Burning Bright (Peter Ash #2)(70)

“Just makes it more secure.”

Peter feathered the brake as they coasted down the West Seattle Bridge. Ahead was a wide railyard, then two highways and a hillside clad in feathery green trees and condos. The airport was off to the right. To the left stood elegant skeletal cranes of the Port of Seattle with Puget Sound behind it looking like hammered steel. The sky was low and dark. Did the sun ever come out in this town?

“What’s something that only you and your mom would know? Maybe a pet phrase you had between you?”

June shook her head. “I don’t know. She wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy.”

“What about that video she sent you after she died? Is there something in there?”

June smacked Peter in the chest with the back of her hand. “Pretty and smart. I like that in a guy.”

“Plus I can cook. And I’m crazy good in the sack.”

June ignored him. She’d already opened a different browser and logged in to the anonymous email where she’d saved her mom’s video message as a draft. “Let’s see it again.”

She watched Hazel Cassidy’s last message twice, and Peter listened while he drove. Traffic was heavy, they’d picked the wrong time of day to do this. Maybe there was no right time of day. June took notes on her flip-top reporter’s pad. Peter was impressed with how quickly she could write. Not that he’d ever decipher her handwriting.

“A lot of possibles in there,” said Peter.

June didn’t answer. She clicked back to the algorithm site, clicked on the text box, typed skeleton key, and hit Enter.

The text box went blank, and the blinking cursor reappeared.




You are not authorized. Try harder.

“That is so like my mom.” June looked at Peter. “I’m probably not going to get many chances at this.”

“You could set your email on your phone again and ask it for the password.”

“It didn’t give it to me when it gave me the URL,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll get it by asking now. If Tyg3r really has this much potential, my mom would be pretty major on the security.”

Yeah, thought Peter. Because if the skeleton key was really that good? If the Russians, or the Chinese, or the Iranians got hold of it? That would be the end of the American Experiment. Blueprints for every drone and cruise missile were online somewhere. Hell, what if you could hack the connection to a Reaper drone in the air and take control? The new F-22 joint strike fighter plane was all software-driven, designed to be updated. You could update them out of the sky.

June ran a hand through her hair, clicked on the text box, typed the scientist’s curse, and hit Enter.

Again, the text box went blank, and the blinking cursor reappeared.




You are not authorized. Last chance.

“Shit,” she said.

They were still stuck on the ramp behind a long line of cars, waiting to get onto Highway 99. “Give me the laptop,” said Peter. “I know what it is.”

She gave him a look.

“I won’t hit Enter,” he promised. “Come on, hand it over.”

She passed him the laptop. Using two fingers, he typed the best daughter a mother could ever hope for. And handed it back.

She took a deep breath and let it out. Peter patted her leg. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I don’t have any better ideas.”

And hit Enter.

The text box went blank again, but a new message appeared below it.




Largest error followed by best outcome.

“Huh?”

June smiled. “This one I know. She used to say this all the time after the divorce.” Her fingers flew across the keys. The Yeti and Junie.

The text box went blank again, with another new message below.




Hello, Junie. What would you like to know?

“Who the hell is ‘the Yeti’?” asked Peter. But he already knew.

“That’s what we called my dad.” June’s mouth quirked. A complicated expression, neither a smile nor a frown.

Traffic was clearing and he could finally get onto 99, the smaller highway heading north along the Sound. He hit the gas. “That’s the Yeti? The guy who bought you a gun for your fourteenth birthday?”

“I told you I had an interesting childhood.”

It was the opening Peter had been waiting for. “Tell me about your dad.” He was genuinely interested, but he also was thinking about his last conversation with Lewis.

She made a face. “I’d rather not.”

“Come on,” he said. “You keep bringing him up. You must want to talk about him.”

She shook her head. “My dad was a control freak. He used to work in software, which is how he met my mom. When I was a kid, he started his own business, but it fell apart and he moved us out to this remote little valley in eastern Washington. According to my mom, he was getting really weird, even then. Overprotective, compulsive, the whole thing. He was obsessed with getting the place self-sufficient, so we would never need to leave the valley. My mom got offered a job at Stanford and wanted to take me with her. My dad said no. One day she went off to a conference and didn’t come back. I was ten.”

“Jesus,” said Peter. “That must have been hard.”