“It’s simple,” she said. She pointed to her computer. “The code I wrote to counter the virus is the backdoor the hacker used to get in.
TWENTY-FIVE
“I’m not a techie,” I said. “I’m going to need a little more than that.”
“Me too,” said Tex.
Nasty looked at us. She appeared to be collecting her thoughts before speaking. When she did speak, her voice was calm and steady. “The personality virus does two things. It takes a picture of a computer—mostly recent files—and builds a quickie profile of the sysop.”
“The what?” Tex asked.
“The system operator. The person who manages the computer content.”
“How?” I asked.
“Kind of like a word cloud. It scans your files and blows up the words that are used the most. That kicks off a customized screensaver that informs you your computer was hacked.”
“The daisy,” I said. “I got a daisy like my Mad for Mod logo, and one by one the petals dropped off and piled up at the bottom of the screen.”
Nasty and I looked at Tex. “I got a baseball,” he said. “The stitching unraveled one stitch at a time until the whole thing fell apart.”
“How long did it take for the daisy to fall apart?” Nasty asked.
“I don’t know. A minute? Two?”
“The baseball?” she asked Tex.
“Same.”
“That must be how long it takes the program to duplicate the files,” Nasty said.
“Okay, so now we understand how the virus worked, but I’m still unclear on your role in this whole thing,” I said.
“My patch interrupts the command flow of the computer. It’s like giving your computer the hiccups. It operates normally, but every seven seconds it jumps to a new setpoint. It’s supposed to keep the virus from having enough time to grab hold of any new files.”
“If Madison’s right about the files on the computer being the copy and not the originals files, there wouldn’t be anything new for the virus to grab,” Tex said.
“There’s a bigger problem than that,” Nasty said. “The jump time creates a vulnerability. It’s a nanosecond, but if someone recognized the pattern, they’d be able to get in.”
“And do what?”
“Manipulate files. Make changes to the originals and replace the copy with the altered ones. Corrupt the hard drive permanently. Crash a system.”
I looked at Tex. “You said you had nothing to do with Sterling Webster’s entry to VIP.”
“That’s right,” Tex said. “The only beef I have with Sterling Webster is that he gave guys like me a bad name.”
“You said he was a player.”
Tex raised one eyebrow.
“Slow down, cowboy,” Nasty said. “I saw the evidence of your investment in his property myself.”
I turned back toward Nasty. “If what you’re telling us is true, then somebody could have planted that file on Captain Allen’s computer, right?”
“Madison, whoever went this far to gain access to computers around Dallas probably has something bigger in mind than getting between you and your lover.”
I stared at her. It didn’t matter that Tex and I weren’t lovers. Nasty said that for one reason: to regain control. But her words sent my brain on a course different from everything I’d considered all this time.
“That’s just it. I found copies of my files on Jane’s computer, but Jane was the victim.”
“If Jane was the hacker, then this would have ended when she died,” Nasty said.
“Jane wasn’t the hacker,” I said. “But somebody who knew her was. Somebody who was comfortable going to her studio, which was also her home. She was recently divorced, but there was someone in her life.”
“Who?”
“She never told me. But if she was intimate with someone, she’d probably trust him enough to let him use her computer.” I grabbed my phone and swiped through the recent photos until I came to the video I’d made of the interior of Posh Pit.
“What’s that?” Tex asked.
I pressed play and watched the shaky video. “I took a video inside her place.” I looked at him and Nasty and back at him. “It’s something I do on decorating jobs, so I don’t have to remember every single detail. My instincts kicked in and I thought it was a good idea.”
“You came up with that on your own?” Nasty asked.
I nodded.
She looked at Tex. He grinned. “I told you she wasn’t stupid.”
I went back to watching the small screen. I watched it three full times before I spotted something I hadn’t noticed on the first two viewings. The roses on the corner of Jane’s desk were a familiar shade of purple-gray.
“There,” I said. I paused the video and handed my phone to Tex. “The roses.”
“I hate to tell you this, Madison, but lots of people display roses. Some people don’t even have to buy them for themselves,” Nasty said.
I ignored her and watched Tex. “They’re the same color as the ones sent to me. Sterling. That means—”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Tex said. “Sterling roses are everywhere. They’re only in season until mid-October, so every rose grower in Texas is pushing them. Last week I saw them at the grocery store.”
Nasty and I both looked at Tex. It was, quite possibly, the most unexpected piece of information he could have provided.
“Last night you acted like the color of those roses meant something.”
“Last night?” Nasty said.
This time we both ignored her. “That’s different,” Tex said.
“No, it’s not. Jane and I were in the same line of business. We both would have encountered Sterling Webster. Jane felt like she lost too much time in her loveless marriage and I know she was seeing someone. What if it was him?”
“It’s too thin, Night. You need more.”
I stared at the phone screen. “Jane’s entire decorating aesthetic boiled down to red, blue, yellow, black, and white. If she were going to buy roses for herself, they wouldn’t have been lilac.” Tex kept watching me. “The screensaver on her monitor matched the exterior trim on the house! You think a woman like that doesn’t think about things like purple roses not matching the paint job?”
“Tell me what you saw when you were there,” Tex said. “Everything. Walk me through every moment from when you parked your car to when you called Henning.”
“The door was open, but nobody was there. Somebody had a key. Maybe her killer was looking for signs of his identity, something that he’d left behind that would lead the police to him.” I looked at Tex. “Whoever did this is tied to the design community. Think about it. Everybody we know that was hacked was involved in VIP.”
“Except me,” Tex said. “How do we find out who this guy is?” He looked at Nasty, but I answered.
“I don’t know. But for the past six months, Jane was my best friend. I knew her better than most people. And If I can get a list of everybody she emailed the morning she was murdered, I can figure it out.”
“Because the hacker wouldn’t send the virus to himself,” Nasty said, following my train of thought.
“That’s right,” I said.
Tex cut me off but said what I was already thinking. “Access the sent files, Nasty. I want a list of everybody who got an email from Jane that didn’t include an attachment.”
Not one to let either of us have the final word, Nasty pointed to her mug. “More coffee.” And then she went to work.
I picked up the empty pot and carried it to the kitchen. I was counting teaspoons of coffee when Tex joined me. I held up a finger and kept counting until the basket was full. I filled the pot with water and pressed the on switch.
“Okay,” I said.
“Not okay. You have a problem.”
“Considering I’m making coffee for Nasty, I’d say I have more than one. Which are you talking about?”
“The competition. You’ve got less than a week to renovate a twelve-unit apartment building or Sterling Webster wins. If he’s a part of this, then I’ll get him. But if he’s not, you can bet he’s out there doing what he can to beat you. That video you took, that was a good thing. Between that and the files you sent yourself, we’ve got a lot to work with. You can’t afford to waste time babysitting Nasty.”
The absolute last thing I wanted to do was leave Tex and Nasty alone in my house. They had a history. One that included his house, though I’d never gotten a straight answer on the conditions of their short-term co-habitation. But if Nasty ended up being the reason I lost to Sterling Webster, I’d never forgive myself.
Plus, she had given me twenty-thousand dollars to make it happen.
I pushed Tex out of the way and went back into the living room. “You said you wanted to be my silent partner because the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Who’s your enemy?”
“Him,” Nasty said with a nod to Tex.
“You knew I was mad at Tex because of the invoice you left on his nightstand. You used that anger to get onto my team. You wanted me to be mad at Tex.”
She didn’t even look up. “You already were mad at him. I just threw fuel on the fire.”
The back of my neck got prickly and I was more aware of my breathing. Nasty had manipulated me, and I’d fallen for it. While the rest of us were worried about a murder investigation, a crazy hacker, and a design competition which, in the balance, lay my professional future, Nasty had played a prank to keep me away from her ex-boyfriend.
“Why was it so important to you that I take your money?” I asked.
“None of your business.”
“You signed a legal and binding contract that made it my business.”
She glared at me.
“Nasty, answer Madison’s question,” Tex said.
She tossed her long hair. “Sterling Webster has been buying properties all over this city. I want his business, but he’s not interested. He thinks he’s covered. If I want to get his attention, I need to know enough about him to show him where he’s vulnerable. You were never going to beat him on your own, but if you beat him now, with my money invested, I can use that to show him I’m a player too.”
“You used me.”
She shrugged. I felt Tex watching me. I crossed the room to Tex and put my hands on his face. I pulled him close and kissed him full on, tongue and everything. I felt his hands on my waist pulling me closer.
Nasty cleared her throat. I slowly pulled away and dropped my hands to my sides.
Tex spoke in a low voice. “Go do your thing. Nothing’s going to change by the time we’re finished.”
Oh, how I wish Tex had been right. Because by the time Nasty found the answers we needed, I was in a holding cell waiting for someone to bail me out.
TWENTY-SIX
Tex was right. The priority of finding out what happened to Jane shouldn’t have been as important as completing my VIP entry. I waited while Tex sent my video file to his phone and then left Tex, Nasty, and Rocky at Thelma Johnson’s house. Instead of gunning it to the apartment complex, I pulled over and called the hospital where the medical technicians had taken Vonda Quinn after finding her outside Posh Pit. My entry in the competition had absolutely nothing to do with Vonda’s condition, but until I knew if she was going to be okay, I wouldn’t be able focus on work.
My call yielded one thing: Vonda Quinn was not allowed visitors. Which told me she was alive but not out of the woods yet.
I reminded myself that Henning was just doing his job. Vonda had been assaulted in the same manner as her boss and that alone looked suspicious. Add in the unlocked doors at Posh Pit, the virus originating from Jane’s computer, and any other evidence that I hadn’t known to look for, and Henning would have more questions than answers. Protecting Vonda had as much to do with her safety as his chance at her untainted statement.
I pulled back into traffic and drove to my new-old apartment building. Of the five cars already there, the only one I recognized was Effie’s Ford Escape.
She met me by the back door. “Hey, Boss!” she greeted me. “Ohmigod, the paint looks soooooo good. We did three apartments in Lemon Twist, three in Cherry Rocket, three in Cool Cat, and two in Beach Party. We left the front apartment unpainted like you said.”
“Who’s ‘we?’”
“Connie, Joanie, Mitchell, and me. Ned’s still out of town. I thought maybe Hudson would help, but—”
“Don’t worry about Hudson. We have a good team.”
“But you said you wanted to demo a wall and convert the new space into a clubroom.”
“That’s right.” I entered the back door and walked through the hallway toward the front apartment.
“Won’t we need an experienced contractor to knock down the wall?”
I picked up a sledgehammer that was propped outside the unit and went inside. The room was empty and half painted, renovation mid-progress by one of the previous owners. If I were to convert this apartment to a clubroom, the wall between the living room and the bedroom would have to come down. I already knew there were no outlets on the wall from when I’d owned this building the first time and managed it as the landlord. I raised the sledgehammer over my shoulder like a baseball bat and swung. The hammer punched a hole into the middle of the wall. Drywall crumbled and fell to the floor, leaving the left side of a two by four exposed.
“I’m pretty sure I can handle the demo myself,” I said.
“Alrighty then. I’ll tell the team.”
There is nothing like good, old-fashioned physical labor to take your mind off your troubles and give you an outlet for aggression. Demolition wasn’t usually part of my job. Mad for Mod was more about decorating than design, and frankly, most people who owned mid-century houses weren’t looking to knock walls out of the existing floorplans. But the requirements for entry into the VIP competition were that you had to not only design and decorate, but demo. Your final entry had to be structurally different from how it started to illustrate each team’s ability to see both what was there and what wasn’t. Come to think of it, that might be why preservationists tended not to enter.
As good as it felt to use the sledgehammer, I knew that wasn’t the proper way to bring down an interior wall. We were lucky to be working on an unoccupied building, but with fresh paint going into the remaining eleven units, there was a need to contain the dust from my destruction by hanging plastic over the doorway.
There were other considerations as well. The wall wasn’t a load bearing wall. The gaping hole I’d created left fluffy pink fiberglass insulation visible on the other side of now-crumbling drywall. I could grab the broken drywall pieces and tear them off with a combination of brute force and determination, but that would only create more potential problems down the line.
No, this wasn’t the time to go nuts.
I moved the six-foot ladder to the corner of the room and climbed up with a sharp utility knife in my hand. I scored the intersection of the wall and the ceiling with a horizontal line, a five-minute task that would potentially save us hours by not tearing through the joint tape. Back down to the floor. I picked up a drywall saw and slowly cut from my sledgehammer opening at waist-height, across the crumbling surface, with the saw at an angle. Every once in a while, I felt resistance from the studs behind the drywall and shifted the angle of my drywall saw to a diagonal. This part of the job wasn’t about getting down the interior structure. It was about cutting through the outer layer. Like nibbling off the frozen chocolate coating to a Dove Bar but leaving the ice cream and wooden popsicle stick intact for later.
It took the better part of an hour, but by a process I’d first learned on a YouTube video, I pulled off the drywall, hammered the e
xposed nails to the side, used the reciprocating saw to cut through the center of the stud wall, and pulled the beams out as well. The hardest part of the process was prying the beams up from the floor. When I finished the demolition portion of the job, I set the tools down and set out on the first of multiple trips to the dumpster out back. On my third trip, Joanie set down her paint roller and joined me. Two more trips covered the biggest of the pieces. When we went back inside, Connie ducked into the apartment across the hall and brought out an industrial vacuum. It was connected to a long electrical cord that was plugged into one of the recently painted units that still had power. I took the vacuum from her and switched it on, getting up the dust, debris, and chunks of gypsum that had dropped onto the floor.
Two years ago, I’d had the idea to pull out the carpets and refinish the hardwood floors underneath. Today, I was actually happy that a deranged killer had changed up my priorities. I’d long ago learned to work on a room renovation from top to bottom—ceiling to floor—and Sterling Webster’s team must have been instructed to do that here as well. The texture of the ceiling was freshly painted, and I’d have to drywall the new gap in the ceiling where I’d just taken down the wall, but Sterling’s team hadn’t gotten much farther than that. The apartment grade carpets that I’d wanted to tear out were still in place, protecting the building’s original wood floors that I now had the opportunity to refinish when the rest of the room was done.
Small miracle.
“What’s the plan, Mads?” Connie asked when I switched off the vacuum. “Paint?”
“No. Drywall the gap in the ceiling where I removed the stud wall, mud it, then panda paw it. When that’s dry—”
“Panda what it?”
I pointed up at the ceiling. “Panda paw. That’s what we called the tool that makes the circular texture in the ceiling.”
“Who’s we?” she asked, and then, almost instantly, answered. “Oh, Hudson.”
“Actually, Hudson calls it a slap brush. Same thing, different name. I first learned about it from Brad.”
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