When we hear the rumble of the plane coming in, Frank drives down to the runway. He returns a little while later with Claire, Jim, and his security team. Frank and the ranch hands are unloading the equipment they’ve brought with them, and I hobble over to greet everyone.
Claire rushes into my arms. “Landon!”
“Claire-bear!”
When she lets me go, she eyes my cast and crutches. “No one can sign that thing,” she says, disappointed.
“I’m okay with that,” I tell her with a chuckle.
“I brought all sorts of pens so people could sign it, and then when it came off, I thought we might auction it off to someone with far too much money for charity.”
“It tends to stink when he takes it off,” Tinsley warns as she arrives.
“Tinsley!” cries Claire, rushing to her.
The girls wander off, leaving me with Jim and his team. “You guys know where to set up?”
“Definitely. We’ve been here before, as Mia allowed us to use this spot when I needed to hide someone. We’d love to continue that agreement, if you’re up for it.”
“I don’t know why that would be a problem,” I tell him. “Let’s talk about it after this is all over, and you can explain to me what you need.”
“Great. And by the way, I heard you were protecting Tinsley from a bear?”
I nod, waiting to hear him tell me there are no bears in the area, but he just shakes his head. I shrug.
He grins, and his smile is wide. It’ll be one of our many secrets.
I hear the next plane approaching already. Arrivals will continue throughout the day and into tomorrow. Several people are coming together, which will save Frank a few trips down to the runway, not to mention saving the environment.
A few hours later, a party is starting to take shape as a few more guests have trickled in.
“Do you guys have some time before everyone arrives?” Jim inquires.
Claire, Tinsley, and I join him in the living room, previously Fiona’s “office.” He walks us through the updates from his team.
“Gage tells me they’ve wiped the new routers at your office, and they believe they’ve finally got it figured out. We can’t exactly determine what’s setting it off, but they think the spyware’s a trojan horse that could have been attached to anything.”
“Do you know who’s behind it?” I wish he’d say Mattis Yung was working for Morgan Bennett, so I could go kick his ass.
“Not yet,” Jim says. “We know generally where the information was supposed to be going, but we’re not sure who would have collected Tinsley’s code, because she couldn’t get on the network. And bottom line, we still believe your information is safe and didn’t get transmitted.”
“How do we know they won’t be right back at it another way once we finally get this cleared?” Claire asks.
Jim nods. “That’s a great question. Gage and his team have replaced all the routers, and one file at a time, they’ve moved everything to a different cloud account, making sure to clear it of any cookies that could be carrying the trojan horse. We’ve installed a sniffer that hopefully won’t slow everything down but will be an invisible wall to your internal staff.”
“Does that mean no working on a network outside the office?”
“I think, for now, that’s a good idea. It’s your call, but your work is almost complete, and none of the staff should work in a coffee shop or their home because we can’t be sure they won’t get the trojan horse by accepting the terms of service for a public Wi-Fi system or opening an email.”
“Do you have any updates on Tomas Vigil?” I ask. “Is he stalking the team?”
Tinsley suddenly stands. “Oh my God. I’ll be right back.”
We all stop, a bit stunned by her reaction.
In a few short moments, she returns with her laptop. “I totally forgot.”
She offers no further information, but clicks through her email and plugs her laptop into Fiona’s screen.
“I got these pictures from my friend from college, Dana, right when you were heading into the hospital. With all the commotion, I forgot and never looked at them.”
We watch as she opens the attachments. They’re screenshots of a PeopleMover private group page. The first is the list of the group’s twenty members.
“I think most of these guys are working around the Valley,” she notes.
Tinsley moves to a screenshot of the announcement about her selling to us. The comments are full of haters. Wow.
They only bought her company because she’s a woman.
She’s getting on her knees for Landon Walsh. I’ve had that pussy. It was cold fish.
The cunt doesn’t have an original idea in that empty head of hers.
I bet her family is behind the purchase, so she looks good to their friends.
Tinsley is frozen. Claire moves to the computer and navigates to the next screengrab. It’s a picture of us at the bar with Tomas, posted by Tomas. She thinks she’s a Stacy when she’s actually a Becky, he wrote.
“What are Stacy and Becky?” Claire asks.
Tinsley shakes her head, looking a little pale. “Stacys are attractive women who reject men for sex or are involved with someone else. Beckys are women too ugly to have sex with. It’s incel language.”
“You’re definitely a Stacy. Fuck them.” I reach for her hand.
Tinsley’s hand goes to her mouth as she reads the vitriol in the posts. Tears glisten in her eyes, and I stand, wincing at my ankle, and pull her in. “These guys are assholes. Don’t pay them any attention.”
“They have images of every interaction I’ve had with Tomas, and they’re saying horrible things. What did I ever do to any of them?”
Claire joins our hug. “You were successful. They can’t take anything away
