Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
One of them throws back its head and lets out an angry squawk.
Goddamn you, enough.
Focus on the mission.
Focus on Jet.
I’m so close.
That’s why I stuff those dark thoughts down, ignore the birds, and eye Talia.
“I just know my dog and what he’ll do for a good chew.” Keep it cool. I open the car door and step out. “Let’s go.”
She follows me quietly.
She’s probably rethinking this, and I don’t blame her.
It’ll be easier if she starts pulling away from me now so it won’t hurt so much later.
Maybe this is how it ends, like a flower wilting without water.
Why does my chest hurt like hell, then?
Cursing in my head, I unlock the door to the house.
We barely make it inside before Rolf comes barreling over, jumping up to lick my face.
“Hey, old man.” I give him a quick squeeze—I’d never admit it’s comforting, giving me an anchor right now—before letting go so he can pounce on Talia next.
She catches him with a squeal, bursting into laughter as she buries her face in his thick ruff and scratches him all over. The two of them are practically in a wrestling contest.
And it makes that cramp in my chest worse, seeing them like that. My goddamned prickly, possessive dog fucking loves this woman.
I hate that I’m starting to wonder if I do, too.
I firmly push those thoughts away and pivot, leaving them in the entryway to enjoy their lovefest while I take a detour to the kitchen.
My laptop’s on the breakfast island. I settle down on a chair and flip it open so I can pull up the cloud hosting service where Brian Newcomb kept his accounts, then I fish out the paper with the passwords Ariana gave me. I type in his email address from memory and try the first potential password.
No luck.
I’m on the third try by the time I hear Rolf’s nails clicking and the soft clack of Talia’s shoes against the kitchen tile.
She comes up behind me, peering over my shoulder, her soft vanilla-spice scent drifting over me. Rolf props his head on my thigh, looking up at me beseechingly. I let one hand fall, rubbing his head while I try number four.
“Anything yet?” Talia asks.
“No, still got three more…”
The next one comes up dead.
And the next, and the next, and the next after that.
I flop back, raking a frustrated hand through my hair.
“Fuck. Guess I’d better call Ariana Lewis.”
“Maybe not.” Talia leans over me. The soft curves of her breasts press against my arm, warm through the sheer layers of her breezy floral top.
She points at one of the passwords—ArianaBlondieBabyI.
I nod back.
“That one. That’s a play on a song title about being in love,” Talia whispers. Just like how Ariana said it was with Brian. “If they were really so gooey over each other, that might be the one. Try replacing the I with a one.”
“You think that’s all it takes?” I quirk a brow.
“I think it’s the quickest way people change up their passwords to make them secure without forgetting,” she says with a shrug. “It’s what I do all the time.”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
She blinks at me innocently. “Then you use your big shot police resources to run a password cracker with these passwords as seeds to try every variant.”
I stare at her.
“How the hell do you know about brute forcing passwords?”
“I spent my childhood as a shut-in.” She shrugs. “I read a lot of dorky books.”
“Apparently so.” But it’s worth a shot. I turn back to my laptop and try to log in again with ArianaBlondieBaby1.
No dice.
“Damn it,” Talia hisses, and I hold a hand up.
“You gave me an idea. One number, one uppercase, one special character. That’s how it goes these days, right?”
“On most sites, yes.”
“Then…” I type in ArianaB1ondieBaby!
Bingo.
“What did you do?” Talia squeals with delight as the login screen pops up.
“I figured since one and the exclamation point are the most common substitutions, he’d swap the L or the uppercase I with one or the other, but not the lowercase I since it’d be harder to remember which one it was. So I made the L a one, and the uppercase I an exclamation.” I smirk with satisfaction. “If that hadn’t worked, I bet the other way would have.”
“Okay, Mr. Smarty-pants, let’s just see what he saved.”
That’s sobering. I’m almost hesitant to click.
The page opens up on dozens of thumbnail slides, all of them so dark it’s hard to make out what’s in the photos without expanding them to full size. My heart thumps hard.
If there’s enough evidence in these pictures, I’m finally going to do what I came here for.
Swallowing hard to wet my dry mouth, I start the slideshow, clicking through quickly.
Nature shots. What else?
Pictures of the hills, the trees, the sky. Another shot with the sunset blazing past Redhaven seen from on high.