by Susan Stoker
She wanted to talk to someone about her new discovery, but felt weird about Penelope knowing. She fought fire, and Beth instinctively knew she wouldn’t understand and would try to talk her out of it. But Beth had no idea how something that made her feel so…free…could be bad.
It was fine. She was doing much better. She didn’t need the therapy as much anymore anyway.
Beth looked over to the sliding glass door in her living room. It’d been the big white elephant in her life for a while now. The curtains had been kept firmly closed and she’d even put a bookshelf partially in front of it. This morning she’d taken a deep breath and made the first step toward trying to live a more normal life. She’d moved the heavy piece of furniture.
Pen hadn’t commented on it when she’d arrived, but Beth could see she wanted to. The room was a bit brighter, even though the curtains were still drawn. Beth knew if she was ever going to be able to attend the Memorial Stair Climb event, or otherwise be able to step foot outside her apartment without holding someone’s hand, she had to start somewhere.
In actuality, it freaked her out. Anyone could break the door, it was only glass. The patio opened up into a large courtyard at the complex. There was a small concrete pad outside each ground-floor apartment, which gave way to a grassy field. Beth frequently heard kids playing, dogs barking, and the occasional group get-together, but in the past she’d merely turned up the television or the music she was listening to and tuned it out.
But sometime over the last week or so, she’d begun to realize how much she was missing out on in her life—and she’d gotten pissed. Damn Ben Hurst for making her this way. It wasn’t fair that she was still suffering for something that bastard had done.
“…don’t you think?”
Beth had completely missed Penelope’s question. “Sorry, what?”
“I said, this movie would’ve been a lot better with Chris Pratt in it, yeah?”
“Of course. Every movie would be better with some Chris in it. Preferably with lots of butt shots.”
Penelope giggled at her comment and Cade simply shook his head, obviously used to his sister’s quirks.
“So, what have you guys been up to? Anything exciting happen at work?” Beth asked, twisting in her seat to face them. Cade was sitting in what Beth was quickly coming to think of as “his” seat, and Penelope was in the comfortable armchair next to the couch. Beth knew the nature of being a firefighter wasn’t all go-go-go. It was a lot of sit-around-and-wait-for-something-to-happen. Pen had told her that some days they could get one call, and others they’d be on the go nonstop for the entire shift.
Cade seemed content to let his sister answer, and didn’t interrupt as she talked about their week.
“First off, Taco broke his own record for the number of tacos he could eat in one sitting. I swear to God that man has a parasite or something. He never gains a pound, but he ate fifteen of those things today. Gross. Most normal people would’ve been puking if they ate that much in one sitting. Other than that, we had three car crashes, one bicycle wreck, and four grass fires. People annoy me. I mean, why would you throw a lit cigarette out the window when things are as dry as they are around here?” Penelope shook her head in disgust, then continued. “Seven false alarms, two reports of smoke that turned out to be nothing, one structure fire, three lift-assists, and thirteen medicals.”
“Wow, that seems like a lot for only a couple of days.”
“It’s actually about average,” Penelope told her after taking a sip of water.
“What’s a lift-assist?” Beth was fascinated. She and Penelope had hung out before, of course, but they’d rarely talked details about her job. They usually talked about how Pen could help her with an upcoming shopping trip or other innocuous topics.
“It’s where someone falls and can’t get up by themselves.”
“Oh, like older people?” Beth asked.
“Yeah, or those who are overweight.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh. I hate those the most. Not because I blame the person. I mean, if they could lose the weight easily, I’m sure they would. No one wants to weigh five hundred pounds. But let’s just say all our working out really helps in those situations.”
“I had no idea people called the fire department for help with that sort of thing.”
Cade spoke up for the first time. “People call for help in all sorts of situations, Beth. There’s no harm in asking for assistance when it’s needed.”
Beth looked at him, knowing what he wasn’t coming right out and saying, but sorta coming right out and saying it anyway. “You know, you’re not as subtle as you might think you are.”
Cade chuckled. “That did come out as sounding awfully ‘preachy’ didn’t it? I honestly didn’t mean it to though. Think about it. If you weighed six hundred pounds and you slipped and fell and couldn’t get up on your own…what would you do? You might crawl around on the floor, if you were able to, but if you couldn’t pull yourself up, you’d end up dying there. Most of the time their loved ones do try to help them, but without a lot of muscle, it’s just not gonna happen.”
Cade leaned forward and continued his passionate speech. “I don’t care if it’s helping someone off the floor who can’t do it themselves, or climbing a tree to get a cat down that doesn’t really need the help anyway. It could be a kid whose mother is having a seizure, or an elderly woman who’s lonely so she calls us for a small cut on her finger just so she has someone to talk to for a couple of minutes. Helping is what I do—I was born to do it. Don’t mistake my comments as directed solely at you…although if you need help, you sure as hell better call me.”
“You mean call nine-one-one.”
“No. I mean call me.”
Beth could only stare at Cade. His words settled in her soul and made her feel almost lightheaded. She knew she could count on Pen to give her a hand when she needed it, but to hear Cade so passionately and earnestly speaking right to her heart, scared her to death.
Deciding it was beyond time to change the subject—when Cade made goosebumps break out all over her arms, it was definitely time—she said, “Pen, you really shouldn’t use the same password for all your accounts. I’ve headed off three hackers in the last week who would’ve gotten into your PayPal, bank, and electric company accounts.”
“What?”
Penelope was obviously confused at the change in subject, but Cade merely relaxed back in his seat and kept his eyes on Beth as she fidgeted uncomfortably.
“Using PenisGod isn’t a good username for things like Amazon and eBay. And you really need to delete your craigslist account because calling yourself a penis god is only attracting weirdos. You probably don’t even remember you had that old ad up when you were trying to sell your bicycle. Well, it’s one of the most clicked-on ads on the site for San Antonio. I’m not exaggerating either. You had four hundred and sixty-nine messages—and I’m not even going to comment on the sixty-nine thing. But three hundred and fourteen of those contained pictures of men’s dicks. Fifty-seven contained marriage proposals, most from overseas; twenty-seven were from women who were interested in a threesome with you, fifty-five were spam, people trying to get you to click on links or buy some crap product, and the remaining sixteen emails were religious in nature, telling you to repent for your soul.”
“I should probably be pissed you got into my account, but I trust you, so I’m not. But it’s not penis god!” Penelope exclaimed huffily. “It’s Pen IS God.”
Cade burst out laughing. “Seriously, sis? Penis god? Just wait until the guys hear this!”
Penelope was on Cade before he could protect himself. She’d pushed him over and was tickling him mercilessly, threatening bodily harm and other nefarious tricks that she’d use to get back at him if any of the guys at the station found out.
Beth breathed a sigh of relief that the tension in the room had been broken. Cade finally got the upper hand on his sister, being eight inches taller had a great d
eal to do with it, and they settled back into their seats, still giggling.
“Okay, Miss Smarty Pants…I knew you were good at the whole computer thing, but you’re way better than I’d thought, aren’t you?” Pen asked, still breathing hard from her tussle with her brother.
“I’m pretty good,” Beth said, shrugging and downplaying her abilities.
“She hacked PayPal’s firewall the other night,” Cade informed his sister smoothly, with a hint of pride in his voice.
“You did not!”
Beth shrugged and nodded. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Not a big deal? Okay, that’s it…” Penelope pulled out her phone and began hitting buttons as if she were possessed.
Beth looked at Cade with her eyebrows raised in question.
“Don’t look at me, I have no idea what she’s up to.”
Putting her phone down, Penelope smiled and folded her arms in front of her. “I give it ten minutes.”
“You give what ten minutes?” Beth asked.
“You’ll see.”
Beth rolled her eyes. “Always the drama queen.”
“She’s been that way her entire life, if you didn’t already know. You should get used to it,” Cade told Beth without malice.
“You really did stop people from getting my info?” Penelope asked, ignoring her brother.
“Yeah. Your passwords should be different, and you should use special characters, upper and lowercase letters, and never use a real word.”
“But I’ll never remember them if I do that. It’s handy because now I can log into all my accounts and never forget which password goes with what.”
“It’s also handy for any ol’ hacker to get into all your accounts too. Write them down then, but not on your computer. It’s way too easy to hack in through a backdoor and read anything you’ve got stored on your hard drive.”
“People do that?”
“Yes, Pen. People do that. How long have we known each other?”
“Um, I knew there were hackers out there, but I didn’t know they did that shit.”
“They do.”
“Have you done it?”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
Beth wanted to laugh at the horror in her friend’s voice. “Pen. I do it for fun, to see if I can. Others do it to find stuff to blackmail people with or to steal from them.”
“Whose computer have you hacked into?”
“I don’t think you want to know.”
“Mine?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Beth thought about clarifying how hacking into her email server was different from getting into the files on her computer, but decided it was easier to deal with the question at hand.
“Why not? Pen, it’s not a challenge. I could probably guess the password to your computer in like three seconds. Besides, you’re my friend, I wouldn’t do that to you. But…see this little piece of paper over the built-in camera on my laptop?”
Both Cade and Pen nodded after Beth turned her screen to face them. “I meant to ask you about that,” Pen told her.
“It’s because anyone who hacks into your hard drive can take it over and if you don’t have your webcam covered, the hacker can use it to spy on you and record whatever it is you’re doing in view of the camera.”
“What? Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“That’s so gross.” Penelope visibly shuddered. “I can’t believe people would do that. I know, I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am anyway.”
Beth smiled at her friend’s naiveté—then looked down at her computer when the alarm she’d programmed in to let her know when someone was trying to enter it through the backdoor went off. “What the fuck? Oh no you don’t, you bastard.”
“What?” Cade’s tone lost any and all teasing. He looked around as if there was a physical threat in the room.
“Some asshole is trying to access my hard drive. Heh, he’s obviously a novice, he should’ve seen the trap I had set up. What’s he doing…oh shit, no way. Okay, it’s on, you piece of shit.”
Penelope and Cade looked at each other. Cade noticed the smirk on his sister’s face and narrowed his eyes, wondering what brought it on. She was up to something, but he had no idea what. At the moment, he was more concerned about Beth.
Her fingers were flying over the keyboard and she was muttering under her breath. He could see lines and lines of code scrolling across her screen. Cade had no idea how she was able to read anything because it was moving so fast, but she obviously could, because she alternated between being happy when she’d done something to keep whomever it was out, and swearing when the other hacker got around the blockades she put in place, as quickly as she put them up.
It was obvious she’d tuned everything out but whatever was going on with her computer. It was cute as hell, but also a bit unnerving that she could forget he and his sister were even there.
Finally she sat back with a disgruntled huff and swore. “Dammit all to hell.”
“What?” Penelope asked.
“He got in.”
“And? What does that mean?”
“He won.”
“Did he get your info? Are you gonna be broke now? Am I gonna have to visit you at the homeless shelter downtown?” Penelope joked.
Beth looked at her friend in disbelief. “You think I keep anything sensitive on my computer? No way. As soon as the alarm went off, all my passwords were automatically changed, and they’ll continue to update every forty-five seconds until I stop the program.”
“How will you know what they are so you can log into your stuff?”
Beth didn’t bother to answer, just rolled her eyes.
“Okay, so you’ve figured that out already. How do you know he won? Was it really a competition?”
“How do I know he won?” Beth turned her screen again so both Pen and Cade could see it. There were electronic fireworks going off on the screen and the words “I WON” were flashing on and off as well.
Cade coughed into his hand, trying not to laugh. It really wasn’t funny, if Beth’s pissed-off face was anything to go by, but whoever the hacker was had a pretty good sense of humor.
Penelope’s phone pinged with a text. She looked down and grinned.
“What’s so funny?” Beth asked, obviously still upset.
Penelope turned her phone to Beth and showed her a picture of a computer screen, which looked exactly like Beth’s did. The text message under it read, “Tell Elizabeth, I win.”
CHAPTER 9
“What the hell, Pen? You know who did this?” Beth asked in disbelief, looking ready to lurch across the room and strangle her friend.
“Yup.”
When Penelope didn’t say anything more, Beth put her computer to the side and stalked over to her friend. Before she got to her, Cade grabbed her hand and pulled her down next to him. “Easy, sweetheart. You can’t kill my sister in front of me. I’d have to call my friend Dax and I’d be an accessory to murder and do twenty to life. Then you’d be the one visiting me in the penitentiary.”
Cade felt good when Beth didn’t pull away from him, but gripped his hand hard.
“Who is it?” Her question was geared toward Penelope.
“My friend, Tex. He’s a computer genius who helped get the teams in to save me. I’ve only met him once, but have talked to him many times.”
Beth’s eyes narrowed. “So why did he hack into my computer?”
“Probably to see if what I told him was true.”
“Pen, I love you, but I swear to God if you don’t start making sense, I’m gonna email every news agency I can come up with, pretend to be you, and tell them you’re dying to finally tell your side of your story.”
Cade saw his sister pale, and squeezed Beth’s hand in warning. “Beth…”
He saw the remorse on Beth’s face as soon as the words left her mouth. “I’m sorry, Pen. You know I wouldn’t do that. But shit. Really? Who
is this guy?”
“Look. All I heard from the men who rescued me is how great this Tex person is. How he can hack into anything, how much he’s done for them, and how no one is as good as he is. I just…when you were talking about getting into my computer and keeping those jerks from accessing my info, I wanted to introduce you to Tex. All I said was that you were good and maybe you could help him out someday.” Penelope fingered the pendant around her throat nervously as she spoke.
“And he hacked into my computer as a result?”
Penelope shrugged. “I guess he wanted to know if I was exaggerating or not.”
“So, now that he got through, I guess he knows you were exaggerating.”
Beth’s computer made a weird dinging noise again, and Cade let go of her hand as she lurched across the cushions to pick it up. Her fingers darted over the keys again and she said under her breath, “I’ll be damned.”
“What now?” Penelope asked, leaning forward to try to see her screen.
Beth looked up. “He restored my firewall and repaired the hole he made. Not only that, but, look…” She turned the computer and showed Cade and Penelope the note on the screen.
Tiger was right. You’re good. Want a job?
“I don’t get it. Who’s Tiger?” Beth asked in confusion.
“That would be me. It’s what the guys who came in to rescue me called me,” Penelope said sheepishly.
“Hmmmm. Wonder what kind of job he’s talking about?”
“Uh, one with computers?” Penelope said as if Beth had a couple of screws loose in her head.
“Hey! I haven’t had the chance to talk to Daxton or Cruz yet about you working for them,” Cade complained. “But now that I think about it, it’s probably better if you work for him. You know…with your penchant for illegally hacking into Fortune 500 databases and all.”
“She doesn’t do it to steal stuff,” Penelope huffed, sticking up for her friend.
“Well, I’ll think about it and contact him later.”
“What? Beth! You should take Tex up on it!” Penelope urged.
“I’m busy. I’m hanging out with you guys. Besides, my heart hasn’t gotten over the shock of someone breaking into my computer yet.”