Page 26 of Drunk In Love

Before heading into Brandon’s office, Kamaya says, “I can take the lead with the suspect list. I’ve narrowed it down to five names.”

I nod. “Fine. The floor is yours.”

Right on time, Kamaya and I begin heading to Brandon’s office together.

“What have you got for me?” Brandon asks, looking to Kamaya.

“So in the week and a half you’ve been gone, Max and I have narrowed down to five potential culprits.”

“Let’s have it,” Brandon says, beckoning forward with his hand that now sports a gold wedding band.

“So when we visited FJ, we spoke with an employee under Zach by the name of Katie Lucas. She wasn’t much help, but while we were speaking to her, another employee came across by the name of Jacob. He let us know about another employee, Franco, who was recently fired for some nefarious thing surrounding his role as head of IT.”

Brandon’s eyes widen. “So, this Franco is the probable cause behind all this. Retribution for what he may feel is wrongful termination?”

“That’s what we were thinking,” I say. “Kam and I found an address through the Accurint database search, and the most recent address was for a building that the city has shut down.”

“And no other leads as to where he may be living and working now?” Brandon asks.

“So far, no, but Kamaya and I have been tirelessly searching.”

“Well, I can get in contact with Zach and see if he’s able to give us any last known info. Human Resources should still have access to that info. Okay. That’s one. Who else do we have?”

Kamaya swipes on her tablet and presents the next lead in our assignment. “Since you’ve been away, you haven’t kept up with social media, I see, but my sister was able to get her friend to tell us that he was one of the students who used the bogus credentials to log in and use one of the FJ articles for an assignment source. He told us it was offered to him by Harry Cooper.”

“Does that name seem familiar at all?” I ask.

Brandon shakes his head. “Should it?”

“Well,” Kam says, clearing her throat, “in the plot twist of the century, Harry Cooper is actually Harrison van Zandt. He’s the estranged son of Cecily and legally had his name changed to his nickname and middle name. He’s no longer using his Van Zandt surname, so we weren’t able to find him in association with his mother during our initial search.”

“Wow,” Brandon exclaims. “In the years I’ve known Cecily, she’s never mentioned having a child who is apparently a student at the very same school that started all this shit.”

Kamaya and I nod. “And Harrison—I mean Harry—claims someone anonymously sent him that info.”

“But we’re not sure we believe him,” I add. “Of course, we don’t have jurisdiction to search his computer. He could be lying to us, and this might all be part of his End Elitism crusade.”

Kamaya quickly fills Brandon in on the End Elitism campaign that Harry started up.

Brandon leans back and steeples his fingers. “I missed quite a bit. I could also ask Zach about Harrison or Harry. Even though she apparently doesn’t have a relationship with Harry, maybe Cecily has some info on him. One of you should get in contact with Bree. Maybe some of her old police contacts can get us through to the organized crime unit—if that’s what we’re dealing with here. Law enforcement will be able to go over our heads with this.”

“Noted,” Kamaya says, typing into her tablet.

“All right, who else?” Brandon asks.

Now didn’t feel right, after he’d just come back from his honeymoon, to tell Brandon that a longtime friend of his may be a suspect. I didn’t want to be the one to bring up Zach first.

“Lastly, Charles Dennis. While you were gone, Cecily saw the commotion for the protests on the news and came in here. She mentioned Charles Dennis, head of Investments Daily, which is Financial Journal’s competitor. He’s another person of interest,” Kamaya interjects, saving us both from having to bring up Zach. “I guess I was mistaken about possible suspects. Jacob, who gave us limited info, is a person of interest, but I don’t think we can consider him yet anyway.”

“Okay,” Brandon says.

“I don’t have anything else for now. I’ll go contact Bree,” Kamaya says, standing up and heading to the door.

“Sounds good. Sounds like we have a plan. Max, anything else to add?”

Brandon turns to me, thinking there’s more for us to discuss. There is, but this requires Kamaya’s absence.

“I’m gonna hang back here and talk to Brandon for a bit.”