“Of course. I’ll tell Preston to do that first.” She picked at a dot of fuzz on her black slacks and flicked it away, looking very much like she wanted to flick this problem away as easily. “Is there anything else I should do?”
“If you can’t get ahold of Preston immediately,” Eryn said. “I’d get in touch with instructors for the next few classes and tell them not to download any files and to instruct their students not to do so.”
Martha jumped up and grabbed her phone from the desk. “If you don’t mind seeing yourselves out, I’ll call him now.”
Eryn smiled at the older woman in an attempt to ease her mind. “Thanks for being so cooperative, Martha.”
She was already dialing her phone and didn’t seem to notice when Eryn and Trey headed for the door.
“Preston,” Martha breathed out his name in a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness you answered. Our server’s been hacked.”
Eryn was glad to hear that Martha connected with him as it would make things go much faster if Eryn had file access.
Trey looked at Eryn as they walked down the quiet hallway. “Could it be possible that this hack wasn’t about you but was about LEN’s network, and the warning was to throw you off target?”
“Could be,” she replied. “But I don’t yet have proof that anything else was compromised in their files.”
“I know hacking is a big business, but is there another reason to hack the network other than for monetary gain?”
“LEN has a database containing officer’s information and someone could want access to that. Still, as much as I don’t want to, I believe the hack was all about me, not about the site in general.”
“Big head much?” He chuckled.
She punched his arm. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, just had to tease you a little bit.” His mouth tipped in a wide grin that she found irresistible. “So, computer pro, what next?”
“We head up to my room to call Preston. Once he has the other logins disabled, he’ll set up access for me, and I’ll start reviewing the files and logs.”
“Sounds like there’s nothing I can do to help with that.”
“Actually, you could help out with Detective Young. He uploaded the image containing the ransomware code, and you can run a background check on him.”
“It didn’t sound like you thought an officer uploaded an infected file.”
“I don’t, but I never leave anything to chance.”
She started for the elevator and kept her head on a swivel, looking for anyone who might be watching them. For the most part, she’d been playing down the danger, hoping Trey would relax a bit. She felt the threat was legitimate, but the actor wouldn’t have reason to follow through on his threat until after she failed to cancel her classes.
“Too bad you’re so good-looking,” Trey said out of the blue.
“What?” She gaped at him as she didn’t have any idea where he was going with that comment.
“You’re drawing attention from many of the men, and I can’t tell if they’re watching you because they think you’re gorgeous or if one of them is our hacker.”
She put her hands on her hips. “They’re only looking at me because I’m one of the few females in the room.”
“Um, Eryn, trust me. That’s not the only reason.”
But you’re biased, she wanted to say, but didn’t. She wasn’t about to bring up anything personal.
They rode the glass elevator overlooking the luxurious lobby. She should take a moment to enjoy the view. She couldn’t afford to stay in such a resort without the generous conference discount, but the tension cutting between her and Trey made it impossible to focus anywhere else. When the doors opened, she led him down the hallway to her room that adjoined her mother’s room where Bekah napped.
Eryn’s room smelled of baby wipes used to clean sticky hands, a constant thing with Bekah. How one little four-year-old could find so much stickiness, Eryn didn’t know, but her daughter excelled at it.
Her mother stepped into the room, and Eryn felt self-conscious about her mother’s flowing patchwork maxi skirt, tunic top, and fringed leather vest. She was a beautiful woman and looked great in her throwback hippie fashion, but Eryn experienced years of teasing about her mother being different from other moms. She never knew how someone would react to the unusual attire.
Her mother spotted Trey, and her eyes widened. “We have a guest, I see.”
“Mom, this is Trey Sawyer. Trey, this is my mother, Sandra Dawson.”
Her mother offered her usual warm smile and shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, Trey.”
“Likewise,” Trey said sincerely.
Eryn relaxed a notch. “Trey’s volunteered to be our bodyguard until I find the actor who deployed the ransomware.”
Her mother blinked long false lashes that she wore with heavy blue eye shadow. “Is that really necessary?”
“No,” Eryn said.
“Yes,” Trey said at the same time.
Eryn rubbed her forehead. “With you and Bekah here, it’s better to be safe than sorry. In any event, the actor won’t try anything until he figures out I didn’t cancel my classes.”
Her mother fixed her focus on Trey. “I presume you don’t plan to use this as an excuse to stay in Eryn’s room.”
Trey’s mouth dropped open, and Eryn almost snorted. Her mother had many hippie values, but men and women sharing a room before marriage was not one of them.
“Gage offered to give us his suite,” Eryn said. “Trey will have his own room.”
“Good, good.”
Eryn nodded. “Okay, I need to get to work before Bekah wakes up.”
“You don’t have to look so excited about working.” Her mother shook her head. “How I ever had a child who loves computers the way you do, I’ll never know.”
Eryn faced Trey. “Mom refuses to even get a smartphone. She’s a hippie throwback. Needs no electronics in her life at all.”
“No one needs electronics,” Trey said.
“Et tu brute!” Laughing, Eryn clutched her chest and went to the desk in the corner.
“I’m going to like your young man,” her mother called after her.
“He’s not my—”
“And I know I already like your mother,” Trey interrupted.
With her back to the pair, Eryn could imagine them both deviously rubbing their hands together like evil TV villains while conspiring against her.
“Since you’re here,” her mother said. “I’m going to run out and grab a few things we forgot to bring.”
“Maybe Trey should go with you,” Eryn called out and sat in the desk chair.
“Nice try,” Trey said. “But there’s no evidence that Sandra will be in any danger right now. Like you said, you should be okay until you don’t cancel those classes.”
“Like he said.” Her mother chuckled and grabbed her purse embellished with heavy suede fringes on the way out the door.
“Your mom seems real nice.” Trey took a seat in a chair in the corner.
Eryn turned to face him. “She’s the best. Even if I do tease her about the electronics. For some reason I can’t even fathom, ignoring it all works for her.”
“I probably should tell you right up front that I don’t know much about electronics either. Most of what I know I learned at work.”
“Not a video gamer, then?”
“Not really. You?”
“I used to be more of one. I play with the guys sometimes, especially Riley, but as a single mom I really don’t have a lot of free time, and I’d rather spend it in other ways.” She swiveled back to the desk. “Now I really need to get to work.”
She took out her phone to call Preston and hoped Trey would start running the background check on Detective Young. She got Preston on the first ring, and he confirmed that he was now the only person with access to the files. He was working on providing her with read-only credentials so she could look at files but not write to them. They d
iscussed the hack for bit, throwing out ideas, but discussing it was really a waste of time until she looked at the files. He promised she’d have access in a few minutes and provided a login and password before he hung up.
“Seriously, was any of that in English?” Trey joked.
She gave him a fiendish look. “That’s how we ensure you all need us. You can’t understand the language.”
He chuckled, which she was starting to learn he did often, and she had to admit that so far, she didn’t dislike having him around. His personality was generally so lighthearted when she tended toward serious. Maybe that’s why she felt this overwhelming attraction to him. They balanced each other out.
Her computer signaled the end to reformatting, and she tested the login for LEN’s server. Bingo. She was in and had access to the files and logs. She wanted to get to work, but she felt Trey watching her as if she was an ant farm he was studying through glass panes.
She took a quiet peek at him over her shoulder. He held his phone, but he was looking at her not the screen. She couldn’t work like this. And she couldn’t constantly be reminded of his attraction to her. That brought up her interest in him, and then it all snowballed in her mind into a blizzard of emotions she didn’t want to feel.
She rolled her desk chair over to face him. “If this is going to work, you need to stop watching me.”
“Sorry,” he said. “You’re much more interesting than my phone.” His lips turned up in one of his charming and irresistible grins.
She took a long breath and forced from her mind all emotions the smile evoked. “You promised to keep this professional.”
“I said I’d do my best, and I’m trying, but I’m obviously not succeeding.”
She watched him for a long moment to gauge his sincerity. “You have to try harder. And honestly, while I’m in my room, you don’t even need to be here.”
“I get that, but I also know you. You’ll be working along and suddenly realize you need to do something.” His nose flared as if she’d made him mad. “Will you call me and wait for me to come back? No, you’ll go barreling out of the room without thinking about it. And if I’m not here, you’ll be alone.”
She wished she could argue his point, but it was valid. “Okay. I might do that. So can you keep busy and stop watching me?”
“You know,” he said. “Maybe we should finally talk about this thing between us, and it won’t be a big deal anymore.”
She wrinkled her nose. “There’s nothing going on between us.”
“So you’re not attracted to me, then?” He seemed genuinely disappointed.
“I didn’t say that. You’re a very good-looking man, and I’m sure you’ve had to fend off your share of advances over the years.”
“Ditto for you.”
“I’m a good-looking man, huh?” She laughed and hoped it would lighten the mood.
“Oh, no, honey. Trust me. You are as far from a man as they come.” He winked.
She both loved and hated having him call her honey. It’d been too long since a man had used a personal endearment for her, but her dislike for crossing the line from professional won out over the joy of his interest, and she frowned.
“Wait, did I say the wrong thing? I mean you’re still as capable as a man.” He shook his head. “I seem to have ‘open mouth insert foot’ syndrome today.”
Normally, she would make a joke over his discomfort, but she couldn’t get beyond thinking about being thrown together with him for days. They hadn’t managed an hour, let alone surviving being in close proximity for days.
“Okay, so I am attracted to you. More than a little. Not only your looks, but you, Trey. You’re a great guy. Smart. Funny. Compassionate. A real catch.”
“But,” he said, a vein in his temple throbbing.
“But, when my husband died, something died inside me. Or, more accurately, something grew inside me. Fear.” She paused to pull in a long breath. “Fear that if I let myself get attached to a guy again, I could never survive losing him, too. I just couldn’t. So it’s far easier to focus on raising Bekah and avoid everything else.”
“Don’t you miss being married?”
“Miss it? Yeah, I do, but like I said—”
“You’re not willing to risk losing someone again.” He watched her carefully. “And what about your faith?”
“What about it?”
“Isn’t all this worry like saying you don’t trust God?”
“Oh, that.”
“Yeah, that.”
She slumped back. “I hate to admit this, but losing Rich has completely sidetracked my faith.”
He opened his mouth as if to say something, then snapped it closed and took a long breath.
“Go ahead,” she said, knowing she shouldn’t continue this discussion. “Say whatever you were going to say.”
“I get it. I mean, not the fear of losing someone close to me. I faced that back when I was a Beret and came through it with my faith intact. I mean about getting sidetracked in faith.” He stretched out his leg and rubbed his thigh. “This injury has me questioning, you know? I spent years as a Beret in extremely dangerous situations and came out unscathed. And then I take a pretty routine job that for the most part isn’t outrageously dangerous. I step out to help Gage with one thing and take a bullet. And now what? I ride a desk? Makes no sense.”
“I thought Gage offered you a job.”
“He did, but…” Trey shrugged.
She watched him for a long moment. “You’re not turning him down because of me, are you?”
He shrugged again.
She leaned forward and put her hand on his arm, wanting the connection as well as to make things right. “We can work this out. You can take the job. Honest. I’ll be more understanding, and we can work together.”
A wave of sadness flooded his eyes. “You can’t ‘understand’ away my interest in you, Eryn. It’s there, and as far as I can see, it’s not going away soon.”
3
Well, that discussion didn’t clear the air. Totally not, and Trey was even more at a loss on how he was supposed to handle the hours and hours ahead when he’d be cooped up with the woman who could send his senses reeling with a simple look.
Too bad, dude. You asked to be with her. Now man up and get over yourself.
Maybe the answer was to have another person with them as much as possible. He’d be conscious of that and try not to be alone with her.
She turned back to her laptop. “What in the world?”
Her tone had Trey behind her in a second. “What’s wrong?”
She pointed at her computer screen. “The actor’s taken control of my computer again. Means he’s infiltrated LEN’s server. I suppose it’s not a surprise, but still, I’d hoped it was just the one file.”
Trey read the message and wasn’t surprised to see the hacker was getting irritated.
What are you waiting for? Cancel the classes. Now! The screen flashed, and the message disappeared.
“That’s crazy.” She gaped at her laptop. “He released my computer.”
“Why would he do that?”
She looked up at Trey. “I don’t know. Maybe the ransomware malfunctioned. Or maybe he wants me to see his code. Or he infected my computer with other malware, and he hopes I wouldn’t have thought of that and I’ll spread it. I just don’t know.”
“So what will you do?”
“I need to review his code, but he could lock up the computer again. I need to find it ASAP and put it on a flash drive.” Her fingers flew over the keyboard.
A black window with white typing appeared, and she frantically typed what looked like gibberish to him. He was so impressed with her skills and would be happy to stand there watching her work, but she didn’t want that, so he took a seat again in the corner. He did watch her for a minute since she was so wrapped up in her work and had no idea his focus was on her. Her intensity right now was over the top, her gaze pinned to the screen. Her delicate hands fl
oated over the keyboard and typed at a rate he couldn’t imagine achieving with his bigger chunkier fingers.
She might be far more able to protect herself than many women, but she was still small and vulnerable to a larger enemy. An overwhelming protective urge slid over Trey, and the intensity left him breathing hard. He needed to do everything to make sure the hacker didn’t find her.
He picked up the handset for the room phone and dialed the operator.
“Security please,” he said when she answered.
“One moment.”
Trey thought Eryn might turn to look at him when he spoke, but she didn’t even seem to notice.
The security guard answered, and Trey identified himself as a deputy and explained the situation. He felt a bit guilty for letting the guard think he was on official duty, but Trey would do whatever it took to protect Eryn. “I’m hoping there’s a back entrance to the room that Ms. Calloway will use for her next class.”
“Sure,” the man said. “We have a service entrance you can use.”
“How will we get access to that entrance?”
“Call my cell about thirty minutes before each class starts, and I’ll meet you there.” He provided his contact information.
Trey jotted it down on the hotel notepad. He disconnected and entered the guy’s name and number into his phone then opened the Internet to begin a background check on Detective Young. Trey knew the guy didn’t have a criminal record or he wouldn’t be a detective, but that didn’t mean he was on the up and up.
Trey entered Young’s name in a search box and checked out every link. Time flew, but in the end, each link checked out. Young had received several commendations, and he showed up in his department’s newsletter often as an example of exemplary service. Trey had also found the Facebook page for Young’s wife, and Trey could only conclude that Young was a solid husband and family man.
Trey shifted his focus in hopes of finding financial issues, especially targeting a bankruptcy. Young came up clean in the limited search, but Trey didn’t have access to the guy’s actual financial accounts. This was an important part in checking a person’s background as debt or the need for money could be motive for getting involved in something nefarious. Still, Trey’s gut said the guy wasn’t the suspect they were looking for.
Cold Case Page 3