Predator by Terri Blackstock

Author:Terri Blackstock [Terri Blackstock ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780310555575
Publisher: Zondervan

Thirty-two

Ryan went back to the GrapeVyne building, dropped his notes in his office, then headed across the Rumpus Room to Ian. Ian’s eyes were bloodshot and glazed as he stared at the numbers going across his screen.

“How’s it going?” Ryan asked, pulling up a chair.

“Pretty good,” Ian said without looking up. “I’m checking Bridgit’s work to make sure this will work before we run it on the system.”

“Yeah, about that. Henry said we couldn’t have the software. He preferred that we tell them what we need, and they’ll give us the information.”

“It’ll take those morons months to get it done, whereas I’m almost finished.”

“But we’re forbidden to use their software. I only told you to hack it so we could get a jump on it. But now that they’ve said no—”

Ian laughed as he typed in some commands. “I love that word, forbidden. Just makes me tremble.” He looked up. “You’re not going to make me stop this, are you?”

Ryan studied the numbers on the screen. Yes, it looked like their work had been successful. The information they got here could make a real difference in the investigation. He couldn’t pull them off it now. It could be a matter of life and death. “No, not after you’ve come this far. All I can tell you is, don’t get caught.”

Ian sighed. “I can’t make that promise. Someone at Willow’s already onto me. I got an instant message from him a few minutes ago.”

Ryan’s heart jolted. “From who?”

“Guy named Jeff Hall. He’s an engineer over there. He asked me who I was and how I’d logged into their server.”

Ryan groaned. “What did you say?”

“Nothing. I didn’t answer him.”

“He’ll figure out it’s you. He’ll tell Henry.” Ryan tried to think. “Well, don’t answer. Maybe it’ll blow over.”

But as he headed back to his desk, he knew that wouldn’t happen. Jeff Hall would surely tell his superiors about the breach of security. Unless Ryan intervened, word would definitely get back to Henry Hearne. He supposed he could get Ian to plead ignorance and say that he misunderstood Ryan’s instructions. That he thought he had gotten clearance to use that software.

He paced his office, thinking through possibilities. Maybe he needed to walk over to Willow, find the engineer who’d IM’d Ian, and try to do some damage control. Maybe he could convince him that Ian wasn’t up to anything sinister. That he’d just overstepped his bounds in the interest of finding the killer.

Yes, that could work.

He ran down the stairs and out, crossed to the Willow building again. The guard at the security desk was on the phone and didn’t see him. Ryan slipped into the stairwell and took the stairs up two at a time. Most of the engineers were on the top two floors, so he bypassed the first four. When he reached the fifth floor, he opened the door to the floor and stepped out of the stairwell. The temperature had changed. The floor was warmer—almost hot. There were no people in sight here, but dozens of huge computer servers that collected and sorted data.

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