting, but as this was their third trip in as many days, he let them go with merely an upward nod.

“Or, I was going to call around noon, when I figured you were up and about.”

“Ha!” Deke shot back in response. “Usually, you’d be right, but today you caught me working a job for a company out of Japan. Time zones, man.”

Even after more than a decade of knowing the man, much of that time spent with him assisting in myriad ways on the cases Reed worked with both Riley and now Billie, he still had only a loose knowledge of exactly what it was Deke did. An ethereal job title Reed had essentially created in his own mind, assigning the title cybersecurity expert and letting that suffice as an umbrella for the various things he was capable of.

Assorted skills and abilities that, at some point, Reed wouldn’t mind delving into further. Professional and personal courtesy extended to the man he had come to rely on, and someone he now considered a friend.

Even if he was likely to only understand a fraction of it.

“What’s going on?” Reed asked.

“Oh, the usual,” Deke replied, letting the words slide out with a sigh. “Everybody thinks their data is the most important thing on the planet, everyone else wants to steal it, same old stuff.

“The reason I was calling you though, was to let you know I ran down that stuff you were asking about last night. From what I can tell, there is no direct connection with Matt Seesel going back to either Dean Morgan or Buckeye Care.”

Pausing there, he let the information resonate a moment before adding, “Sorry, man.”

Reed had known when he first asked Deke to look into things it would be a long shot. A chance connection that was tenuous enough to have slipped both Morgan’s and Seesel’s mind – perhaps even to the point that neither was aware of it – but would still be sufficient to provide a lead moving forward.

A commonality Reed and Billie could start with, working outward from there.

Another thing on the list of items that had been more difficult than they needed to be since they took the case. A slog that was presenting plenty of extraneous data, and scads of accompanying questions, but nothing in the form of an actionable heading.

A pattern that was fast becoming old, both for Reed and for a governor he knew would soon be demanding answers.

“Don’t be,” Reed replied. “I knew it was a shot in the dark.”

“You want me to keep digging?” Deke asked. “Give it the six-degrees treatment?”

“Naw, that’s okay,” Reed replied.

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