Chapter 4 - THE CHESS MATCH BEGINS
My mother gasped as she looked over my shoulder at the phone screen. "He's... he's inside my house! How did he get in?!"
"He installed your digital deadbolt six months ago, Mom," I said, a wave of sickening guilt washing over me. "He kept a master encryption key."
"He's insane," Evelyn spat out, grabbing my phone to inspect the live feed. "He's staging a break-in. Look at what he's doing."
On the small screen, Mark wasn't just taking documents. He was methodically scattering paper across the wooden coffee table, unscrewing the lid of a bottle of lighter fluid, and placing it next to an open scented candle on the hearth. He wasn't hiding his face. He was deliberately constructing a scene that could easily be blamed on an electrical malfunction or an accidental domestic fire.
"We have to call 911 right now!" Mom cried out, reaching for her purse.
"No!" I blurted out, catching her arm. "If the local police respond, Mark will see their cruisers on his app before they even enter the neighborhood. He’ll flick a lighter, walk out the back door, and claim he was never there. And with his leverage over the local precinct, the fire marshal will call it an accident!"
"Sarah is right," Evelyn said calmly, her eyes flashing with tactical calculation. "Mark wants a confrontation. He wants Sarah to run back to him alone, panicked and obedient. He thrives on chaos because he controls the variables."
"So how do we change the variables?" I asked, forcing my brain to stop panicking and start analyzing.
For three years, I had been Mark’s passive victim. I had cleaned his messes, absorbed his rage, and smoothed over his cruelty. But standing in that dimly lit diner, looking at the evidence of his municipal crimes, I realized something fundamental: Mark was not invincible. He was a bully who relied on complex digital illusions.
And every digital illusion has a physical power source.
"Evelyn," I said, turning to her. "Where is Mark’s local server room located? The physical hardware where his master keys and camera feeds are stored?"
Evelyn smiled a dark, fierce smile. "In his private architectural office in downtown Evanston. The basement suite."
"Does he keep off-site backups?"
"Only once every twenty-four hours at midnight," Evelyn replied. "Which means right now, between 10:00 PM and midnight, his live control network relies entirely on the local server in his office building."
I looked at my watch. It was 10:22 PM.
"Mom," I said, turning to her. "I need you to stay here with Evelyn."
"Absolutely not!" my mother insisted. "I'm not letting you go face that monster alone!"
"You aren't going to be alone, Mom," I said gently. "You're going to take Evelyn’s evidence folder straight to the State Police headquarters in Des Plaines. Don't go to the local precinct. Go to the State Troopers. Show them your head wound, show them the medical records, and hand them Evelyn’s files."
"And what are you going to do?" Evelyn asked, leaning across the table.
"I'm going to Mark’s office," I declared. "I'm going to cut his server offline before he can set fire to my mother's home."
"Sarah, he has security alarms on that office building," Evelyn warned. "The second you force a door, his phone will alert him."
I pulled a small silver keycard from my wallet—the spare access key Mark had given me two years ago when I used to bring him lunch at his studio.
"He forgot I still have this," I said, my voice hardening. "He thinks I'm driving to my mother's house to beg for mercy. He won't be looking at his office perimeter."
"I'm coming with you," Evelyn offered, standing up. "I know the server rack configuration. You won't know which power breakers to pull."
May you like
I looked at Evelyn, then at my mother. For the first time in years, I didn't feel isolated. I didn't feel helpless.
"All right," I said. "Let's burn his digital house down."
