Who: Max What: Narrative Where: Home When: Recentlyish Warnings/Rating: None
The trail had been easy to follow, and she'd done a great job of covering her tracks. She wasn't a hacker, but her front in digital forensics was a thorough one, and she'd learned a thing or two over the years. She'd started with the personal files that belonged to her target at the private adoption agency, and she'd spent hours pouring over adoption records. She needed to crosscheck what he'd worked on with the information the target in CPS has handled, because she knew perfectly well that the intersect was what she was looking for. But she figured she could discount some things on her own. As for hacking into a federal database? She'd need help for that, but McKendrick was so squeaky clean that she knew she better have a good hand to show before she hit him up for help.
She'd spent the week before the hotel's idea of a blind date checking on adoptions, looking for anything that seemed impressive or important. It was only dumb luck that she decided to hit phone records as well, because that led her to the tap. And the tap led her right back to a requisition with her father's name on it.
Definitely the right track.
She spent the next day listening to recordings until she could barely keep her eyes open. Boring call after boring call about finances, placements, hand greasing and petty blackmail. Nothing big enough to interest the government, and definitely nothing important enough to interest her father. She would have missed the call between the CPS employee and the adoption agent if there hadn't been a name attached to the conversation.
The woman was easy enough to track down. She lived in San Bernardino. She had an ex-husband, a boyfriend, and she'd given a little boy up in a private adoption almost thirty years earlier.