Chapter 2 - The Digital Footprint
By 1:00 PM, Javier sat in his home office in North Austin, the curtains drawn to block out the harsh Texas sun.
Lucy was sound asleep on the couch in the living room, wrapped in her mother’s old wool blanket, exhausted from hours of quiet weeping.
Sitting across from Javier at his oak desk was Leo Vance, a former intelligence contractor turned independent cyber-forensic consultant, and one of Javier’s closest friends from his days covering state corruption.
"She’s terrified, Leo," Javier whispered, staring at a high-resolution photo of the dark purple bruise on Lucy’s shoulder on his monitor. "When I pressed her gently about what happened, she told me Patricia takes her into the storage room behind the art class—where there are no windows—whenever Lucy cries about her mom."
Leo adjusted his headset, his fingers flying across a mechanical keyboard with dizzying speed.
"St. Catherine’s isn't just any private school, Javi," Leo said grimly, pointing to a complex corporate diagram rendering on his screen. "It’s funded primarily by the Sterling Development Group. Arthur Sterling—the billionaire real estate mogul who's running for the state senate—is the head of the school’s board of trustees. And guess who Patricia’s real identity is?"
Javier leaned in close. "What are you talking about?"
"Her full name is Patricia Sterling-Vane," Leo revealed, opening a sealed court document from ten years ago. "She’s Arthur Sterling’s younger sister. Ten years ago, she worked at a prep school in Dallas. Three parents filed formal complaints alleging physical mistreatment and psychological abuse of first-graders. Sterling used his legal firm to pay off the families with seven-figure non-disclosure agreements, sealed the court records, changed her professional registry name to 'Miss Patricia,' and moved her down here to St. Catherine’s."
Javier felt a surge of rage so intense it turned his vision red. "She’s a serial abuser. And Sterling built this entire school to give her a playground where she could stay protected."
"It gets worse," Leo said, pulling up a network IP log. "I ran a remote ping on St. Catherine’s internal server. Their security cameras aren't managed by a standard third-party commercial firm. They run on a closed-circuit local network that feeds directly into a cloud server hosted by Sterling Development Group."
"Which means Martha Collins couldn't give me the footage even if she wanted to," Javier realized, his eyes narrowing. "Sterling controls the hard drives. If he realizes I’m digging into Patricia’s past in Dallas, those video files will be wiped by midnight."
"Then we need to get into that server before he hits the purge button," Leo said. "And to do that, we need physical access to the network router inside the school’s basement command closet."
Javier looked toward the living room, where Lucy stirred softly in her sleep.
"I’m going back tonight," Javier said, his voice turning to steel.
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"Javi, that’s commercial burglary," Leo warned. "If Sterling’s security catches you on those grounds, they won't call the cops. They’ll ruin your life."
"They already threatened to take my daughter, Leo," Javier replied softly. "They have no idea what I’m capable of."
