by Brynn Kelly
“Oh my God.”
He hurriedly unbuttoned her blue coat and slipped it off her shoulders. “You’ve got that terrified look again, Samira.”
“I am terrified—not of you, of being caught.”
“Well, for God’s sake, play along.”
He grabbed her bottom with both hands and slid her up his thighs until her knees hit the back of the seat, the apex of her stockings jammed into his jeans. Oh God, oh God. He threaded a hand through her hair.
“Now you’re just looking grossed-out,” he said.
“No! Not at all.” He was usually good at reading her but that he’d got all wrong. “Just...surprised.”
“This is nothing personal. Cover the wound with your hand.” A shadow fell across the door. “Quick.”
As she lowered her palm onto the gash he surged forward and planted his lips on hers. Her stomach flipped. He relaxed back on the seat, coaxing her with him. Like she needed coaxing. Oh God, his lips pulling gently at hers, his hands gripping her waist, the front of his jeans pressing into her... A groan escaped her throat. Nothing personal? Her mind and her body needed to resync.
A knock, on the window. She gasped, even though she’d expected it.
Jamie released her lips. He inhaled, blinking, and opened the door. Cold air blasted in. A gray-haired officer stood in the drizzle, wearing a heavy blue jacket. Her heart jackhammered.
“Jesus, aren’t you two a bit old for that carry-on?” the cop said. “Usually it’s teenagers I’m sending home from here.” His gaze rested on her hand. Shit. Around it, Jamie’s skin was noticeably red.
“None of my business at all but I do hope this man is at least your husband, ma’am,” he said, his gaze drifting to her other hand, and nodding at her engagement ring. “If not, I’d suggest you find a venue that’s not so public.”
She exhaled. He was looking at her rings, not the wound.
“There’s a woman lives over there...” He nodded toward a strip of houses across the road. “Who rings us every single bloody time someone parks up here, thinking someone’s being raped. You’re not being raped, are you, ma’am?”
“No, sir,” Samira said, mimicking Jamie’s Scottish accent for some reason. “Not at all.” She could still feel the look of terror on her face. She planted her free hand on Jamie’s chest, to back up her story. How come he was always so warm? “Sorry. We were just...having some...time out from the kids.”
“Believe me, I get that. But in future just...don’t. You may not have better things to do with your time but I do.” He scanned the interior of the car. “And in your work car. Ugh.” He shook his head and pushed the door shut. Dismissed.
Jamie stared at her, looking as bemused as she felt. As the patrol car pulled out, he laughed, his chest shuddering. She pulled her hands off him.
“Shite, that was a good accent, Samira. You sounded terrifyingly like my aunt Morag.” He stared straight ahead, into her cleavage. “Which is a little disconcerting, considering...”
She awkwardly shuffled back and climbed off his lap, his hands still on her waist, guiding her. The throb between her legs was so fierce she wouldn’t be surprised to hear drumming.
“We’re like Bonnie and Clyde,” Jamie said as she climbed over the coat and plunked on the seat beyond.
“Bonnie and Clyde were gunned down by police.”
“Killjoy.”
“And I am about the least Bonnie-like woman you’ll ever meet.” She straightened. “How did he know it was a work car? There’s no signage.”
“I guess he ran the plates before he approached us.”
“Oh no.”
“It’s a good sign—means the car hasn’t been reported stolen yet or he wouldn’t have just warned us about...” His words dissolved into a chuckle. She joined in but her laugh sounded as fake as her attraction was real. He cleared his throat, his gaze dropping down her body, then quickly back up. His pupils had swelled, making his eyes look darker. Wasn’t that a sign of—?
Shit, her dress was hiked way up over her waist, her lacy underwear visible through her stockings.
“Like I told you,” he said, lifting the overcoat off his supplies, “it’ll take them a while to figure it out. We should get out of Dodge, though. At some point even the sluggish neurons of bureaucracy might connect.”
She tugged her dress back into place. Holy cow, that kiss, that connection. And that time it hadn’t even been for real.
“Are you okay?” Jamie said. “You look shaky.”
“Eshi,” she said, dismissively. “I’m just a little...um.”
“Samira, if he’d known the car was stolen he’d have arrested us by now.”
“Oh. Yes. Good.”
If Jamie kissed like that when they were “history”...
Not going there.
He looked at his wound. “I’ll have to sterilize this again.” And suddenly he was back at Serious Jamie, like that didn’t just happen. “You were saying something about the picture, before we got interrupted...?”
“Yes!” The picture. God. “In Charlotte’s flat, I didn’t find a black pen but I found colored pens—red, green, sparkly purple. And highlighters, in yellow, orange and blue. The same as in the picture.”
“Maybe the kid who drew it came to her house, used her stationery.” He tossed her the sanitizer. “In a minute I’m going to need help with these strips.”
“It’s not just that,” she said, cleaning her hands while he opened another sealed packet—white suture strips on a paper backing, like small plasters. “The picture—it’s not a random kid’s drawing. It shows a scene from one of the worlds in ‘Cosmos’—that’s the game we were obsessed by, the game the three of us used to play.”
“The game you aced at four in the morning.”
“Last time I saw Charlotte, we played it. This world has rolling green hills and a blue sky and a yellow field with red flowers. Those fields and hills...” She gestured out the window. The smear where she’d wiped had faded into the film of water. “Well, not that you can see them now but they lit something in my brain. Only I didn’t...”
“You didn’t trust your instincts.”
“Just now it all clicked.”
“You think Charlotte drew the picture? A message for you?”
“Maybe. We didn’t have a house in our game as it does in the picture but it’s the kind of game where you can build things, like an early ‘Minecraft.’”
“Ah, interesting. Hate to interrupt your very promising train of thought but I need your conscious and subconscious minds to work together for a bit. If I hold the wound closed, can you press the strips on? Start in the middle.”
Applying the strips was quick and easy, even with her mind on the picture. Especially with her mind on the picture. As he dressed the wound, occasionally borrowing her hand to hold things in place, she downloaded “Cosmos” onto his phone, logged on and loaded the game she and Charlotte had last played on that giggly day before their lives imploded.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, staring down at the screen.
“What’s up?”
“This is weird. Last time I saw Charlotte, two years ago, we played this game. The three of us hadn’t logged in for years, and I haven’t logged in since. But now there are four players.” She brought up the game history. “What the hell...? Latif played the day before he died. We were in hiding. We were supposed to be totally offline while Tess fact-checked the documents he’d stolen. And he was playing ‘Cosmos’ with Charlotte—without telling me? Why take such a risk for a stupid game? And he added this fourth person—Erebus—a few months before that.” She scrolled down. Jamie gathered the trash into a plastic bag and scooted along the back seat to watch over her shoulder. “The three of them have been playing it ever since. Charlotte was last on it three days ago and this person was on it...overnight.”
She stared at Jamie, her mouth dropping open.
“So...they’ve been playing a game. How is this significant?”
“They haven’t been spending enough time on it to properly play—a minute or two here and there, look. It’s not a quick round of ‘Pac-Man.’ It’s the kind of game you only play if you have half an hour to spare, at least. This is how Latif was communicating—with Charlotte, and with this other person. I suspected he was still in touch with someone while we were in hiding but he denied it. I thought I was being paranoid.”
“Your instinct was right.”
“Why didn’t he tell me? Why didn’t he include me?”
Jamie retrieved his sweater from the footwell and pulled it on. “Perhaps he was protecting you. He didn’t want you to freak out.”
“Better freaking out about that than freaking out one night when you wake to find him gone, and freaking out again when you hear about civilian casualties in a drone attack and freaking out when his name is confirmed and...and...freaking out again when you see this.” She jabbed a hand at the screen, her eyes stinging. “Despite what you might believe of me—what he believed—I don’t need protecting from the truth.”
“That’s not what I meant. I—”
“The truth I can deal with. It’s lies and deception I have a problem with—and people shooting at me. That you can protect me from, anytime you wish. But...” She exhaled shakily. Jamie put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in. “Damn him. What was he up to?”
“This Erebus person...could it be Tess?”
“She would have mentioned it—and Erebus has been on the game since her arrest. And Tess was the one who’d warned us to stay offline. She was as surprised as me that Latif left our hiding place.”
“Who else might he have been in contact with?”
“Oh my God. Tess said...” She tapped the phone with a fingernail. “That’s it.”
“What is?”
“Tess found out that just before Latif’s death he’d been in contact with someone at Denniston Corp—the military contractor he used to work for, the one Hyland used to own, the one that went bust after Tess’s story on its terrorism connections last year.”
“Yes. The one Hyland’s being investigated over—was being investigated over.”
“Latif used to work there until he turned whistle-blower for Tess. She couldn’t figure out who he was in contact with before he died or how but we know he was trying to track down more evidence—the evidence to bring down Hyland, for good. They must have been communicating on here. This contact, and Latif and Charlotte.”
“Why Charlotte?”
Samira looked out the window—at the window. The glass was so foggy they could be parked in a cloud. “Maybe they needed her security expertise—though to be frank, I’m more experienced at this kind of stuff. Or maybe her access. Damn him.” She clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh God, that’s the wrong thing to say about a dead person.”
Jamie rubbed her shoulder. “When you say ‘communicating’... How?”
“You can leave clues and notes for each other. It’s a big part of the game—encrypting and hiding messages.” The phone had switched to screen saver. She swiped it. “Charlotte’s picture... I need to get into that world...”
“Then do it. Just...don’t forget to breathe.”
She forced herself to slowly inhale and exhale as the world loaded. She pointed to the screen—hills, fields, flowers, house. “Does that look familiar?”
“Honestly, I didn’t look too closely at the picture.”
“Charlotte added this house three days ago.” She swiped the screen and flew through the door. “I hate playing this game on a phone. There, look.”
He shuffled closer, his thigh touching hers. Against one wall sat a wooden treasure chest. A silver-haired man in a suit stood guard, flashing a big smile. “Does he look familiar?”
“Hyland? Is that the—what do you call it—avatar of Erebus?”
“No, he’s a guardian of treasure. He’s not a player in the game. Charlotte has created him.”
“Treasure? As in a place to hide damning intel? Could she have hidden the documents inside?”
Samira frowned. “You can’t upload files to the game but something must be in there that Charlotte wants me to find—and only me.” She checked the page history again. “Erebus has been in here but hasn’t opened the vault.”
“Something? The something Charlotte brought you to London for?”
“Charlotte was last on here fourteen minutes before she posted the picture on social media.”
“So maybe she knew Hyland’s people were coming for her and quickly left a message.”
“Then hurriedly drew the picture and posted it, to direct me here.”
“Can we get into this treasure chest?”
She clicked on it. “It’s asking for a username and password.”
“The suspense is killing me.”
“There’s writing on it.” She zoomed in. “Two strings of characters.”
“The username and password?” Jamie said, hope lifting his voice.
“Possibly, but it’s in a code we devised when we were at university. A simple keyword cipher. Each letter is swapped for another, basically.”
“Was that for a paper?”
“Just for fun. Told you I was wild back then.”
She decoded it and keyed in the solution. A metallic clunk, and the chest squealed open, revealing a basement. Samira’s breath stalled as she dived in and did a three-sixty.
“It’s empty,” Jamie said. “Maybe she ran out of time.”
“She had time enough to build the house and do some interior decoration. If she was in a hurry, we have to assume that everything in here is relevant. She’s just being cautious.”
“No kidding.”
Samira zoomed in on a picture hanging on the wall—a mountain peeping above a cloud, in an elaborate gold frame. “The cloud—maybe these documents are on a cloud server. And the mountain...” She smiled as she figured it out. “Huh.”
“Does that mean something?”
“What land is up in the clouds?”
“Is this a riddle? I love riddles.”
“High lands. Hyland.”
“Spoilsport. I would totally have got there.”
“The frame—there’s a secure cloud storage site called Gold Linings. Maybe Hyland has an account with them, with this username and password.”
“Excellent. So we go to the site, log in, get these documents and problem solved.”
“Not from across the Atlantic. It’ll register as a suspicious log-in, send his people an alert, raise flags. We’d be locked out before we got anywhere. This site—it has top-shelf IDP. Every anomalous behavior detection you can think of—geographical, device, multifactor authentication...”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
A car pulled up next to them. Jamie wiped his window. A red SUV. Kids in the back.
“We’d better not stick around here, in case that cop comes back,” Samira said.
“This Gold Linings,” he said, as they reassumed their seats up front. “Is there any way through the security?”
“I worked on the development team,” she said, clipping in as he started the engine and blasted the air con onto the windshield. “I can get around their device detection by spoofing the device headers.”
“O-kay.”
“It means I can mask the fact that we’re logging on with an unrecognized device. But their geographical detection is infallible. Strong enough to keep even me out—and they’ll have updated the security since I worked on it.”
“Is there no way around it? Can you make it look like—I don’t know—the log-in is coming from DC, or wherever he is?”
“Wherever he is,” she repeated, slowly. “Oh my Go
d. Hyland’s coming here—to the UK, anyway. To Edinburgh, for a NATO meeting. Well, to catch me, probably, but that’s his excuse. It was in the newspaper this morning.”
As the windows cleared, Jamie reversed out and swung the car around. “I don’t want you going anywhere near him.”
“Neither do I. But we won’t have to—well, not too near. We’ll just need to try this log-in in Edinburgh after he arrives. As long as we’re in the same city it shouldn’t raise suspicions—unless the password is wrong.”
She exited the house and dynamited it, with Hyland inside.
“Bet you enjoyed that.”
“I did.” She restored the field with its flowers. “I can’t imagine anyone else would be able to crack all that but I’m not taking the chance, especially with someone lurking in the game. You see? That’s about thinking through every possibility and not just relying on instinct.”
“Which is all well and good when you have time for it, but not so much when people are shooting at you. And anyway, I would say this is you listening to your instinct.”
She made a point of scoffing as she tapped and swiped. “And, in another feat of forethought, I’ll set up an alert so it notifies me if Charlotte goes online.” She gulped down a wave of car sickness, and forced herself to focus ahead, along a street of redbrick terraced houses. “So I guess we need to head north.”
Jamie chewed his lower lip. “Are you sure it’s a risk you want to take?”
“Says the man in the stolen government car with a cache of illegal drugs and a gun I’m guessing he doesn’t have a license for.”
“Not illegal drugs. Prescription drugs.”
“That aren’t prescribed to you.”
“Point is, how do we get all the way to Scotland without being caught? You’re a wanted woman and, as you so helpfully remind me, we’re in a stolen car. There’ll be hundreds of traffic cameras between here and Edinburgh. Look, there’s one right there.” He gestured at a yellow box on a pole. “As soon as this car’s reported stolen we’ll get a squad of police cars on our tail, and who knows who else?”