The Hacker Heiress Strikes Back novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Family Table
Reborn at 23 at the exact minute her fake sister says she stole the code, Waverly puts the house key and the card on the table, drops the family name and walks out; in the lobby the man who wrote the audit tells her it will say she is a thief.
Marlena said, "She stole it," and I came back into my own body.
I was holding a soup spoon.
The scar down my sternum pulled tight under my blouse, the way it only does when I'm alive.
I had been dead for what felt like one cold breath.
Now there was a crystal chandelier over my head and eight guests staring at me over cream-colored soup.
I knew the soup.
It was lobster bisque, and the first time around I never got to taste it.
Marlena sat across from me with her laptop open and her honey-blonde hair pinned over one shoulder.
She was crying the soft, careful way she did when people were watching.
"I'm so sorry, Mother," she said. "I didn't want to say it in front of everyone."
Lucinda Merriman set down her glass without a sound.
"Waverly," she said, "explain yourself."
My father, Luther, rubbed his white moustache with two fingers.
"Honey, Mr. Whitfield's preliminary audit says the Lamplight code was in Marlena's files first."
At the far end of the table a tall man in a charcoal suit looked up from his tablet.
He had a trimmed beard and rimless glasses, and he did not look at me like the others.
He looked at me.
His name was Raylan Whitfield, and the first time around he ended my life with a twelve-page PDF.
The first time, I begged.
I stood in this exact spot and told them I wrote Lamplight at my mother's kitchen table.
I said it for six years, to lawyers, to reporters, to landlords, to the ceiling of a boarding-house room with the heat turned off.
Nobody ever heard it.
This time I put the spoon down.
"You're right," I said. "Say it again, Marlena. Slowly."
Marlena blinked at me.
"You stole my work."
"That's the part I wanted on the record," I said. "Thank you."
I stood up.
My chair scraped on the marble loud enough to make a woman in pearls flinch.
"Sit down," Lucinda said.
I unclipped the house key from my belt loop and set it beside the bread plate.
Then I took the black card Luther gave me last Christmas and laid it on top of the key.
"The card is clean," I said. "Check the statements. I bought two coffees and a train pass in two years."
My father's face went gray.
"Waverly, nobody is asking you to go."
"Nobody had to," I said. "I'm Calhoun. I was Calhoun when I walked in here, and I'll be Calhoun when I walk out."
Marlena pressed her fingers to her lips.
"You're running away because you're guilty."
"Running would mean I took something," I said. "Look in my bag if you like. It's by the door."
She didn't move.
I leaned over the table so only she could hear me.
"Your commit history has a clock problem, sweetheart."
The tears stopped.
It lasted maybe a second and a half.
Her eyes went flat and bright, and for that second I saw the girl who had planned this over a very long time.
Then she wiped her cheek and the soft face came back.
Lucinda stood.
She was tall, her black hair in its hard French twist, and she spoke.
"If you walk out of this house tonight, you will not be allowed to come back."
"I know," I said.
I went out through the dining room doors while eight people watched me and nobody said a word.
In the foyer I took my laptop bag from the bench.
It was the same bag, with the same ring of coffee stains on the strap, and Maybelle's name in marker inside the flap.
I took out my phone with shaking thumbs and typed a message.
You awake, Mama?
The answer came before I'd finished breathing.
On shift. Eat something.
I put my hand over my mouth.
She was alive.
She was at Grady, in her scrubs, checking somebody's chart, and she was alive.
Behind me the dining room door opened and closed.
I turned.
Raylan Whitfield stood on the marble with his tablet under his arm and his coat over the other.
"Ms. Calhoun," he said. "My report goes to the family attorney at nine tomorrow."
"I know."
"It says you stole it."
"I know that too."
He studied my face for a long moment, and I saw him find nothing he expected.
No tears, no lawyer, no speech.
I hitched the bag onto my shoulder.
"Then I'll see you at nine, Mr. Whitfield," I said. "Your report is wrong, and I'm going to show you where."
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