One Good Reason (Boston Love #3)(92)

“This used to be a nice place, you know,” he says conversationally. “I had a successful practice. A loving family. A good life.”

“What happened?” I ask quietly.

He goes silent.

“Drugs,” I guess.

He jolts to a stop and looks back at me with his unfocused eyes. His fist tightens on the needle in his hand. “You don’t know. You don’t know anything about it.”

I press my lips together. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

He nods and continues pulling me down the hallway. Eventually, we reach an office. There’s a crappy laptop sitting on the dust-covered desk. Birkin pushes me toward it with an angry shove.

“Fix it, little hacker girl.”

I stare from him to the laptop.

I couldn’t hack a Girl Scout Troop blog with that piece of crap.

Am I going to tell him that?

Hell to the no.

If I can get online, maybe I can somehow call for help.

“Can you unbind my hands?” I lift my chafed wrists, bloody from the zip-tie’s sharp edges. “I won’t be able to type like this.”

He stares at me flatly. “You’ll manage.”

Thinking it’s probably best not to argue with the crazy, needle-wielding drug addict, I nod and walk toward the chair, trying not to sway. My head still feels foggy from Steve’s punch; I wonder if I might have a concussion as I settle onto a creaky, springless chair.

“This is going to take a while,” I warn, trying to buy myself some time.

He leans back against the wall and glares at me. “You have an hour.”

It takes all my energy to keep my face from reacting. Even with a super-computer, I couldn’t hack the FBI in under an hour. His demands just show how out of touch with reality he’s become, addled by morphine and god only knows what else.

That actually works in my favor.

“Okay,” I say in what I hope is an agreeable tone. “I’ll do my best.”

He nods. “Don’t try anything stupid. I’m watching every keystroke. You try to call for help, I’ll kill you before they ever get here.” The look in his eyes tells me he means every word.

I take a deep breath.

So…

All I have to do is figure out a way to call for help while making it look like I’m hacking into a government agency on a computer so crappy, I’m surprised it’s able to piggyback off the weak WiFi signal Birkin’s iPhone is broadcasting, without alerting the drug-addled madman watching my every move.

Simple.

Right?

Mind reeling, I turn to the computer, prop my bleeding wrists against the edge of the dirty desk, and get to work.



* * *



“This is taking too long,” Birkin says for the tenth time.

He’s getting twitchier by the minute; either he’s coming down from his high, or he’s starting to get suspicious that I am not, in fact, halfway through my hack into the FBI’s secure servers, as I assured him five minutes ago.

“Almost done,” I say, fingers typing nonsense into the terminal window. I figure so long as it at least looks like something out of the movies — green code on a black background, lots of complex number sequences — he won’t know the difference. But if he’s coming down from his high…

He might start paying better attention.

He might realize I’m lying through my teeth.

He might jab that air-filled needle into my neck.

I blink back tears as my fingers move, trying to push the thoughts away. If I can just stall a little while longer, until they get here…

“How much longer?” Birkin appears at my side, looking sweaty and feverish. His pupils are slightly more dilated.

“I’m almost inside their network,” I assure him. “Should only be a few more minutes.”

Where the hell are they? Come on, come on, come on.

A feeling of dread stirs inside my stomach.

What if they didn’t get my message? What if they couldn’t figure it out? What if I made a huge mistake, not just calling the police?

I fight back a shiver of panic. My fingers tremble against the keys as blood drips onto the desk, my raw wrists weeping steadily until the wood surface is slippery and red in the low light of the office. Only the glow of the laptop illuminates the space.

Birkin is unstable. That much is clear. If a team of policemen pull up outside with flashing lights and sirens, I’ll be dead before they make it to the front door.

No way in hell am I taking that chance.

Plus, it’s not exactly like I can call 911 and ask for assistance without him noticing.

I can, however, access his iPhone.

With the laptop piggybacking on his satellite signal for WiFi coverage, I’m already connected. Once I realized that, I knew I could send a text right from the computer. I could reach out to Parker and Nate. The only question was… what the hell kind of message does one send, in this scenario?

Writing something obvious like, “Help! Birkin has me tied up at his old office and is holding me hostage with a freakishly large needle, come save me ASAP!” basically guarantees my demise if Birkin so much as glances at his phone messages in the time it takes help to get here. He’d instantly know I hacked his phone.

Hello, needle to the neck.