The Orphans (Orphans Trilogy Book 1) by Matthew Sullivan Read Free Book Online

else beat him to it. Even before Charlie had ripped open the envelope and plunged his hand inside, he was already plotting his next move. It was the obvious play: He would have to counter Terry’s offer. Charlie was well aware that you must always counter any first offer, especially if it’s a good offer. That was another Terry quote. Terry would have to expect Charlie to do the same, to counter regardless. He might even rescind his offer if Charlie didn’t.
    Charlie’s visions of advanced negotiations vanished—along with most of the wind in his sails—when his fingers failed to find an offer letter or even any type of letter. All he came up with was a nondescript flash drive. While it wouldn’t have been out of the realm of possibility that Terry would put his offer on a flash drive, Charlie had a feeling that wasn’t the case, as the drive didn’t have the slightest hint of Abbadon’s company colors. It was royal blue with splashes of yellow.
    Charlie examined the drive in his palm. The color scheme seemed vaguely familiar to him. He flipped the drive over, checking the other side. A decal read pega systems .
    Charlie realized why it had looked familiar. It was from a company that his parents and Walter had started and sold no more than five years ago. Charlie even had the matching business card in his bedroom desk. He never kept the flash drives, though. That was all Walter. Walter loved to pilfer all of the old promotional electronics, particularly the flash drives. “You can never have too many flash drives,” Walter would always tell him. Charlie had heard the line so many times that it was still as fresh as the day Walter had first said it.
    Charlie repeated the line to himself. That’s when the truth hit Charlie like a Mike Tyson uppercut. The package wasn’t from Terry—it was from Walter.

 
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER SEVEN
     
     
    Charlie burst into his house and bolted up the stairs. He didn’t have the slightest inkling as to why Walter had mailed the drive to him, why he had sent it using an Abbadon packing label, or why, at the very least, he hadn’t even bothered mentioning it the night before. Charlie had so many questions, but he knew there was only one way he might figure out the answers to any of them: He needed to find out what was on the storage device.
    Charlie didn’t slow down until he reached his bedroom. Even then, his momentum almost carried him out of his desk chair as he slid into the seat. He steadied himself and then hit the power button on his computer.
    “Come on, come on!” he huffed and puffed, short of breath from his sudden burst of exertion. The machine made no attempt to speed up its booting process. If anything, to Charlie, it seemed to have actually slowed down. He banged the side of his desktop computer, hoping it might respond better to physical intimidation.
    After a couple more smacks, Charlie’s computer finally finished booting. He jammed the flash drive into the usb port. The drive folder popped up on the screen. Charlie scanned the contents. There were dozens of files. Charlie recognized most of them as programs Walter had developed, programs that Walter had already shown Charlie. Charlie was certain that Walter would have only sent him the drive if he had wanted him to see something else, something more recent. Charlie sorted the folder by creation date. Three files jumped to the top: an mp4 video file named watch me first , a spreadsheet named contacts , and a pdf file named contract .
    The video file was the obvious first choice, not just because of its name, but also because it was the most recent of the three files. It had been created around eleven o’clock the night before, only a little more than an hour before Walter’s neighbor discovered his body. Much like the neighbor, nothing could have prepared Charlie for what he was about to see.
    Charlie double-clicked the video file, which began to play upon opening. On the screen was a poorly lit