Cyber Illusions: Sensory Ops, Book 6

by Nikki Duncan

  “I might know what you mean.”

  As if he was wrapped up in his own thoughts, Tyler slipped into and then held his silence. They only crossed a few blocks, but every empty storefront, every face, every person not Sidney made the seconds and space feel interminable.

  He didn’t have to say it for her to know he wanted his kids. Wanted them enough to fight for them if she contested. It was a truth she’d felt the moment he looked at the picture of Sidney. It had shown in his gaze when he met hers.

  “What would you have done if you’d known Jenny was pregnant?” The thought was a miserable one because it meant she’d likely never have known the kids. And not knowing them would have left a void in her soul.

  “Family is the most important thing. Mine helped keep me on a straight path when I got back from college. For my kids, I would’ve been involved at every stage of their lives. I wouldn’t be learning about them ten years too late.”

  Tyler drove past a shelter with a wall of windows facing the street. Shelter, spelled out in simple, block font spanned the glass between two wall supports. Inside, lined along the window, was a row of grocery carts filled with the worldly belongings of the homeless. Men, women and children were setting up cots or unrolling sleeping bags to make themselves a place on the floor.

  Life had kicked them all in the teeth, one way or another, but surprisingly several of them appeared as if they were content as they smiled or chatted while working together. Then, from the back corner of the room, a door opened. Sidney held an old woman’s hand, supporting her, and helped her toward a cot.

  Taryn only realized she’d spoken and reached over to grip Tyler’s arm when he pulled to a stop at the curb.

  “Did you see her?”

  “Yes.”

  Taryn pulled herself from her trance, but, afraid she’d lose Sidney again, she didn’t move her gaze. “She might have said she didn’t plan on going to the shelter, but yeah, she’s there.”

  City regulations ensured a certain level of cleanliness, but higher head counts made keeping things new and pristine a continuous challenge. Or so Tyler had assumed, because bureaucracy was the same.

  From the sidewalk to the glass windows to the tiled floor, the shelter was well cared for. It even smelled freshly clean, which was completely unexpected given the sheer number of homeless people packing the large space.

  “Welcome to The Shelter.” An almost overly thin woman stepped away from the vertical blinds she was closing and greeted them. “I’m Lorraine. Can I help you?”

  Before Tyler could pull Sidney’s picture out or identify himself, Taryn stepped forward. “We’re looking for one of your guests.” Using only her head, she motioned toward the back of the room. “The girl helping the elderly woman. Her name’s Sidney.”

  Lorraine shifted to the side, body blocking the path. “You saying she’s not Madeline’s granddaughter? Maybe I need to call Child Services.”

  Not wanting to alarm anyone any more than he wanted to make explanations, he lifted the tail of his shirt enough to show the badge hooked to his belt. “She’s not and you don’t. I’m FBI. This is her guardian, Taryn.”

  “Would you mind waiting here?” Lorraine’s request sounded more like a command and he might have ignored it if she hadn’t softened it with a follow-up explanation. “I don’t want to make our guests nervous, and if they see a young girl being hauled out of here by the FBI, they may not see this as a safe place.”

  Tyler covered the badge again and nodded.

  Taryn said, “If you tell her Taryn and Tyler are here, I think she’ll come willingly. Eagerly even.”

  Nerves hadn’t gotten the better of Tyler since he’d been taken into custody by the FBI. More accurately, since he’d allowed himself to believe they’d keep their deal instead of locking him away. He’d always stayed in control of himself. He couldn’t make that claim now.

  As Lorraine walked away, wove a path through the military cots and approached Sidney and the woman she sat talking with, those suppressed nerves bubbled up. As Lorraine spoke with Sidney, maybe telling her what Taryn said, nerves writhed and rolled, raising his pulse and temperature.

  What if Taryn was wrong? What if Sidney was only excited to see him so she had an outlet for some healthy hatred? What if she was looking for revenge for all the wrongs she thought he’d committed?

  Sweat beaded between his shoulder blades.

  Sidney stood, looked his way.

  Sweat slid down his spine and every beat of his racing heart was a hammer in the shell of his chest.

  Then she picked up a tablet and small plastic bag and moved their way. She looked at Taryn and smiled. She looked beyond Taryn, met Tyler’s gaze, and the smile turned into a grin.

  Its force, brilliantly light and happy, was a gut punch. The closer she came the faster his heart raced and the more his hands shook.

  A part of him had held back from believing he was a father, but one look at Sidney, at the smile that was exactly like his nieces’, he accepted everything Taryn had told him in the last few hours. He was a father. His son was a talented hacker and his daughter had run from California to Miami alone.

  Taryn reached toward Sidney and showed barely any surprise when the girl passed over her tablet and bag. With a silent nod Taryn took the things and stepped aside, clearing the path to him.

  Sidney didn’t stop until she wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged tight. With tears lodged in his throat, threatening to fall, he returned the embrace. Holding his baby girl for the first time, emotions plundered through him. At the forefront was determination.

  Determination to never live without her.

  Determination to make sure she was always safe.

  Determination to make sure she knew she was always loved.

  Taryn rested a hand on his shoulder and spoke softly, “Why don’t we let them settle in for the night? Go somewhere to talk?”

  He nodded but found himself unable to release Sidney.

  With a gentle touch Taryn nudged him toward the door. He released Sidney with one arm but kept the other around her shoulders as they moved to his Jeep. Still dreading the idea of letting her go, he opened the back door and forced himself to do just that.

  Once they were all settled inside and he’d updated his team that they’d found her, he pulled onto the road, heading toward his house.

  “Taryn.” Sidney spoke quietly from the backseat, “How’d you know I was here?”

  Taryn looked up from the text message she’d just sent and turned in the seat and faced her. “Did you really think you could leave town and not be found out? Or think I wouldn’t chase you?”

  “I guess not. Am I in a lot of trouble?”

  “You scared me, Sidney.” The calm in her voice was impressive. It was the same calm she’d had all night when many others would be acting like basket cases. “Scared me more than I’ve ever been scared.”

  “I’m in a lot of trouble.” In the rearview, he watched Sidney nod acceptance of whatever punishment Taryn dealt out. He’d like to say she wasn’t in trouble, that she was safe and nothing else mattered, but father or not, he wasn’t the one in legal control of the girl.

  That stung.

  “You and Ryder are both in trouble,” Taryn said. “For starters, since you got yourselves in trouble with technology, you can plan on being without that for a while.”

  “I’m sorry. I love you.” Sidney said nothing else as she passed her tablet to Taryn.

  “I love you too. Next time you want to fly cross country to find your father, ask me to bring you.”

  “Yes, Taryn.”

  He had to hand it to the woman. She could yell or be mean and no one would blame her, but she kept a calm tone, and the kids, Ryder on the phone earlier and Sidney now, responded with a calm and respectful “Yes, Taryn”. Clearly she’d figured out how to deal with them in a healthy way.

  Sidney shifted her gaze from Taryn’s to his in the rearview. The dashboard lights were just e
nough to let him see her hesitation. “Are you really our dad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you want us?”

  The car was suddenly the worse place to be. His palms, wet against the leather-covered wheel, slipped. The Jeep jerked into the other lane for a quick moment. Wresting himself back under control, he righted the car’s path. “If I’d known about you, I’d have wanted you.”

  “Do you want us now?”

  “Maybe you can save your questions, Sidney, until we can be together with Ryder.”

  Taryn’s suggestion was another hit to his suffering control. He’d been so wrapped up in finding Sidney, he hadn’t given much thought to meeting Ryder.

  “But, Taryn.”

  “Sidney, don’t push me right now.” Taryn’s tone took on a parental edge he recognized as the demanding one she’d used on him at the airport. Her effectiveness of it was impressive given that she wasn’t a parent. “As curious as you are, as scared as I’ve been, as shocked as Tyler no doubt is, we all could use some downtime to rest and gather our thoughts. You and Ryder deserve answers, but we can be a little nice to Tyler and only make him give them once.”

  Tyler almost laughed out loud at the idea of logic working on a kid. His brothers and their wives sometimes tried to use a logical approach and failed every time. With Sidney it worked, because after another “Yes, Taryn”, she fell into silence in the backseat. A few minutes later she asked, “Where are we going?”

  “My house.”

  “I have a hotel room.”

  “You can call and cancel it.”

  Instead of an expected argument she shrugged and made the call.

  “I have a question, Sidney,” he said.

  In the rearview, he saw her lean forward. “What?”

  “How did you get from California to Miami?”

  “Me and Ryder have been to the airport a lot with Taryn. We watched the security lines. I took a cab. Then when it was time, I picked a family with a couple kids and slipped through the security line with them so no one treated me different.”

  He tried not to smile. She’d done a dangerous, bad thing. That she’d pulled it off, at her age and with no adult coaching, was undeniably impressive. And terrifying.

  “And the plane?”

  Her shoulder jerked. “Ryder hacked the airline and booked me a seat.”

  Yeah. His kids were scary smart, and between what Taryn had said and what he’d seen of the kid’s hacking skills, Ryder seemed equally smart.

  “How’d you find Tyler?” Taryn asked. “Your mom never gave us anything other than his first name.”

  “All me and Ryder had to do was think backward. We knew his name and since we knew when we were born we could figure out when mom got pregnant. She said he was arrested by the FBI so Ryder just needed to get into their database and do some searching.” Tyler watched in the rearview as Sidney lifted her head and met Taryn’s gaze directly. “You can find anything you want online. Just have to know where to look.”

  “Where to look being the FBI?” Taryn’s voice rose for the first time with real anxiety. “Is this a hereditary thing? Oh this grounding is going to last so long. You both know better than to do this stuff.”

  He couldn’t help smiling. Knowing where to look online was how he made his living. Hearing a kid say it, his kid, and knowing he’d been the hunter’s prey, changed the game. What else could Ryder do with the computer?

  “My firewalls aren’t easy to hack,” he said as he pulled onto his street.

  “But he did it.”

  “That’s not all he did,” Tyler mumbled, unable to stop the pride.

  “Your personal stuff? Yeah, that was harder for him to pin down.”

  “Not quite.” His kid, at the age of ten, accomplished what he hadn’t been able to do until his twenties. They really did get smarter with each generation.

  “Sidney.” The tone that dared anyone to argue was back in Taryn’s voice. “What have you two been doing?”

  “We only helped him with a few cases.”

  “What? How?”

  “Ryder breached our firewall, found and delivered some much-needed evidence,” Tyler answered for Sidney as he pulled into his drive and put the Jeep in Park. “And he evaded the tracking bots I created to find him.”

  “Ryder said it wasn’t easy. He got kicked out almost instantly a few times.”

  “Yes.” Turning, he smiled at her. “By me.”

  “But you weren’t good enough to catch us.”

  His daughter smiled back. His daughter. Man that was weird.

  “Sidney.”

  “And yet,” he said, ignoring Taryn’s chastisement, “you’re in my backseat and he’s at home grounded from technology. I hope you don’t mind if I claim this victory.”

  Sidney shrugged.

  “And so you know, Sidney,” he continued, “hacking is a serious crime. One that kept us apart your entire life. The thrill of the hack wasn’t worth the cost.”

  “Yes, sir. We won’t do it again. It’s more Ryder’s thing than mine.”

  Hacking was an addictive drug and each one needed to be bigger, more challenging than the next. Regardless how mature Sidney seemed, it would take more than one warning from the father she’d never known to get them to stop. Though he’d rather redirect them instead of stopping them, because they would be formidable when they grew up and joined the workforce.

  “We’ll find you a legal outlet. Later.” He turned off the car and nodded for Taryn and Sidney to follow him. “For tonight, we should take Taryn’s advice and get some rest.”

  “It might be nice if we could get some food too,” Taryn said as she grabbed her purse and Tyler took Sidney’s bag from her.

  “I’m sure we can scrounge something up.”

  Slogging through mental quicksand, he unlocked the house and keyed in his security code. Taryn and Sidney stepped into the entryway, waited for him. He flipped a light on in the living room and saw his home the way they must be seeing it.

  Simplistic.

  Wood and tile floors, pale blue walls, baseboards and trim in need of a fresh coat of stain. The furniture was sparse—sofa, coffee table, TV stand—but he didn’t need much. The office was the most elaborate, if elaborate could be defined by a large desk capable of fitting six computers and a wall of monitors. Any touches of frill came from his mother, and even with her proficiency in all things interior design, she’d given up on her attempts. Work consumed most of his hours and when he socialized it was anywhere other than at home. He was not an entertainer and had never cared what the inside of his house looked like.

  “Kitchen’s back there. Bathroom,” he pointed in the direction of each as he spoke. “Bedrooms are upstairs. They share a bathroom.”

  “Taryn,” Sidney looked hesitantly at the woman who seemed to love her as much as any mother. “Are we really staying here? I mean, I know you called the hotel, but…”

  Taryn glanced at Tyler, but he said nothing, instead waiting to see what she’d say. They hadn’t exactly talked about how things would go next.

  “I’m not leaving you, and Tyler wants to have some time with you. We can stay here tonight and if he can get free, Tyler can fly home with us tomorrow and meet Ryder.”

  “I can get free.”

  Sidney moved closer to Taryn. “Really?”

  Taryn bent down, meeting the girl’s gaze directly. “Yes, really. Even though you’re both going to deal with some consequences of your hacking and running away, he’s your father, and you deserve to know him.”

  Just as she’d done with Tyler in the shelter, Sidney threw her arms around Taryn and hugged tight. After a minute, Taryn kissed Sidney’s temple and stood. “Why don’t you take your things upstairs to one of the rooms? When you come back down we’ll figure out dinner.”

  Sidney nodded and did as she was told. Assured she was out of earshot Tyler said to Taryn, “Whatever happens with our investigation into the thefts, thank you. You’re being
really generous.”

  She shook her head. “Guess it was too much to think you could believe me.”

  “I want to.” He led her to the kitchen and began pulling out spaghetti ingredients. “On top of everything else tonight you’ve made me want to believe you.”

  “But your evidence says differently.”

  “So far.” Sidney’s footsteps sounded from the bottom stair that had a squeak. Tyler glanced toward the door she would be coming through. “But it’s not likely I have to worry while you’re here. Right?”

  “Right.”

  Her agreement came quickly and easily. Like every other aspect of their dealing so far. Maybe too easy, because he found himself wanting to trust her. And arresting her would certainly sour the attitudes of Ryder and Sidney against him more than anything Jenny had told them.

  He’d found a family. He only needed to find his place without ruining what they had. Assuming Taryn wasn’t a criminal.

  Chapter Four

  As unable as she was unwilling to step fully back from the parenting role, Taryn took control of getting Sidney in bed for the night. She’d have never wound down for Tyler, her excitement and his willingness to spend every moment with her were too great. The happier Sidney was, the more worried Taryn became.

  Each thump of her pulse was a punch against the inside of her skull that resounded with every step back downstairs. Rubbing the back of her neck, wishing madly for an hour with her masseuse, she returned to the kitchen where Tyler was cleaning up.

  “You have any aspirin?”

  Not hesitating in his task, he nodded toward the cabinets on his right. “Last door. First shelf. Second bottle back.”

  “That’s very specific.”

  “Kieralyn’s husband is blind. It’s become a habit.”

  “Your team—” she counted out three aspirin and replaced the bottle in the obsessively organized cabinet, “—seems pretty close.”

  “We’re family.”

  “Are they part of the family you mentioned earlier?” It was her first chance to ask questions, to learn about him and what she might be up against. Hearing that he respected non-blood-related bonds buoyed her hopes of working together for the sake of the kids, if he stopped seeing her as a suspect.