The Fabulous Feats of Billy: Dana Sanderson Short Mysteries, #2

By Kari Kilgore

The Successful Launch of a Disaster

Billy's new tech start-up sits on the verge of greatness. A fantastic reward for leaving his rotten old job in the dust.

Until a miscalculation lands Billy in a nightmare.

And he only sees one way out.

Unfortunately Billy's way out puts him squarely in cybercrime expert Dana Sanderson's sights.

Can Dana stop him before it's too late?

A Dana Sanderson Short Mystery

Also available in Kari's short story collection Hacking Cybercrime: Dana Sanderson Short Mysteries

An excerpt from The Fabulous Feats of Billy:

The first line you cross is the easiest

Billy pulled the power cord out, running it idly through his fingers.

The lax security and asset tracking wasn't all he knew about Gossalor.

He knew the yearly, quarterly, and monthly profit numbers for the place. They were nowhere near AllState or State Farm numbers, no.

But they were easily a thousand times more profitable than the amount Billy was pulling his hair out over.

And twenty-eight thousand wasn't much, not really. Not compared to the settlements Gossalor paid out every single day. Many times a day. Paying out was part of doing business for them, and they clearly had plenty to spare.

Sometimes a gold-plated nest could do without a feather or two.

Especially if no one would ever be the wiser.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Spiral Publishing, Ltd
• Release date: Feb 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393592167

Kari Kilgore

Kari Kilgore started her first published novel Until Death in Transylvania, Romania, and finished it in Room 217 at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, where Stephen King got the idea for The Shining. That’s just one example of how real world inspiration drives her fiction. Kari’s first published novel Until Death was included on the Preliminary Ballot for the Bram Stoker Award for Outstanding Achievement in a First Novel in 2016. It was also a finalist for the Golden Stake Award at the Vampire Arts Festival in 2018. Recent professional short story sales include three to Fiction River anthology magazine, with the first due out in the September issue. Kari also has two stories in a holiday-themed anthology project with Kristine Kathryn Rusch due out over the holidays in 2019. Kari writes fantasy, science fiction, horror, and contemporary fiction, and she’s happiest when she surprises herself. She lives at the end of a long dirt road in the middle of the woods with her husband Jason Adams, various house critters, and wildlife they’re better off not knowing more about. Kari’s novels, novellas, and short stories are available at www.spiralpublishing.net, which also publishes books by Frank Kilgore and Jason Adams. For more information about Kari, upcoming publications, her travels and adventures, and random cool things that catch her attention, visit www.karikilgore.com.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Billy Jones sat in the middle of a huge party he’d spent the last year of his life working his ass off to make possible, head in his hands, staring red-eyed at his laptop.

All around him, the people he’d spent more hours with than he’d spent asleep loudly toasted their success. The office incubator space that Fabulous Feats, LLC, had rented outside of Atlanta still showed signs of all that work and struggle.

Trash cans along the bland beige walls, overflowing with pizza boxes and empty soda bottles. Toothbrushes, deodorant, and bottles of mouthwash decorated overcrowded cubicle desks.

Billy didn’t have to pull an inspection to know more than one of his fellow geeks had a pillow and blanket stashed somewhere inside or under the IKEA portable desks or rolling file cabinets. His bare feet rested on his own battered Boy Scout camp sleeping bag.

He wasn’t the only one who padded around barefoot or in stocking feet, and the the rent-an-office had absorbed that aroma along with the stink of overcooked coffee. Billy caught an increasingly strong smell of beer as the keg depleted itself, and not always into the plastic red cups brought in for the occasion.

Instead of holding his throbbing head, Billy was tempted to cover his ears. Katie and Deb had made good on their threat to bring in their old-school Eighties boom box, and its ancient, creaky speakers couldn’t quite handle the strain of Twenty-teens heavy bass.

Each thump distorted, and the resulting crackle went through Billy’s skull like an ice pick.

No one else seemed to notice or to mind. Or maybe they were all too tanked to give a damn. Or too busy celebrating the first successfully funded multimedia tie-in holo-app in crowdfunding history.

They’d rolled the portable furniture aside a couple of hours ago to create an ill-advised dance floor. Eight confirmed and unmistakable nerds, each drinking more alcohol than caffeine for a change. Enough that they were convinced they could suddenly dance in public after decades of carefully avoiding such embarrassment.

With good reason, from what Billy had seen.

Thankfully the glaring overhead lights