I raised my glass and thanked my grandfather for the two hundred dollars. He stopped carving the turkey and looked up, his eyes sharp. He asked what two hundred dollars I meant, then told the entire table the gift he gave me was actually five hundred thousand dollars. In the silence that followed, I realized someone here had stolen a fortune, completely unaware that my actual job is hunting down people who leave digital footprints.
My name is Layla Alexander. I am thirty-two years old and I live my life in a series of encrypted tunnels and digital backdoors at Helixgate Analytics in Denver. My job title is Senior Cyber Security Analyst, but in practice, I am a professional hunter of anomalies. I look for the single line of code that breaks the pattern, the fraction of a cent siphoned off into an offshore shell, or the ghost login at three in the morning that suggests an employee is selling out their company. I trust data because numbers do not have agendas. They do not lie to protect your feelings, and they certainly do not smile at you while they pick your pocket.
Returning to Redwood Falls always felt like stepping out of a high-speed server room and into a sepia photograph. The town did not change. The air here was thinner, colder, and smelled of pine needles and wood smoke. The King estate, my grandfather’s home, sat on a ridge overlooking the valley—a sprawling Victorian manor that looked exactly as it had when I was a child. It was a house built on old money and older values, or at least that was the facade we polished every November. This Thanksgiving was supposed to be a ceasefire. I had spent the last week in Denver buried in a forensic audit for a mid-sized bank that had lost track of a significant amount of capital, and my eyes were tired from staring at glowing monitors. I wanted wine. I wanted turkey. I wanted to pretend for forty-eight hours that I was just a granddaughter and not a woman who knew how to ruin lives with a keyboard.
The house was warm when I arrived. The heavy oak front door opened to the scent of roasting rosemary and cinnamon. The lighting was low and golden, casting long, comfortable shadows against the mahogany paneling. It was the kind of atmosphere that demanded you lower your voice and relax your shoulders. My grandfather, Walter King, was holding court in the living room. At seventy-eight, he was still the man who had built a local real estate empire from a single hardware store. He sat in his leather wingback chair, a glass of scotch in one hand, looking less like an old man and more like a retired general reviewing his troops. He had always been the moral compass of this family, the one person whose approval I actually sought. When he saw me, his face broke into a genuine grin, the kind that made the wrinkles around his eyes deepen in a way I loved.
Then there was the rest of the cast. My father, Daniel Rhodes, stood by the fireplace. He was a quiet man, an accountant who had spent thirty years balancing books that never quite made him rich. He held his wine glass with a tightness that suggested he was afraid someone might take it away. My mother, Rebecca King Rhodes, was fluttering between the kitchen and the living room, her movements frantic and birdlike. She was a retired elementary school teacher who treated every family gathering like a performance review. And finally, Hannah, my younger sister. Hannah was sprawled on the velvet settee, her phone held aloft at the perfect forty-five-degree angle to catch the light. She was twenty-six and listed her occupation as “Lifestyle Curator” on social media. To me, she was simply unemployed with a trust fund mentality. She waved at me without breaking eye contact with her screen, ensuring her followers knew she was having a quintessential, authentic family holiday.
The tensions started in the kitchen two hours before dinner. I had gone in to help with the cranberry sauce. My mother was there wiping down a counter that was already spotless. When she saw me, she stopped and reached into her apron pocket. She pulled out a cream-colored envelope and pressed it into my hand. Her fingers were cold. She told me that Grandpa wanted me to have this. She lowered her voice to a whisper, glancing toward the hallway to make sure we were alone. She said that business had been slow for the estate this year, and cash flow was a little tight, but he wanted to give me something.
Inside the envelope was a check written in my mother’s handwriting, signed with a shaky approximation of my grandfather’s signature. It was for two hundred dollars. My mother squeezed my hand. She told me to please not mention the amount to him. She said he was sensitive about not being able to do more this year and she did not want him to feel embarrassed in front of Daniel and Hannah. She asked me to just say thank you and leave it at that. I looked at the check. Two hundred dollars. It was a token gesture, gas money essentially, but I felt a surge of affection for the old man. He was proud, and if things were tight, the fact that he thought of me at all mattered. I put the check in my blazer pocket and promised my mother I would handle it with discretion. I told her I would not make it awkward. I had no idea that I was walking into an ambush.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page to discover the rest 🔎👇
