by A. J. Norris
Javier stirred.
“Was there a woman here last night?”
He rolled from his side to his back. “Your babysitter. She tucked you in.”
“She did?”
“She’s not a very good babysitter. I had to tell her how to do it.”
So Javier was up when they got home, assumed she was a babysitter, and she…went along with it?
“Was she nice?”
“Yeah. She gave me milk.”
“Then what did she do?”
“Read Horton Hears a Who. Then she played on your computer.”
Played on my computer? What the hell? Ben stumbled into his office and found a note taped to the monitor of his computer.
I’m sorry.
You were drugged, he could hear Mackenna say. He remembered she went to the bar and talked to that bartender who’d been staring at them.
He powered up his computer and signed in. Something wasn’t right. The desktop was different. All his icons were gone except for one, and that one he didn’t recognize. He clicked on it and watched in shock as his screen flashed three pulses of bright white and then pixelated into nothing but a white screen. It was gone. All of it. All his work, all his accounts, his clients’ information, Javier’s insurance information. What the hell did she do?
He dialed the weekend’s on-call employee. “Hey,” he said when a woman answered. “Is your computer working okay?”
“Yeah. I’m on it right now. It’s…wait…no…shit. It just crashed.”
“Fuck.” He was a fool. How could he have been so stupid not to see she was trouble? And he let her into his apartment. With Javier.
“Why? What’s going on?”
“We were hacked.” And he was the fool who let it happen.
“We?”
“Me. The database. The company. All of it. It’s crashed.”
Twelve hours later, Ben studied the mugshots his friend who worked for the Dallas Police Department as a detective in the cyber unit had pulled up onto his computer.
“Whaddaya think?” Wes asked.
“They hardly look like the same person.”
“That’s Ashley Sayers. Mackenna’s sister. She’s a drug addict. DPD picked her up several times on possession, a handful of times on prostitution.”
She has a sister. That explains why she was asking about Javier. Doesn’t explain why she ruined his life by ruining his business. “Where is she now?”
Wes opened a new window on his computer. “We haven’t seen her in over a year.”
“She just vanished?”
“Or got herself killed.”
Mackenna had a drug-addicted sister who had disappeared. He thought about how close he came to losing Javier and felt a tinge of sadness for her.
Wes shook his head. “I know that look, Ramos. You’re thinking she must not be all that bad, aren’t you?”
He struggled to make sense of the contradiction that was Mackenna Sayers. She’d made love to him like he was the only man alive, but then she snuck out while he slept. She took care of him and Javier, but then she ruined them. “She made Javier a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”
“Because you were passed out because she drugged you. Why else would she do that except to cause harm? The woman’s trouble. The whole family is.”
“Have you forgotten who you were talking to? So her sister’s a hooker? My dad’s a murderer in prison.”
“And yet…I don’t see you drugging people, taking them home where they live with their special needs brother, and imploding their livelihood all with one keystroke.”
Wes was right, and here was the problem. Well…one of the problems. Yes, she drugged him. Yes, she took him back to his place and crashed his whole database. She also gave him painkillers. She lay down in the bed with him and she whispered something. What was it? Think, Ramos. Think. He’d just taken medicine, and they were lying in the bed, and…Oh. Now he remembered. She’d said, “I love you.” And he said it back.
Chapter Five
Mackenna
“What the fuck, Mack?”
Mackenna sat across from Travis at the corner table of the Taco Diner patio. She chose this public place during this busy time because she knew he would have this reaction. He wouldn’t point a gun to her head in front of the Saturday lunch crowd.
“I mean…what the fuck?”
The people at the next table threw side glances at them.
“I’m offering you something you really want in exchange for something I really want.”
He slammed the table with his open palm. “I had everything I wanted until you ruined it by hacking our files to look for your sister.”
Mackenna didn’t know what to say. Yes, she had seduced Travis and used their relationship to try to find her sister, but she had no idea she meant that much to him. She couldn’t deal with that right now, so she ignored it. “I haven’t talked to my sister in three months. Our deal was every week. How do I know you’ve been taking care of her like you promised?”
He leaned closer. “Maybe she doesn’t want to talk to you. Maybe she thinks you’re ashamed of her. Maybe she thinks you’ve abandoned her.”
He was lying. He was hurt and wanted her to feel as bad as he did. Ashley knew how much she loved her. Didn’t she? “The only way she’d believe those lies is if you’re filling her head with them.”
“Maybe she’s too good of a fuck to let go.” He cocked his head and smiled. Then he reached across the table and grabbed her hand. She tried to pull it away as his grip got tighter and tighter, but he refused to release her.
“Let go of me, you sick bastard. If you’ve laid one hand on—”
“Shh, shh, shh. Relax,” he whispered and leaned toward her. “She’s much too damaged for me to keep around too long. But you would know that, wouldn’t you? That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? She’s damaged because you didn’t protect her.”
He had her in a vise…in more ways than one. She wanted out but maybe this wasn’t the way. He was stronger than she, more ruthless, more cunning. She needed to be smarter.
“You look pale, dear. Is it because you’re starting to realize your precious sister might be sharing things with me? The kind of details you only share with someone during the most intimate of moments? The kinds of details I used to share with you? How does that make you feel? Sad? Enraged? Jealous?”
“I want…” She stopped when the lump in her throat threatened to make her voice crack. She was in a battle of wits with a psychopath. She needed to remember that. He’d say anything to get to her. Anything. And she needed to stop letting him get into her head so easily.
“You and I both know this didn’t start with me. You made your choice when you tried to hack into my uncle’s personnel files. You sealed your fate when you agreed to my protection. You promised me something but haven’t delivered. So what do you think I should do? What do you think any normal, rational person should do when they paid for a Ferrari but got a fucking Kia instead?”
She caught a tone of urgency in his voice. A crack in his armor, an undefended front. Desperate people did desperate things, and he was desperate to destroy Ben. She could use that. “I think they would shut up and listen to the person trying to tell them where their Ferrari was. I’m offering you something better. Better than Ashley. Better than me. I can give you everything. All his files.”
“Tell me…” He squeezed her hand harder. “…how exactly are you going to do that now that you’ve crashed his entire system?”
“If you want me to show you, then I need my hand back.”
He let go, and the rush of blood sent a prickling sensation to her fingers. She reached into the side pocket of her bag and pulled out the thumb drive Ray had given her in the bar. “I saved it before I crashed it.” She put the drive on the table next to the tortilla chips neither one of them had touched.
He nodded at the small black drive. “It’s all on that thing?”
“I’m not a fool, Tra
vis. That’s just copies of a few files to show you I’m not lying. Everything you want is hidden, and I’m the only one who knows where.”
His nostrils flared. “I should just kill you now.”
“You could. But then you’d never get what you want.”
“You think you’re so special? I could find another hacker within ten minutes.”
And now she had him. “To do what? His system is crashed. That data you want is buried under miles of code, and I’m the only one who knows how to get to it.”
Travis’s jaw clenched. “What do you want?”
“I want my sister dropped off at DFW airport, terminal D, at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Once I hear from her, then I’ll get you what you want.”
He took in a deep breath. “Fine. But I want you with me. The moment you hear from her, you’re getting me that data.” He reached across the table and grabbed her chin. “Do you have any idea how much pain I inflict on people who don’t get me what I want?”
She remembered the file on Ben’s computer with the picture of him, Javier, and two other boys. One of those boys was Travis. She wished she could forget the images from the police report and the pages of Javier’s medical bills. All the recovery, rehab, and therapy. The suffering. She jerked her chin out of his grasp. “I am well aware of what you are capable of.”
Chapter Six
Ben
Ben leaned in and squinted at the line of digital text on the computer screen. “I don’t get it.”
Wes pointed at a row of text. “This code right here. I’ve seen it a few times, usually with a bomb attached.”
“A bomb?”
“Malware. Hackers will get into a system, install a time bomb, and then hours, days later…” He made a hand gesture to suggest a bomb exploding. “…The bomb goes off and the system crashes. They’ve tried to take NASDAQ out like that more than once. But this…” He pointed at the row of text. “This looks more like a reverse bomb.”
“Which means what?”
“Your system isn’t crashed. It’s asleep.”
“Asleep? Why?”
Wes shrugged. “But that’s not all. Your girl partitioned off some data, but she locked it up tight and inserted some wicked code right in the middle of it.”
“Translation?”
“Looks like she password protected it and inserted something into the partitioned data—a sleeper virus or something like that.”
Ben considered himself a pretty smart guy, but this was way over his head. “So if some other computer tried to hack into my system and access this partitioned file, this sleeper virus would do what?”
“Depends on the virus, but the main goal is usually to destroy the system that was trying to infiltrate. But that’s only if they can figure out the password.”
“She’s a genius,” Ben said.
“Maybe. If any of it actually works. But when your system wakes up, I wouldn’t go poking around too much. There might be more partitions like this one that maybe aren’t password protected.”
Ben walked to the wall of windows and looked down at the city. He wasn’t ruined. That was a relief. But what the hell was she doing? Was she putting herself at risk for his sake? What if she got hurt trying to protect him? How could he live with that? And what the fuck was she trying to protect him from?
“Whatcha thinking about?” Wes asked.
“Her sister was on a fast track to an overdose, but then she up and disappeared.”
“Or died.”
Ben shook his head. “I doubt it. Mackenna is doing this for her. Maybe she struck up some kind of deal to protect her.”
“That’s a huge leap, Ben. What makes you think she’s doing this all for her drug addict sister?”
So much of this didn’t make sense—the secrecy, the lies, the computer-speak. This was the only thing that did make sense. “Because that’s exactly what I would do.”
“Okay. Working from that theory, we must assume she was sent to target you. Who sent her?”
“I need to look at all my active cases.”
“All right.”
“Which are locked up in my sleeping database.”
“Shit. Then we need to look at the sister and her known associates. If you’re right, this all comes down to her. Maybe we’ll stumble across a name that sounds familiar.”
An hour later, Ben and Wes were at the station scrolling through Ashley Sayers’s criminal records.
“Pretty girl,” Wes said, pausing the computer screen at one of her earlier mugshots. “It’s tough, you know? To have someone disappear on you.”
Wes’s ex-wife had disappeared about six months earlier, and Ben, being the tunnel-visioned idiot he was, didn’t make the connection that this might hit too close to home. “Oh shit, man, I’m sorry. I wasn’t even thinking. We don’t have to do this.”
“No.” He closed the picture and opened another one. This time the picture wasn’t so flattering. Ashley Sayers looked like she was asleep…or passed out, and her makeup was smeared all over her face. “This helps me. I figure if I can’t find Laura, then maybe I can find someone else. This makes me feel useful.”
“Let me know if you need to stop. I can always…” Ben halted at the name on the screen. Frances Miletto was the last person to bail her out of jail. Miletto. That name was familiar.
“You see something?”
“Frances Miletto?”
Wes opened another window on his computer and searched for the name in his database. “Yeah. He owns a few legit strip joints, mostly in south Dallas. He’s been picked up for several drug charges. Only a few have stuck.”
“Any open investigations?”
“On him? No. On his nephew? Yes. Drugs, assault. The usual.”
Finally. Some answers. “What’s his name?”
Wes scrolled down the page a little. “Don’t know.”
“Shit. Any photos?”
Wes clicked a link. “Interesting.”
“What?”
“We’ll have to ask the guys down the hall.”
“Who’s down the hall?”
“DEA. They’re borrowing an office for an investigation, and I’m pretty sure it’s for this guy. They’re assholes, though. Typically, they’d tell us to get lost, but in this case, we might have something to offer them.”
The office down the hall was packed with boxes. Three men on three different phones had their backs to Ben and Wes as they entered. Another phone was ringing.
“Well try again!” one of the men yelled into his mobile phone. “Keep the tails on both of them, but don’t pick them up.” He disconnected his call and turned around. “What the hell do you want?”
“I’m on a case,” Wes said, side-eyeing Ben to tell him to follow his lead. “It might have a connection to yours.”
“Listen. Our informant just went off the rails. We don’t have time to…” He focused on Ben, narrowed his eyes, and stepped closer. He thumbed through a large stack of photos on his desk until he found the one he wanted. He studied it, studied Ben’s face, and then studied the picture again. “Hey, Perkins, look at this.”
A second DEA agent said, “Hang on.” He finished his call by telling some motherfucker to do his job and then turned around.
“You,” Ben and Perkins said at the same time.
“You know this guy?” Wes asked.
“Yeah,” Ben said. “He’s the bartender at the hotel.”
Chapter Seven
Mackenna
Mackenna parked in the one-car garage in the back of her house and hurried to her bedroom to pack a bag for Ashley.
“Wanna tell me where you’ve been?” She wasn’t surprised to see Ray Perkins, her handler, sitting in the shadowed corner of her room with a gun resting on his lap.
“I had to take care of something.”
“Great. You were taking care of something. What the hell was that back there?”
“I’m getting my sister back.”
“I told you we
would do that.”
“You told me a lot of things. You told me I would only have to do a few more jobs. You told me you’d find my sister and get her out of there. You told me—”
“We are close. We just needed you to get into his system.”
She pulled a duffel bag out from the top of the closet. “Which is what I’m about to do. Only not at Ben’s expense. He’s been through enough.”
“He is the best, safest way into Miletto’s system.” He stood and tucked his gun into his waistband. “We need you to get us there.”
“What do you think would happen to Ben’s business if clients, both real and potential, discovered he was involved in a federal investigation? He has a disabled brother to take care of.” She threw two t-shirts and a few pairs of jeans into the bag, walked across the hall to the bathroom, and came back with a toothbrush and toothpaste.
“We could’ve handled it.”
“You drugged him, Ray.”
“To make it easier for you.” He seized her wrist, forcing her to stop the flurry of packing and look at him. “I know how hard this has been for you. I know you have feelings for him. Remember, though. Travis is targeting him. Not us.”
Mackenna took a deep breath. He was right. But she was tired of everyone else pulling her strings. She was tired of playing roles, deceiving people, ruining lives. “I’m sorry. I know I threw you guys off, and this isn’t part of the plan, but I’m—”
“I’m not mad at you, Mackenna. I’m scared for you. Every time you’re alone with that asshole, you’re at risk. What if he finds your wire? What if he drives you out of range? What if one of his guys follows Ashley into the terminal and sees us pick her up?”
She swallowed her urge to cry. “Just get her out. There’s a rehab in Phoenix. I’ve already talked to them.”
“And what if Travis decides to kill you rather than let you go?”