I shook my head. "Wait, hold up. This woman," I said, gesturing at all of the news clippings on the walls, "is your mother?" Trina merely nodded and began wiping her face. "Oh, Trina, I'm so sorry."

She shook her head and squared her shoulders. "Don't be. It's not like you did it or anything." She let out a long breath and wiped at her eyes again.

I wasn't quite sure what to do, so I asked simply, "Do you want a hug?" She nodded, so I gave her one. We hugged in the middle of Shawn's room for a long moment before she finally pulled away with a 'thank you'. She sat heavily in the office chair. "Is it okay if I ask what happened to her?"I asked hesitantly.

"She used to work for the Knights," she said with a sniffle. "They treated her well. In fact, she was one of their friends. They worked together a lot, and Shawn and I became kind of friends with their kids. Of course, it didn't last. When high school ended they went off to college, and we got stuck here. For as well as Mom did in the company, she never made enough to send us both off to college or even pay for online classes or anything else. Not that we really wanted to be apart for that long, anyway.

"I'm not entirely sure what happened, but one day she didn't come home from work. When she wasn't home by midnight, Dad called the cops. There were searches made for her, but nothing ever turned up. Well, not until a couple of months later." She closed her eyes and rubbed her face. "Shawn was home alone while I was out with Dad at the store. Even then, Shawn was hard at work on something. Probably coding for Vitality, as he was working for them in that capacity then, as well as one of their interns."

"Shawn was an intern there?" I asked incredulously.

She nodded. "He was for the summer before, too, actually. He'd always claimed to love his job. Anyway, someone was out jogging and found her in some brush alongside one of the roads and called the police. After that, there was a half-hearted investigation into her death, but nothing came up. About a year ago, the police came back and arrested Dad for murder and tax fraud. I kind of found out about the fraud bit by accident a short time before this happened, but him? A murderer?" She vehemently shook her head. "Not possible."

"So who do you think did it?"

"I don't know," she said quietly after several moments. "I really don't know."

I glanced at the computer. "Shawn thinks that the Knights did it somehow."

She furrowed her brow. "That's possible, but how do you know?"

I blushed and nodded at the desk. "I, uh, glanced at his computer. He has a whole document on there where he's compiled what he feels is evidence."

Her eyes widened. "Show me." So I did. She read for what felt like forever before she let her head drop onto the desk. "I can't believe this," she mumbled. After a silent moment she sat up. "I'm just going to head downstairs to wait for the pizzas I ordered-" The doorbell rang and cut her off. "Or I'll go down and get them." She fixed me with a serious look. "Come down and eat. We need to talk."

Nervous, I nodded and followed her to the foyer. I took the boxes from the delivery boy and put them on the kitchen counter while Trina paid and tipped him. Afterwards, we sat at the dining table and poked at our food. Suddenly, neither of us was all that hungry.

"If you still want to go through his room, I'll warn you when Shawn gets home," Trina offered quietly.

I raised an eyebrow as I took another bite of my slice of pizza, which she didn't notice since she was staring at her slice. "Are you sure?" I questioned.

She glanced up at me quickly. "Yep," she said before hurriedly taking a bite of her pizza. We ate the rest of our meal in silence. The moment I was done Trina glanced at the clock. "You'll need to hurry if you want to be done before he gets home," she warned.

Needing no further prodding, I hurried upstairs and set about trying to find out all I could about this apparent vendetta Shawn has.

---

Two hours later I was sitting in Shawn's office chair, trying to wrap my head around everything. It wasn't so much that he wanted justice for his mom - which he quite obviously did want - but it had gone so far beyond that. In his earlier notes, he was writing down the evidence that linked his mom to anyone that could have held any sort of malice towards her. Slowly, though, he'd begun to turn all that obsession towards the company.

To be honest, Victoria's death was sketchy at the very least. Especially when you factored in the day she 'disappeared'. Apparently, the company has a certain day every six months where they give raises and promotions to the best employees. Since her only bosses were the Knights, she couldn't get a promotion. If she did, she would have become a partner. In fact, if the articles I'd seen on his walls were anything to go by, half of the company was expecting that to happen. The day that was supposed to happen was the day after she went missing.

There wasn't anything that led straight back to the Knights, nor was there anything in the police report I'd found in Shawn's desk about the company, and nothing in any of the articles with the exception of mentioning she was 'a valued employee that would be very much missed'. I could see where he was coming from as to why he'd think they did it. I wouldn't put it past two kids who grew up rich with famous parents who were, by extension, famous and rich themselves to get someone they saw as a potential threat out of the way.

Still, I couldn't really believe it. I mean, it wasn't long before they consolidated everything into one website - just a few months - which led to the revolutions that were here today. Wall screens, for instance. Those all made the company value launch past the stratosphere. The Knights were the wealthiest people in the world because of it. It wasn't hard to believe they wouldn't want to share their wealth, but that didn't mean they had her killed. After all, it wasn't set in stone that they were going to make her a partner.

"He's home!" Trina shouted up at me. I launched out of the chair, closing the office door behind me as I hurried into my room.

Not that I was keeping track, but it seemed like he was home early. It wasn't quite 9 yet.

The front door closed and voices began drifting up to me. A couple of minutes later I heard a set of footsteps on the stairs, and then a second. They were both coming up here? I leaned against the headboard of my bed as I waited. And waited. Nothing. After about Five minutes I began to hear voices coming from Shawn's room. I walked out of my room timidly and heard Trina at the bottom of the stairs, calling to me.

I hurried down to her. "He brought a friend home?" I asked quietly.

She bit her lip. "Not quite. It's a job for him, actually. They came and I called him."

"I didn't hear them."

"They knocked instead of ringing the doorbell." She motioned for me to follow her into the living room. We sat next to each other on the sofa. "So," she asked, nervously picking at her nails. "What all did you find out?"

"What happened is sketchy at best," I said quietly. "I mean, your mom worked for Vitality and the day before her supposed promotion she disappears, and all of this shortly before the company's value shoots through the roof? Something is definitely suspicious about it, but only if you're out looking for it. To anyone else, it's not."

Trina rubbed her face, her hands lingering there afterwards. "Why is he hoarding all of that other stuff?" she asked as she dropped them.

I shrugged with a sigh. "The best I can figure is he's just doing something I've seen on TV crime shows: when you can't nail them for one thing, nail them for something else so that everyone gets a sense of closure or justice while hoping that everything else will come into the light. Now, I haven't gone through everything, but I went through a fair bit, and I don't think he's right about everything he told me."

We sat quietly for a few moments. "What do you think he was wrong about?" she asked, and I could hear the hesitation in her voice. It wasn't a thought she wanted to entertain. Which, in a way, I could understand. Like, I knew how it felt to not want my parents to be wrong about the important things, but I was an only child, so understanding a sibling bond was hard.

I bit my lip, not really wanting to tell her but knowing it was important. "I don't think that the company is listening in on everyone's conversations, but I do think he's in a measure of danger. From what I can tell, he's hacked them more than once, even though he can only get to a small portion of their server." I put my hand on her arm. "Trina, I can't let him into the server. I think he's going to try to sabotage them if I do."

Her eyes widened. "He said he only wants information," she said in a small voice. I couldn't tell if she was trying to convince me, herself, or both of us.

I moved my hand to her shoulder and rubbed it. "I'm sure he wants information, but also wants to ruin them," I said gently. "He really wants something bad to happen to them. There's malice behind his actions."

She lowered her head into her hands. "I knew he held a grudge against them, but I didn't know it was this bad," she said, words muffled.

There was a creak upstairs and she quickly sat up and rubbed her eyes. I dropped my hand and sat back, trying to look like I'd gotten comfortable. A man I didn't recognize came downstairs, closely followed by Shawn. They were still quietly talking about something. Eventually, they got to the front door and Shawn opened it. The man walked out after tossing a quick wave at us in the living room.

Shawn came in and sat in the chair. "How did things go today?" he asked, sitting back.

I shrugged and sat up straighter. "Okay, I guess. I'm no closer to figuring things out," I lied. I had an idea, and I was fairly certain it would work - I just had a couple of things to scope out first. It should be easy if things are as lax as they appear to be.

Shawn sighed heavily and sank back into the chair. "Great." He rubbed his face. "I'm almost out of ideas. There's one last one we could try, but it's reckless. You wouldn't be able to show your face around for a while."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "I'm actually high-profile. I have fans all over the U.S. and they'd spot me within seconds, so it's probably not a good idea."

He sighed again. "Then I got nothing." His eyes slid shut for a long moment. "Then I guess I got you down here for nothing, Liz. I'm sorry." He opened his eyes and stood up. "I'm going to bed." He walked out and I waited until I heard the telltale creak and closing door before turning to Trina.

"Are you as good of a programmer as he is?" I asked.

She snorted. "Which of us do you think learned it first, Liza? Honestly."

I raised my eyebrows. "Him? I mean, to be fair he is older."

She flapped a hand at me. "Whatever. I taught him a lot, and he took it from there. The answer to your question is yes."

I nodded. "I want to know if you can do something for me. I'm sorry, Trina, but I don't really trust Shawn to not do something really, really bad if I put his program on their servers." I paused. "But I trust you."

This vote of confidence in her got her more interested in my request. "What do you need?"