Deadlock

by Cherrie Lynn

  “It’s at least possible that he’s telling the truth and he’s being set up,” Jace told her. “Let’s keep that in mind.”

  “I know. You’re right.”

  “What else?”

  “He gave me a number and apparently turned his phone off, which is weird.”

  “He wanted your number first, though, and you made him give you his. Which to me says he didn’t want to look suspicious by refusing, but he didn’t want us to track him.”

  “Yet they allowed you to trace an IP to a place he apparently goes.”

  “Maybe he’s a catspaw.”

  “We’re chasing our tails here,” Helix said. “We can sit and theorize all fucking day long—we excel at it. But we aren’t going to know anything until we get off our asses, get out there, and gather some intel, my friends.”

  “When do we go back?” Lindsey asked, perking up for the first time since the meeting started.

  “Hold on there, buttercup,” Sully said. “Nothing I said earlier meant that you’re now eligible to put yourself in danger.”

  “She’s right, Linz. That’s the deal I made with you, remember? Only surveillance. I can’t let you in on this. We can’t risk them getting you, too.” The mere thought made him want to tear down a wall or two.

  “I have to help somehow. Tell me what I can do.”

  “You can stay and be safe.” Jace removed his arm from her shoulders and faced her fully. “I know you want to be there when we find her, but even with what we’ve learned, there are no guarantees where she is. Let us go in and see what we can find out. You know I’ll keep you in the loop.”

  “I want to get a look at their security footage,” Sully said. She always did. “We can feed it to the Nest and have ourselves a little viewing party.”

  “Let me write that code,” Lindsey said eagerly, her entire expression brightening. He could plainly see how much it would mean to her, but the others were already shaking their heads, and so was he.

  Sully was the one who spoke for them all. “No way.”

  “I can at least feel like I’m contributing somehow.”

  “No offense, but we don’t know you. All we’ve got is Jace’s word that you’re good people, but how long has he known you? I may trust him with my life, but that doesn’t extend to you, and, frankly, it probably never will.”

  A lesser person might have been intimidated. Sully’s tone brooked no argument, and she aimed her words with wounding precision. But instead of shrinking under that steely tone, Lindsey seemed to puff up with indignation at every word. “Frankly, I’m not concerned with earning your trust or anyone else’s in this room. My one objective is Lena. She’s the only reason I sought any of you out. What good have I done her if I don’t help?”

  Sully’s lips curled in a particularly dangerous, feline smile. Lindsey’s mere offer to write code had aroused more suspicion in his crew than confidence. One fuckup—intentional or otherwise—could leave them vulnerable. “You wanna do good, sis? Let the grown-ups handle this.”

  As the two stared each other down, Lindsey fuming in the face of Sully’s casual mocking, Jace might have been content to see how the feud played out, but discord at this point in the game wouldn’t help anyone. “I’ve seen what she can do,” he said, looking around at them all. “She showed me.”

  “She hasn’t shown us, though, has she.”

  “Then let her,” he fired back at Sully.

  “All right. I wanna see her hack the motherfucking FBI.”

  Eyebrows went up all around the room, but they nearly flew off their foreheads when Lindsey fired back, “Give me a motherfucking challenge, at least.”

  “Oh!” Helix bellowed, clapping. “Shots fired. It’s about to get lit.”

  Jace rubbed his hand hard down his face. How the hell had it come to this?

  “Talk is cheap,” Sully said, but she sounded a little less confident than she had a moment ago. “I want hard, cold proof. Bounce off a minimum of six satellites. Show me an internal memo from Deputy Director Briggs. Then maybe you can play our reindeer games.”

  “Briggs? What a dickhead. I’d rather know what kind of porn he watches. Gimme some dirt.” Drake rubbed his hands together in glee. He was all about unearthing what lurked in the darkest black soil of the human heart—most of which could be found online.

  Sully rolled her eyes. “Dude, you’re such a pervert.”

  “I accept your little challenge, such as it is.” Lindsey got to her feet and looked at Jace. “May I?”

  This could all fall spectacularly to shit within the next few minutes, but the gauntlet had been thrown. If Lindsey didn’t prove herself here and now, none of them would ever accept her. Sighing with resignation, he waved an arm in the direction of his desk. “You may.”

  She sat in his chair and rolled her neck on her shoulders, cracked her knuckles…all her rituals. He had them, too, and while he wanted to move to her side and watch, he gave her all the breathing room she needed. Several pairs of assessing eyes watched her back, the rhythmic clatter of her limber fingers across the keyboard almost musical.

  Even her posture seemed straighter, more self-assured. This was where Lindsey was at home. All traces of the helplessness she’d spoken of earlier were wiped away. Fascinating to watch. Jace could scarcely take his eyes off her even as the others shifted to other interests. Helix fired up Jace’s PS4. All the while, Lindsey worked. He watched her out of the corner of his eye, even when Drake roped him into playing Black Ops 4.

  He knew cracking an FBI server wasn’t hard. Neither was removing all traces one had been there. Remaining undetected, that was the tricky part. Their bots ran constantly, sniffing for shifting IPs.

  Jace was rooting for her, but deep down he didn’t have a lot of faith. He knew how he would crack Briggs. But if she—

  All heads turned as Lindsey stood up from his computer and stretched. Sully glanced over and back at the game, snickering. “Done already, huh? You might as well come over and let us kick your ass here, too.”

  “First-person shooters? Meh.”

  “Yeah, you look like an RPG girl.”

  “Oof,” Helix said, then cursed as his shooter got taken out.

  “Do you like playing as the wizard or the mage?” Sully asked sweetly, batting her eyelashes in Lindsey’s direction. She ignored her.

  “Got any beer, Jace?”

  That was the last thing he’d expected to hear. “Yeah, I should. In the fridge.”

  He barely managed to contain his curiosity as she strolled casually into the kitchen, even whistling to herself, ignoring Sully’s continued barbs. Had she fucking done it or not? She damn sure hadn’t produced the requested memo. What was the holdup?

  “Lindsey. Yo. You look pretty pleased with yourself,” Helix pointed out, surely speaking for all of them as Lindsey came back in from the kitchen. “For someone who’s not showing us shit.”

  “Patience is a virtue,” she said and handed Jace a beer of his own.

  “Thanks,” he told her uncertainly, a little scared of her right now. This was a side of her he’d never seen before.

  “My ass, patience is a virtue,” Sully muttered to herself.

  “What’d you say?” Helix asked. “Your ass is a virtue?”

  Sully turned a little on her side and gave said ass a smack. Everyone laughed. Lindsey settled next to Jace on the couch, watching the antics play out onscreen in contemplative silence, sipping her beer. Every so often, she checked her phone.

  He had the distinct impression that some shit was about to jump off, but when or where, he could only guess—but it was approximately an hour and a half later, in his apartment in Denver, Colorado.

  Lindsey’s phone chimed with a notification. Jace glanced over as she got up from the couch and took her seat at his desk again. This time, silence followed her, and
then the others, curiosity finally getting the best of them.

  “All right,” Sully said. “What the hell have you been doing?”

  Jace’s printer spat out a sheet of paper. Lindsey snatched it, then slapped it down on the desk for them all to see. “There’s your memo. Are you sure that’s all you needed? I’ll be happy to take all his files, if that’s not good enough for you.” All her earlier nonchalance was gone without a trace. Pure savagery burned in her eyes now.

  Sully grabbed the paper, with Jace reading over her shoulder. She’d done it. She’d fucking done it.

  And Sully knew when she was beat. “How’d you do it? Explain.”

  “I didn’t go through the FBI servers. I went through his home network. One layer of security, compared to several at the FBI. Then I attacked from his router, which was already whitelisted and wouldn’t draw any suspicion. While I was setting up my proxies—six satellites, as requested—it was no problem to whip up a Trojan I could drop on his router and log his keystrokes to get his passwords, but I also realize that two simultaneous logins is a wonderful way to get caught. So, I waited for him to logout and go to bed. And now that he has, I have full access to his laptop, his account at the FBI, you name it. I can jump to their servers now and show you anyone’s emails that you want.”

  Drake opened his mouth, shut it again. Sully simply stared at the paper in her hand. Jace rubbed the back of his neck and exchanged a glance with Helix, who was the first one to finally comment.

  “Daaaamn,” he drawled.

  Lindsey stood up, facing Sully almost nose to nose. “I prefer to be the mage,” she informed her, then glanced over at Drake. “By the way, Briggs likes MILF porn.” She grabbed her beer, chugged the rest of it like a frat boy at a kegger, and slammed the bottle on the desk.

  While they all stared at her in slack-jawed awe, Drake’s gaze drifted over to Jace. “Dude. I am so erect right now,” he muttered.

  Jace knew the fucking feeling. He’d gone from six to midnight himself.

  But if he knew anything about Sully, even when she was down, she was never out. She folded the page and tossed it in the trash. “So, you can write code. You’re not one of us. I still say no.”

  Lindsey’s mouth pinched as if she were biting down on words. It was Helix who spoke up. “Sully, put your ego aside for once.”

  “My ego?”

  “She beat you. She fucking owned it.”

  The argument raged on between them, but Jace listened in silence. He should be more suspicious than anyone in this room. But then he examined his gut and looked at Lindsey’s work here tonight. Obviously she could handle herself. There was no one more motivated in finding Lena than her own twin sister.

  He broke into the fighting with one ringing command. “Let her do it.”

  “Don’t just let her do it,” Drake put in quickly, as if he had been waiting for a chance to jump in with his ideas. “Let her be the one to break in and install it. If these are Rhys’s people, then one of us can be made on the spot.”

  Jace had to draw the line there. “It doesn’t matter who they are. She’s Lena’s spitting fucking image. They know her, too. She can’t be seen.”

  But Lindsey’s face had brightened from the moment Drake had begun speaking. “Let me do it, Jace, please. I’ll wear a wig or something.”

  “It’s too dangerous.”

  Sully had fallen into an unaccustomed silence after being overruled earlier, stepping back with her arms crossed. But now she spoke up, irony dripping from her words, and she threw Jace’s own back at him. “Let her do it. Let’s not half ass this, Jace. You want her in so bad, she’s in. Put her in the line of fire with the rest of us.”

  He only glared back at her as she gave him a sarcastically sweet smile. Why did she have to be such a pain in his ass?

  “We’ll get a couple of guys to head over there and see if they can get the lay of the land,” Drake suggested. They employed some scouts for just that purpose. When it came time to get their hands dirty, though, they rarely trusted anyone else to get the job done.

  Lindsey was asking for that trust, and he wanted to give it to her, to lessen that helpless feeling she kept describing. Because he knew it so well, had lived with it for so long, and he knew how precious a feeling it was to know someone believed in you. It was even more powerful and motivating than those three little words some people spent their entire lives chasing.

  “I’ll go home and start working,” Lindsey said eagerly, snapping him out of his thoughts.

  He had to drive her, since he’d picked her up in their unmarked car earlier. She seemed lighter, somehow, as if having an active part in their mission had given her new hope.

  “I like them,” she told him once they were navigating the streets. The sky over Denver was like a lead blanket now, no sign of the sunny morning that had greeted them. More snow. The meteorologists were predicting a big winter storm in time for Christmas. “Even if Sully hates me.”

  He smiled over at her. “Trust me, Sully liked you at least a little, or there would have been no talking her into this.”

  “Do you have the final say on these things?”

  “Honestly, no. If she had kept protesting, I would’ve had to listen, Lindsey. And she knows that. She relented.”

  “You guys seem to really trust one another.”

  “We do.” More than that. They were family.

  “Thank you for giving me this opportunity.”

  “It’s a big help, really. Frees us up for other things. But Lindsey, I wish you wouldn’t insist on going.”

  “I need to do this.” She was quiet for a moment, watching the city pass by. “Lena’s always been the strong one. The one charging in, like what Sully said about you. Now it’s my turn.”

  “Don’t feel like you have to—”

  “I need to do this,” she repeated. “Even if something bad happens. I know the risks, Jace. It’s not for me, it’s for her.”

  “Getting yourself hurt isn’t going to help her. Aren’t you scared?”

  “Of course. Haven’t you ever been?”

  His methods of facing fear and death had been to laugh in the fuckers’ faces. After a moment, he said so.

  “Well, there you go. Maybe I’ll laugh in their faces, too. It might be a weak, sniveling laugh.” She gave him a wry look. “Knowing Lena like I do, and getting to know you, I can’t help but think you two should kiss and make up and get married or something. You’re a lot alike.”

  He barked with laughter. “Fat fucking chance of that. Kill me now.”

  “I’m only saying. I think she was born without the fear gene. If you two didn’t have all that crap hanging between you, you’d probably get along great.”

  “You really think that’s what I want in a partner?”

  Lindsey cocked her head at him. “Don’t people tend to gravitate to those who are more like them?”

  “Not necessarily. I don’t need a woman to jump out of a plane or some shit like that before I’ll give her a second look. I think your sister probably needs someone she can completely control. That ain’t me.”

  “So…you’re the one who needs control in the relationship?”

  “I didn’t say that. Since when does not wanting to be controlled equate to being controlling?”

  “Never, but I still think you’re wrong about Lena. She does like men who can challenge her.”

  “Well, for all I care, she’s welcome to them.”

  “I’m only trying to get a rise out of you. And you always take the bait.”

  “I do, don’t I? Still trying to drive home your point that I’m bitter?”

  Her smile was small and secretive and turned him the fuck on against his better judgment. “Maybe.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  She worked late into the night, after moving the picture o
f Lena and herself next to her laptop so she could look into her sister’s eyes as she did all she knew to save her life. Lena’s smile was a tad on the bland side in the picture. But she always had that wistful distance in her expression, as if she constantly wished she were somewhere else, doing something much more exciting. The family had accepted long ago that was the reason for her frequent disappearing acts. Living life on her terms.

  Well, she was getting a little more excitement than she’d bargained for now, wasn’t she?

  At three a.m., Lindsey pressed her fingertips into her dry, aching eyes. Done. She set her laptop aside on the bed and reached to turn off her lamp. Almost before her head hit the pillow, she was asleep, but the nightmares came soon after.

  In one, she was fighting an unseen attacker, and she woke up panting and sweating. It took her half an hour to fall back asleep after being jolted awake from the panic, only to fall into a worse dream, one that had no images she could recall. A blank, black wall of dread and isolation and loss, where somehow she knew everyone she loved was gone.

  For her, it was hell, and that one brought her awake gasping.

  Dammit, she had to keep it together. She went to the kitchen for a drink of water, then strolled to her window to look out over the streets below. Flurries danced past her window, some tiny, some fat flakes that hit the warmer glass and immediately melted.

  Lindsey watched the silent, hypnotic show outside, remembering snowy Christmases past when all of them were together, laughing, building snowmen, opening presents, drinking cider.

  What would happen this year? When her parents didn’t hear from Lena at the holiday, they would know something was wrong.

  Was her sister even out there? Alive? She had to be. Some innate twin-sense would surely be thrumming in Lindsey’s soul if the unthinkable had happened. Once, when they were seventeen, Lindsey had awakened in a panic one night for no discernable reason. Two hours later, her parents had gotten a call that Lena’s then-boyfriend had driven off a snowy road and crashed, sending them both to the hospital. Thank God, they’d been okay, but she’d never forgotten that.