Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 33230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 166(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 166(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Our apartment is small—less than the size of her bedroom suite—but it’s clean and tidy. Mel seems to like it. “This is so pretty,” she exclaims, running her hand over the black painted trim. The apartment is decorated in what my mom calls Old World chic. She takes stuff people would throw away and remakes it.
I toe off my shoes in the entry. “My mom’s work.” Mom’s got good taste, is handy with the sewing machine, and makes good use of thrift places.
“Wow. She should go into interior decorating. I know people who would kill to have their homes as nice as this.”
Mel sounds sincere. It’s not like she needs to blow smoke up my ass. “Yeah, well, I don’t think it pays well.”
“Oh no, it does. My mom has a decorator and probably sends her a check of ten grand every month.”
My backpack falls to the floor with a thud. “Ten grand?” I croak.
Mel nods. “Easy and our decorator has a ton of clients all over the country. Like he flies to people’s vacation homes and stuff like that.”
“That’s pretty cool.” My mom would love that. Hell, I would love that for her. She’s too young to be slaving over washing machine parts. Sometimes I’m up when she gets home and I can see her moving slowly around the living room because the work is heavy and painful.
“What we should do is have her put together a proposal for my mom.”
“Your mom already has a decorator,” I point out.
Mel shakes her head. “Yeah, but rich people—including my mom—love the new and the shiny, so if you brought a new person in with new ideas, Mom would think it was the best thing.”
I scratch my head. “I don’t mean to be an asshole, but it sounds like you want my mom to take advantage of your mom.”
“No. My mom is going to redecorate one new room every month. That’s just the way she moves. Our house has like, twenty rooms, so it’s in a constant state of renewal. I promise you that Mom would think it was fun.” Mel shrugs. “I’m not forcing you. Just something to think about. I mean, not to be rude, but if your mom can do this”—she gestures around the room—“with the budget she has, I can’t imagine what she’d do in my house.”
“I’ll, uh, mention it to her.”
“Awesome.”
That was a weird tangent, but I am going to bring it up to my mom because she loves decorating and shit so it’d be wild to have her do that for a living. In fact, if the whole decorating thing works out and my mom can quit at the factory, I’d be glad to break into any damn computer system that Mel wants.
I lead Mel down the hall to my bedroom. This is one place my mom hasn’t touched. It’s dark, like a cave. I have a futon and four computer screens. Mel gasps.
“Wow.”
“I am a hacker,” I remind her.
“Yeah, I guess I didn’t realize what that meant exactly.”
I motion for her to take a seat on the futon. “My place isn’t exactly set up for guests.”
“No. This is fine. So how does this work?”
“The easiest types of hacks are social hacks and since I have you here, this should be a breeze.” I pick up a headset.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m going to pretend to be your company’s IT administrator and the network admin is going to give me all the necessary details to break into the system.” I fit the voice modulator over my throat. “These guys are going to ask me things like your dad’s last purchase and what his mother’s maiden name is. You think you know those?”
“Sure. I’ll look up his mistress’s Instagram account. She’s always taking photos of jewelry or clothes or a bag and putting gross captions on it like ‘gift from my boo.’” Mel pretends to fake gag.
“You do some research while I make the call.” It goes as smoothly as I’d anticipated. With Mel’s help and her inside knowledge, I had the network admin resetting the email address for the company’s internet to a dummy account I created and then they sent me a password reset link. After ten minutes, I’m in and staring at ITM’s company database. “What are we looking for?” I ask, moving the mouse around.
Mel rises and leans over my chair. “There. Click there.”
Chapter 14
Melody
The folder pops open and I see all three of my aunts’ names listed as well as my two uncles. The shocking part is seeing that my name is also listed. There is no sign of my father’s name on that list. I read it again, double checking that I’m not seeing things but I’m not. Everything is right there in black and white. My name is definitely listed instead of my father’s. I click on my Aunt Sue’s name first, reading over the section which lists that she owns one sixth of the company’s shares. That seems to go along with what I know. The company is broken up amongst the six children. I click back out of the folder then click on the file with my name on it.