She stared at the monitor. "I don't know, Matt."
"What's your favorite password, one he might have teased you about?"
"There were a couple. I used one of our old addresses with some exclamation marks for a while."
He pushed his chair back to give her access to the computer. "Give it a shot."
She typed in the address, hands sweating. The denial message hit her like a slap in the face.
"Try another one."
She did as he suggested, but it was wrong, too.
"Did you have a nickname? A dog? A favorite food? An inside joke?" Matt asked. "Could it be something with North Star? He thought of you as home. What else did you do that made him feel safe?"
She thought for a moment. "Hot fudge sundaes on Sunday night," she said. "I'd melt a piece of chocolate to make the fudge, and sometimes when we couldn't afford ice cream…" Her voice cracked as an old memory ran through her mind. "One Sunday, on Landon's tenth birthday, my mom had told us there would be a cake and ice cream, but she left on Saturday night and she didn't come home the next day. Landon was so sad. I told him I was going to make it all right. We went to the store, but I didn't have enough money for it all, so I…I bought the chocolate bar, and I stole the ice cream, just one of those small cups, just enough for Landon. I put it in the pocket of my jacket, and I was so scared the manager was going to say something. He gave me a really sharp look when I gave him money for the chocolate bar, but he let us go. And when we got home, I made Landon a sundae, and I sang Happy Birthday to him."
Matt's lips tightened. "Your mother should have been prosecuted."
"I was the one who stole the ice cream."
"Because of the horrible circumstances you were left in. You were fifteen, right?"
She nodded. "Yes. It wasn't the only time I stole something, but I tried not to. I knew it wasn't right, and I didn't want Landon to see me. That day, I made him stand by the door, so he wouldn't notice." She paused. "But I think he might have figured it out."
"Maybe the password ishotfudgesundae."
"No. I think it's Finley's. That was the name of the market. We always said, 'Let's go to Finley's'. And if he had to use numbers, maybe that date." She typed inFinleyswithout the apostrophe and the date of Landon's tenth birthday. The cursor blinked, then the screen opened. "It worked."
"Let's see what we've got," Matt said, moving his chair closer to the computer as he started to type.
She held her breath as the folder structure came to light: Project_K – tests, logs, drafts, security.
He clicked into the first sub-folder, labeledTests, but all of the individual files needed new passwords.
The log folder contained screens of data and numbers that made no sense to her.
"This is all encrypted," he muttered.
"Can you get through the encryption?"
"Not on this computer."
He opened the next folder labeledDrafts, and, finally, she saw a regular-looking paragraph. It appeared to be notes for some kind of paper.Timing is key. It’s not the market that creates volatility; it’s perception. The model isn’t about reaction. It’s about pressure, causation, and sequential actions. Worldwide markets collide. Money moves. Power shifts. Who's in control?
"He's talking about something predictive, some kind of forecasting model," Matt said. "It feels like it might be about manipulating financial markets."
"Arjun said something about that, but it doesn't make sense."
"Doesn't it?" he challenged. "Your father committed suicide after losing all his money and some of his clients' money in a stock market fall."
"That's true. But Landon never expressed any interest in financial markets. He thought investing was a losing proposition, that it was like gambling. The house always wins."
"Maybe he found a way to ensure the house doesn't always win."
"You think he was trying to game the markets?"
"Or trying to understand how they work."
