Chapter Twenty-Two

Crystal has made two copies,” Sophia said to Liam.

“Will the two of you please watch the footage again, frame by frame if you have to. And Melony, watch Elaine. If she goes anywhere near that box of chocolates, I want to know. Is it possible he slipped a piece of paper under his tea cup or inside it?”

“I don’t think so because she washed the cup without removing anything. Besides, if he did leave anything behind, she’ll have to inform her boss in some way and we’ll catch her.”

“There is always that.” Liam sighed.

Sophia thought it was best if Crystal and she divided up the task. She chose to watch Miles while her friend watched Ms. Smith. Almost frame by frame Sophia watched Miles enter the flat, hand the box of chocolates, and examine the ornaments in the room. Never did he place his hand in his pockets to retrieve the numbers nor did he write on anything. If he was placing the information for Ms. Smith to find, they had a clever pre-arranged system. No pattern stood out.

Finally, Miles sat down on the sofa and picked up the deck of cards. One by one he dealt the cards out. Seven in a row. One by one he turned the cards over and moved them around.

“Sir,” a voice came over the radio, “Miles has arrived home. He has entered the bathroom.”

“Do we have cameras in the bathroom?” Liam asked.

“No, sir, however, if he makes a phone call while in the bathroom, we will know. We just heard the toilet flush and he has only been in there twenty-two seconds. He is exiting the room and zipping up his trousers.”

“I don’t think we need that much information.”

“Well, just so you know, we don’t believe he has done anything in the room except take a piss.”

“What is he doing now?”

“He’s turned on the telly.”

“Has he been on the computer or made contact with anyone?”

“No, sir.”

“What the hell did we miss?” asked Liam. “Damn it. What did we miss? They can’t be that clever. We are cleverer than the two of them, surely.”

Crystal tapped Sophia on the arm and signed, “I found something.”

Sophia leaned over and looked at the screen on Crystal’s computer.

“Out of habit, I watch for lags in everything, the streams, the speed, and I think we have an anomaly. You see, the cameras are all streaming on our network. Everything is streaming through the network, including every mobile phone who chooses to use our network to update their Facebook page. Well, I catalogued the usage on the network from the moment we started here. I know what device matches what address. You see, your two computers are here and mine, here. That’s the computer with the monitors and right now our friend Bert is also accessing it.”

Sophia turned to Bert who was intently typing on his mobile phone.

“However,” Crystal continued, “I set a program to track our devices and their usage.”

“That’s above and beyond . . .”

“Well, I had created the program a long time ago. Mainly to track you and your life.”

“Hmm,” signed Sophia, “that’s nice to know. Comforting.”

“I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic when you sign.” She waved Sophia off. “That aside, it tracks new devices as well. Anyone that isn’t listed by me—and all of Liam’s devices—are picked up and I get sent a message.”

“When did you get a message?”

“Shortly before the meeting started. I ignored the message at first because we were trying to focus on the meet but now I’m curious. Who logged onto our network and how were they able to gain access?”

“Are you doubly sure it’s not just someone in the room? Or perhaps it was one of the team that followed Miles over to the house. While they were waiting for the meet to end, they logged into our network.”

“That might be the case. I’m running a check through all the systems to see what was accessed. I didn’t set up the security on the network so I can’t be sure how protected it is. If, however, someone who was not given the key was able to access the network, he . . . or she, is amazing.”

“You think it may be someone like Ms. Smith who accessed the network?”

“Or someone she knows.”

Sophia looked to Liam who was currently on the phone, explaining the situation to his superiors. “If that’s the case, there’s a lot more to be worried about.”

“Yes. We can hope it turns out to be one of us. But, if it doesn’t, not only is there a chance the information we collected is accessed but, they know we’re here—watching them.”

“Maybe we should shut down the network and re-establish it.”

“If we do that now, we risk not only missing any feed while the cameras are down but we also risk alerting the hacker that we know we’re on to him or her.”

“Well, at least take offline whatever is not crucial. Especially our computers. If the person is capable of that, he may be able to access our drives.”

“All right. And it may turn out in the end to be one of us. In which case, the panic is for nothing. But I don’t think we should ignore it.”

“No.” Sophia breathed out deeply. “We have to let Liam know.”

“No, just you.”

Sophia tapped Crystal’s shoulder as she rose. “Thanks for the support.” She went and stood by Liam and waited until he finished his call. She really had no idea how to tell him, not even sure he would understand. Perhaps though, this news would be good news. At least it would be something and a chance that the hacker left a trace behind. When Liam slammed his phone in his shirt pocket and turned to face her, she doubted the wisdom in telling him.

“What is it?” Liam asked her. “Have you found something?”

“Well, maybe.” She started biting her fingernails but Liam pulled her hand out of her mouth.

“Talk.”

“It wasn’t my find exactly, it’s Crystal’s discovery. We think there might be a chance—and right now it’s a strong might—that someone may be piggybacking one of our networks.”

“What does that mean?”

“Someone may be accessing our network.”

“What for?”

“We’re not sure yet. It could be something as simple as using our Internet or something more serious.”

“How serious?”

“Well, there is a chance that someone is hacking into our system.”

Liam’s mouth hung open. “That’s bad.”

“Yes, that’s worst case. However, we don’t know what the person is up to. Why did they choose our network and who is it? We’re not sure it’s even related to the case here.”

“Is there a chance it’s related to one of the cases you’re working on?”

Sophia shrugged. “Doubtful. We’ve only noticed an increase since we’ve been here—we being Crystal and I—which leads me to believe it’s not. Crystal is doing a diagnostic and as soon as we know something, you’ll know about it as well. In the meantime, I’m going to keep reviewing the footage. Something is not sitting right with me.”

“What?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Sophia went back to her workstation and started the footage again. She continued to watch Miles play solitaire, slowing the frames down to assure herself Miles didn’t write information somewhere on a card or paper on the table. Sophia paused the footage and rubbed her eyes. This was going to make her batty. The shipment information had to be in the box of chocolates. However, if it was, why wasn’t Ms. Smith doing something with that information? She hadn’t been near the box again since eating the one caramel.

“Where did Miles pick up the chocolates?” Sophia asked Liam.

“He works for a chocolate factory,” Liam replied. “That’s why it didn’t surprise us when he said he wanted to bring chocolates. However, we assumed it may be the perfect ruse to get a message. It had to be considered.”

“And it still has to be considered,” said Melony.” We may have no choice but to get that box.”

“Yes,” said Liam, “but, if it’s not inside and we pick it up, she’ll just be more careful with the real way she’s going to be delivering the coordinates.”