Page 118 of Played By Design

My focus zeroes in on the second tab.

The fire at Lantern Key may have destroyed their onsite servers, but thanks to Kain’s paranoia, we still have copies of his work assignment, and I’ve been tracking down the people who have been using the Dusk Protocol forums for their illicit transactions.

Once I identified their patterns, it was easy to pick them out, no matter what username they chose, and my spreadsheet has been growing.

The Blue Note crew still hasn’t found the men who attacked Kain, but the incident at Stackers means they’re local, at least for now.

And they have to have figured out Kain survived.

Which means the threat still hangs over him.

So while Kain is asleep upstairs, and the soft notes from Save Point play through the house speakers, my fingers find the keyboard, and I return to my hunt.

20

Isquint at the screen, my finger tracing the newest entry on the spreadsheet of illicit sales.

January 18th.

It sparks a memory, connected to a real-life event around the same time.

The transaction sits on the screen.

Five obsidian shards.

Five.

January and five keep scratching at the back of my brain.

Orien.

I straighten. “Wait.”

Lev brought Blue Note a lead last month. Orien followed up on it, and five Omega girls came home instead of disappearing into whatever hell someone had planned for them.

Five.

My attention snaps back to the forum post.

Five obsidian shards.

The date. I need the date, but not from the forum post. From the job.

The shelves lining the wall hold what I need. I push away from the desk and cross to them.

Kain’s hard drives line the shelves in black cases, a library of data labeled in his tiny block handwriting. Backups. Old jobs. Security footage.

Ten years of Blue Note information fill so many drives that I stopped trying to map his system years ago. He keeps backups of backups, because one is never enough, hoarding a mountain of information that would turn a dragon green with envy.

Usually, I’d ask Kain, but he’s asleep. A breath escapes as I roll my shoulders. I can figure this out.

The labels should tell me what I need.

BLUE NOTE — ACTIVE

No. That’s current jobs.

BLUE NOTE — CLOSED / CURRENT YEAR