Crush(88)

Logan handed him the phone and Miles stared at the screen for a bit, as if in contemplation.

With Logan’s trust fund now accessible to him, he could afford to pay Miles and had asked him to work full time on this. Miles had agreed and taken a leave from his security job at the hotel. Sliding the phone back to Logan, he seemed to blink away his thoughts and went on. “Let’s focus on something different, like trying to gain access to O’Shea’s computer. Maybe we can learn something from what he has in his files that will help Elle come up with what the code could be.”

Logan nodded in agreement.

“Okay, what do I need to do?” I asked.

“That’s easy. Hang on,” Miles said, and then started tapping his keyboard.

The muscle in Logan’s jaw was tight with tension and his shoulders were rigid. I leaned over and placed my hand on his thigh and whispered, “Hey, it’s going to be okay. I’ll be careful.”

He sucked in a deep breath and took my hand. “I don’t like this at all. If there was any other choice, you’d stay clear of O’Shea altogether.”

I squeezed his hand. “You know I have to do this,” I whispered.

He gave me a nod and stood up. I watched as he paced the room and then came back to his empty chair and gripped it with his hands. “What are you looking for, Miles?”

“O’Shea’s IP address.”

“You can find that?” I asked.

He gave me a grin. “I can do just about anything.”

“How?”

Miles turned the computer toward me. “It’s something I learned a long time ago working a short stint in white-collar crimes. Do you have an old email from him?”

I nodded and took control of the keyboard, logging into my Gmail account. “Here’s one,” I said.

Miles faced the computer again and started tapping some keys. “And . . . I got it.”

“Won’t he know?”

“Not at all,” Miles reassured me as he turned the laptop around. “Here you go. Just enter his user ID and password and we’re in.”

My fingers were shaking and I think Logan knew how nervous I was, because he moved behind me and placed his warm hands on my shoulders. This helped calm my nerves, and I typed Michael’s email address in the user name box. I had used that the other day and it worked. Then I typed Clementine’s birthday in the password field. Incorrect password flashed across the screen.

“Try again.” Miles pointed to the screen.

Slowly, I typed it for the second time, careful to hit every right key. Incorrect password flashed again. I glanced up, feeling defeated. “He must have changed it.”

“Are you sure you have the right password?” Miles asked.

I nodded and swallowed, more nervous than ever. Maybe Michael was more suspicious than I thought he was. Or maybe he had traced the site I had been on and knew I was lying to him. I hadn’t divulged any of the lies I’d told to Michael yesterday to either Logan or Miles.

“Do you think he writes his passwords down anywhere?”

“I’m not sure, but I know he jots a number of things down. I’m going over there tomorrow to have breakfast with Clementine. I’ll go in his office then and look around.”

The noise that escaped Logan’s throat sounded like a growl. “If he’s on to you, he’s not going to leave his password anywhere.”

I tried to calm him by grasping his hands, which were still resting on my shoulders. “You’re probably right.”

Miles said, “Chances would be slim anyway, but the other thing you could do is install a program on his computer that will allow me to monitor his keystrokes so I can gain access that way.” He started to tap the keyboard again and then pulled a small thumb drive from the side. “Insert this in one of his computer ports and when it loads, then hit install. It’s untraceable and the next time he logs on, I’ll be able to see every stroke.”

“Elle, I don’t want you doing this,” Logan hissed as he took his seat beside me.

I needed to come clean. To tell him I doubted that Michael would ever hurt me. That he wanted me to be with him. But the fact that I had entertained those plans when I thought Logan had left me made me feel so guilty that I had a hard time getting the words out. Before I could push them up my throat, the door to the employee lounge flung open.

“Sorry about that, boys,” Frank said, dragging his arm across his forehead. “Molly’s going to burn the f*cking place down with all these new electronics she’s installing. Her latest gimmick is some fancy margarita machine that—” His eyes fell on me and for a moment they seemed haunted. I’d seen that look before on Sean McPherson the first time he saw me. The ghost of Emily Flannigan, I thought this time. It should have bothered me, but it didn’t. Logan assured me I was nothing like her beyond a superficial similarity and that what he felt for me had nothing to do with her.

There was a chorus of hey, how are you from around the table.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t know we were in mixed company,” Frank said, and he wiped his hands on his jeans before walking toward me and extending one. “Frank Reilly.”

I smiled at him. “Elle Sterling.”

I’d seen him once before, but he wasn’t paying attention to me that night. He’d just wanted his daughter away from Logan. I wondered if with Patrick in jail and Tommy dead, he still felt that way.