Page 19 of The Deals We Make

There’s an obvious leap from hacking to cybersecurity. But I find it hard to believe it would be enough to satisfy Calista.

I log in to a couple of the darker places on the web Calista and I used to hang out in and think back to some of the various usernames she used over the years. Vermillion, because she loved that it was such a fancy way of saying her favorite color, a reddish orange. Dark Angel, because what hacker doesn’t go through an emoDungeons and Dragonsphase? And L33d3RC. She always insisted on changing her name every twelve to eighteen months because leaving behind the shell of her online presence periodically reduced her traceability.

Some hackers use the same cypher or name their whole careers so it can become synonymous with career hacking. But Calista was never in it for the name.

Bank, not rank, she used to say. Finding a way to be financially viable while minimizing traceability was all she cared for. She didn’t care how high up the list of most wanted hackers she appeared; she cared about the number of zeroes in her bank account.

A hand touches my shoulder, and I jump.

Shit. I’m at Mom’s. Her kitchen.

“You finished with your food?” she asks.

I look down, and there are two mouthfuls left. I scoop them up and eat them, even though they’ve started to go cold. “Sorry, Mom.”

“You may be too big for me to spank with a hairbrush, but you need to stop thinking about that girl.”

I shake my head. “Mom, it’s illegal to take a brush to my ass anyway.”

She taps the patch on my chest. “I’m sure you’ve taken worse.”

I chuckle at that. I have.Farworse.

The front door slams down the hallway. “Your sister’s here. Talk her out of dating that loser from the bar she works at. And you…” She pauses until I look at her. “Put Calista out of your mind.”

I lean back in the chair as I look at the photograph of her inForbes.

“What the hell are you doing here, Cal?” I ask myself.

I think of her arriving. Of what she told me about Mrs. Moray. I think about the snow, her lack of a car, the hurt in her eyes when she spoke about what she found.

“Fuck it,” I say, pushing the bowl away.

“Language, Tiberius,” Mom says. “And where do you think you’re going?”

“Tell Laila I’m sorry, but I got some shit to do.”

And I’ll worry about whether Calista values my interference later.

6

CALISTA

“What do you mean no one has availability?” I ask my assistant, Becca, over the phone as I try to scrape crusted-on food from the plates next to the sink.

“I called every cleaning company in a twenty-mile radius. It’s Friday, Cal. They’re all booked out. Earliest I can get you some help that has any decent reviews is next week. But for today, the best I can do is book you a room at a luxury oceanfront hotel for a thousand a night.”

Becca has been my assistant for six years. She’s efficient, tenacious, and productive. If she tells me there are no cleaning companies available, I believe her. I’m about to tell her to book me that hotel when Mom starts to cough upstairs.

Can I really peel out of here and leave her alone?

I shake my head. And how bad of me is it that my first assumption is I’ll leave her here while I go stay somewhere nice? Didn’t even occur to me to take her with me.

Everything in the house is dirty, dusty, or broken. Including my mom.

I managed to cobble together enough cleaning supplies that I can at least wash some dishes and plates for dinner. I’ll get food delivered. The kitchen is bad, but a step shy of a complete hygiene hazard. It’s taken me a solid hour to scrape all the crusty shit off plates and dump the mold growing on top of cold cups of coffee, but I now have enough to get a solid first load through the dishwasher.

“I appreciate you trying for me. Yes, to the cleaning company next week. But if we have to wait, let’s be selective. Women only. But maybe they should have experience with hoarders.” I hate to admit it, but I also worry that a cleaning company might show up and balk at just how much there is to do.