Page 10 of Collin, Episodes 7-9 (The Residency Boys #3)

Ash nodded. “They were, like, graphically stupid. I mean, seriously. I left them a packet to download, something to slip into their data when they read your computer. It shouldn’t have worked, but they didn’t even check it.

So, I didn’t even need to worry about following them through any servers.

My program jumped onto their machine and called me. And now I’m watching them.”

Ash pointed to another screen mounted on the wall.

“Can you, I mean, do you have an address?”

“I will soon. It’s triangulating now. It’s complicated. Explaining in muggle is too hard.”

Collin reached for a stool and sank down on it. “I have to tell Mr. Reevesworth. Ash, you’re scary.”

Ash smirked, bouncing up and down on his chair. “That’s what Ms. Linda says.”

Collin let out a slow breath. “I need you to do more stuff.”

“What?” Ash spun around on his chair, three hundred and sixty degrees.

“Bruiski says you have the security camera footage.”

“Yep.” Ash reached for a keyboard, and a large monitor across the room popped up.

“I need you to save everything we have on the man that was just in the reception area.”

“Give me a sec.” Ash’s fingers flew over the keyboard, diving into what looked like straight-up code.

A moment later, the cologne guy was on screen.

Ash scrunched up his nose and leaned forward. “This one? He looks like a bad guy out of a Batman movie.”

“Yeah, him.”

“Who is he?”

“We don’t know. At least Bruiski and I don’t know, not Carrie either. He wouldn’t leave his name or his card.”

Ash’s eyes darkened and hooded. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

“You’re not a god, Ash.”

“No, I’m not. But facial recognition software is freakin’ awesome. Do you know the Chinese government can track someone through a city based on their eyeballs?”

“Ew…no, I did not know that. And the way you said it, yuck! Now I’m imagining someone’s eyeballs running around a city on their own.”

Ash giggled. He wiggled in his chair. “I’ll cut you the footage, and then I’ll make up a composite of his face. Then I’ll run the image through a couple databases.”

“Is that even legal?”

Ash blinked. “Collin! They’re databases.”

“But are you supposed to have access to them?”

“I mean, I’m pretty sure LinkedIn is like public access.” He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Go away, muggle. Let a wizard work.”

“Just don’t do anything to get Mr. Reevesworth in trouble with the law.”

“Bleh. Like I would do that.” Ash waved Collin away again. “Oh, Ms. Linda is bringing Halloween cookies later. I made them, well, I helped. Which means you have to eat them.”

“Do they taste good?”

Ash turned his head toward Collin even as his fingers kept moving. He almost looked like something from a Halloween movie all by himself without any holiday cookies. He fixed Collin with a dark glare. “Would I poison you, Collin?”

“I don’t know, would you?”

Ash put his nose in the air. “Lord Ash honors his debts, and by some unhelpful trick of fate, I am indebted to you. Also, you order the best lunches.”

Collin stood up laughing. “I have etiquette class until noon, then I’ll send up lunch.”

Ash reached into the piles of stuff on his desk and dragged out a pile of cash in twenties and hundreds. He shoved it at Collin. “I pay.”

Collin caught the money in both hands. It wasn’t organized, in the slightest, or even stacked.

“What?”

“Ellisandre said that I can afford to pay for my food but that you probably need your money, like you have a mom and all that.” Ash turned back to the keyboard. “Sorry.”

“Ash, um…I mean…it’s okay. I make enough money to buy lunch. I mean, I do now. Maybe not before. Uh, Ash?”

The younger man’s shoulders were almost up to his ears, and he was doing a good job of pretending the computer in front of him required all of his attention.

“Ash, do you have a mom?”

If anything, Ash’s shoulders went higher. “Go! You’re messing with my thoughts. I have spells to write and evils to kill.”

“I hope you mean that figuratively.”

Ash cackled.

Collin backed out of the doorway. And then immediately wanted to smack himself. He was supposed to talk to Ash about getting the camping supplies. He’d have to do it later. Like right before lunch or right after.

Mr. Reevesworth looked up as Collin jostled his way into the office carrying the wad of cash in front of him. He shuffled over to the small table meant for him and dropped it.

“What’s that, Collin?”

“Ash decided to pay me for the lunches I’ve been buying him. But I don’t think he understands how much lunches cost, or maybe he was just embarrassed, or he’s trying to pay for lunches in the future.”

Mr. Reevesworth sighed. “The kid means well.”

Collin nodded. “You should see him. He’s using my old laptop to set up a trap for whoever was hacking it. Or rather, he already caught them, and now he’s in their system, figuring out who they are.”

Mr. Reevesworth raised both eyebrows and straightened up. “He did that over the weekend?”

Collin shook his head. “Ash makes me feel both stupid and old. And I’m in my twenties.”

Mr. Reevesworth chuckled. “That he does. Thank you for handling the incident out front.”

Collin pulled a face. “Ash is trying to figure out who it was. He’s isolating the footage and running recognition software on it.”

“Good. Have him send it directly to me.”

Collin pulled out his phone and shot Ash a text. “Done.”

“Good. I’m pulling you off personal assistant duties and putting you on special tasks for this week. Ash doesn’t know how to do inventory. I’m assuming you know how to do that?”

“I can figure it out. I’m assuming there’s a system.”

“There was. But I don’t think Ash has been keeping up with it.

And frankly, when we onboarded him, we were much more concerned about security at the time than keeping track of stuff.

My old tech person here transferred to one of my other companies to fill in for someone we had to fire.

He warned me to get Ash an assistant. That hasn’t happened yet. ”

Collin tried to imagine Ash tolerating an assistant. Maybe if they hired someone to do boring stuff? “So, it’s going to be a job.”

“Yes. I run a very small staff here. Until about a year ago, this place didn’t exist. Centralizing my own personal staff here is new.

There’s a lot of rough points to work out.

Eventually, we’ll have to be more standardized, but I wanted the flexibility and intimacy of a startup.

Someplace where I could run my own personal investigations and local investments but still keep my pulse on my companies.

Risa, upstairs, has been organizing all the information coming from the companies owned by Reevesworth Industries.

Someday I will have to introduce you, but mostly, I just run upstairs once a day and get her briefing. ”

“I wondered about it. This place doesn’t feel very corporate. Why not have Risa come down?”

Mr. Reevesworth shook his head, giving a half smile. “I want to leave that all upstairs. Different headspace. Eventually, this office will be the main base of the projects I want to keep under my own personal eye. I picked these offices because it’s close to city hall and a few other entities.”

“You’re focusing local. But you’re still the managing owner of the other companies.”

“Yes.” Mr. Reevesworth glanced at his phone. “At least for a couple years.” He opened something and frowned.

“What, sir?”

“Ash sent me the footage. I know the guy. His name is Otto Barker. He’s a lawyer.”

“He said the same thing that guy said at the lunch last week, about how I better be looking for a new job. Not the exact same thing, but the implication was pretty similar. You think it’s related?”

Mr. Reevesworth drummed his fingers against the desk.

“I should really keep a private investigator on staff. Anyway, look him up. Call his law firm, He works at something Smith and Sons; I can’t quite remember.

Tell them he can see me for five minutes at one thirty today directly outside the mayor’s office. Let’s not have him here again.”

“Won’t that annoy the mayor, sir?”

Mr. Reevesworth smirked. “Precisely. On the day I’m offering the mayor a significant amount of money and investment for a pet project.”

Etiquette lessons took place in the conference room.

Collin enjoyed the two hours. It was like active class with no notes, but it did have homework.

His instructor came with a list of books and basic information he was supposed to have passing familiarity with in the next twelve months.

They were starting with sports. Evidently, knowing the names of all the major city leagues for football and baseball was important, and he was going to have to understand basic golf references.

The instructor had come with flashcards and video presentations.

But she also had an ample supply of stories and told them in a quick, humorous fashion, illustrating why Collin should want to know these things.

Half of the things he was supposed to memorize were embedded in the stories, making them easy to remember.

Collin relayed what he’d learned to his master as they walked to Mr. Reevesworth’s lunch meeting with the mayor. And then Mr. Reevesworth shared about his morning.

Warmth flooded Collin’s chest; his master was telling him things he didn’t need to know simply because he wanted to tell him.

A wondrous smile played on Collin’s lips as he flushed and listened.

Lunch was informal. There was a rectangle table set for six, three to a side, in a private room. The mayor greeted Mr. Reevesworth with a handshake. She was shorter than him by more than twelve inches, even in her heeled boots, but she didn’t seem the least bit intimidated.

“It’s been too long, Richard.”

“Agreed, Ananya,” Mr. Reevesworth pressed her hand with both of his own. “Please allow me to introduce my assistant today. Collin, this is Mayor Kapoor; Ananya, this is Collin.”