I did not wait for their response. I simply turned on my heel and pushed through the heavy swinging doors, leaving my parents and sister standing in the humid, foul smelling kitchen. They probably assumed I was retreating to cry in a bathroom or fleeing to my car in defeat. They severely underestimated the resolve of a woman who spent her days dismantling complex corporate fraud syndicates.
The jazz quartet was playing a lively rendition of a classic standard, the sound echoing through the vaulted ceilings of the rented estate. I ignored the wealthy guests dripping in diamonds and holding crystal flutes of expensive champagne. I kept my head down, navigating the perimeter of the grand foyer until I reached the hallway leading to the private quarters.
Richard had designated the mahogany panled library as his temporary command center for the weekend. I knew this because he had loudly boasted earlier about needing a secure space to handle international shipping crisis, which I now knew was just a cover for dodging frantic calls from his creditors.
The heavy door to the library was closed but unlocked. I slipped inside and shut it firmly behind me, plunging the room into a heavy, suffocating silence. The space smelled of expensive cigars and aged leather, a pathetic attempt by my father to emulate the billionaires he so desperately wanted to impress. Sitting on the center of the massive desk was his laptop.
I did not need his password. I did not need his permission. As a sitting justice of the New York State Supreme Court, I possessed a level of digital clearance that my father could not even fathom. I reached into the hidden pocket of my black dress and pulled out my keys. Attached to the metal ring was a small unassuming black plastic rectangle.
It was a secure RSA hardware token directly synced to the federal judiciary and state financial monitoring databases. I opened the laptop, bypassed the standard login screen using a backdoor administrative portal I utilized for reviewing sealed digital evidence and typed in the rolling six-digit code from my token.
The screen flickered instantly, replacing Richard’s generic desktop wallpaper with the stark, highly encrypted interface of the unified court system and financial crimes network. My heart beat with a steady rhythmic precision. I was no longer a betrayed daughter. I was an investigator processing a crime scene.
