Hannah attempted to lay back down. It was still 3 in the morning after all. And she had a lot of work to do at the office. It was a Tuesday, right? Probably. It felt very Tuesday-like.

Or maybe it was a Thursday.

Fuck. She wasn’t even sure what day of the week it was. With a sigh, she rolled out of bed and went over to the desk. There was her work laptop, locked in the drawer with a fingerprint code. Thankfully, she had been very passionate about keeping good security on this sort of thing. Even at home. It only took one wrong move for passwords to get loose. And from there, all sorts of data mining could be done. And the finger print lock was something she had tinkered with in college. It actually had her finger sink in sightly; getting a more three dimensional look at her finger, making it hard for someone to just lift the print. It even checked for a base temperature. 

Based on the information Hannah gathered before her death, it was a good thing she was so careful with security. She discovered later that her family and Chip had many times tried to break into her files to alter them, or straight up copy them for their own purposes. That was, in part, how she found out how deep everything had run. Her mother had tried to brute force some security measures Hannah had put in place, triggering secondary systems that recorded key conversations.

One where Russet, Chip, and Mrs. Kerr all spoke about their plans. Saying how Beau was on standby to kickstart everything and get Hannah ‘out of the way’.

“I wonder if I had signed things away after all…” She mumbled to the Smile Spud as the lock came undone. 

If even half of what Jessica said was right, she probably wasn’t in on it exactly. Jessica was a pawn or just didn’t care at the time. Hannah hoped that meant Beau hadn’t been won over to the plan yet. Maybe he was oblivious. Or blackmailed. Or…

As the soft blue of the boot up screen came on, Hannah let out another sigh. How weak was she? Wanting to believe so badly someone in the family still loved her, she was looking for any way to make them innocent. She had to remember, while this family hadn’t done everything that would happen yet, they were still capable. That Beau still tried to have her removed and made penniless. That he ruined her project at their mother’s command and made her look like a helpless idiot in front of the entire board and five important clients.

As she typed in the old passwords from before her accident to the corporate database, she blinked. Someone else had been on in her login over an hour ago. It definitely wasn’t her. As Hannah blinked, the login in disappeared from the primary records. 

Well. Good thing she had all login and login attempts for the company get backed up to a separate server. She quickly started typing away, going through the database information before she found what she was looking for. Someone had used Hannah’s basic credentials to go into the system. That could mean family or someone close to her. Like an assistant. 

A small smile appeared on Hannah’s face. The first bit of real evidence against her family members was just dropped into her lap. She started digging deeper, finding the IP address and beginning to check which computer it was for and if she could find out who owned that bit of hardware.

In the quiet of the room, the clacking of the keyboard sounded like dalmatians scrambling across a kitchen floor. Her typing sped up as she hoped for a lucky break. That break came a few moments later. Hannah stared at the screen. It was a company owned laptop. But based on what she could gleam, it belonged to a manager at best. 

Alright.

It was fine.

This could still be someone Hannah could put pressure on. She just needed to see what she could get them to do. The ping indicated they weren’t in the company right now, but at home. Time for her training virus to go over. It was something she had developed before her father passed, a harmless virus that would be used to catch the person in the act of clicking and doing things they shouldn’t. Mostly to train people not to fall for phishing scams. All it would do was activate a webcam or microphone and record the person for a few moments. Followed by a gotcha message.

Hannah just deactivated the gotcha part and quickly typed a new message.

I need the information that you got from your most recent log in under Hannah’s credentials. If you already sent it, something went wrong. Here’s the upload link.

There was a chance the person wouldn’t respond. But if one of her brothers was behind this, then whatever manager this was would want to quickly respond. Hannah really hoped she’d get the data they were poking around at. Sure enough. A few minutes later the link was clicked. The person was getting the files and uploading them. 

A moment later, the video and audio started coming in. “God I don’t care how much I’m getting paid under the table. This 3am demanding bullshit is for the birds.”

Hanah didn’t need to see the face. Which was good as the person had apparently taped over the camera. That was none other than her old assistant. Well. New at this point Hannah supposed. Betty could be heard slowly typing away a response as she muttered under her breath. 

“Fuckin have to have her fake files prepped for the 10am meeting. I can’t deal with this right now.”

Fake? Hannah was instantly taken back to the client meeting round this time. She had been handed the files by Betty to show to the clients. It was for the Timson Co security project. They wanted a whole new security system and software built from the ground up. The project progress reports made it sound like everything was further along than it actually was. So Hannah promised deadlines she couldn’t meet, which allowed Russet and Beauregard to both swoop in and save the day. Had she really been sent just in time to find all of this out? 

As the files downloaded, she quickly accessed her calendar. Sure enough the meetings were light for her today, but she had a 10am meeting. Because she wasn’t eating properly, Hannah remembered she had trouble waking up and getting to the office fully presentable before 9:30am. And was often gone by 2pm. Betty had been given more password control than she should have been.

Each time Hannah asked her to send out reports. “I trust you Betty”

Every time Betty rescheduled meetings for her. “You’re a lifesaver.”

Every time Hannah caught Betty working past normal hours. “You’re getting a bonus for your hard work.”

All that praise in the early days as Hannah dealt with the stress going on in her personal life. And now that Hannah was looking at the HR hiring records, she  could see that Betty was only with them for about a month now. A month. One single month and this woman was selling her out for more money. Or maybe she was a plant the whole time. 

Regardless, the files finished uploading with a new message. 

Here is everything. I expect my payment in 2 days as agreed. I have a copy of the altered file attached as well. I’ll have everything replaced by 9am. 

“After I get some damned sleep…” Betty muttered as the laptop shut down. 

It was fine. This was fine. Hannah had evidence now to fire Betty if need be. But that could cause more problems later. The reborn CEO leaned back in her desk chair, thinking. If Hannah fired the woman, the next plant would be harder to track. But Hannah was pretty sure she wasn’t clever enough to fool this lady. She took a few moments to rub her forehead. The last time her head hurt this bad, Russet had gotten her to cry for an hour and…

Russet… Hannah grinned. That would work. 

She just needed to get cleaned up and in the office early. The earlier the better. She started to run out of the room, nearly making it to the stairs before Mr. Mathew stepped out, looking tired as he stepped out from his room. 

“Young Miss? Why are you running out of your room?”

Hannah froze, laptop under her arm. “I ah, had a sudden burst of inspiration for a project, was all.”

Mr. Mathew gave a tired but proud smile to his mistress. “Just like your father. But you need rest. It isn’t even 4am yet.”

“Well. Ok. Yes. But-” Hannah attempted to explain as she was gently escorted back to her room by the arm. “I need to do this early.”

“In your silk nightgown? And before breakfast with your medication?”

“I uh- I mean.” Hannah felt like a small child again. Stumbling over her words to explain without telling. “No?”

“I shall fetch you at 5am with breakfast in bed. If you must be up, at least stay in your room for now. Is there anything else I can do for you?” He had already guided them both to the door, his hand on the door knob.

Hannah thought for a moment before smiling. “Oh one thing. Can you find the nearest bakery to the office? I want to treat everyone I can with something sweet today.”

“Of course, Young Miss.” His smile looked less tired and more warm as he spoke. “It is good to see your father’s light again.”

With that he closed the door and Hannah looked back to her room. She supposed she could at least get ready for the day and reread all of the documentation. It had been a few years from her perspective. The last thing she needed was to look like someone who was trying to remember algebra when their kid asked how to solve a problem.