Barefoot with a Stranger (Barefoot Bay Undercover #2)(65)

“Woo-hoo,” she said, pushing back.


“You have a password.”

“Not yet. But soon.”

“I have seventeen Gabriels in 2011. Six in the summer.”

“Parents?”

“All wrong.”

“Keep working,” she ordered. “By the way, what’s the winner get? I’d like to think about it while I grab the hashes here.”

He rolled his eyes at her tech talk. “The winner gets…anything he—”

“Or she—”

“Wants.”

“Anything?” She smiled and tapped faster. “Motivation is a marvelous thing.”

“So are you.”

* * *

By three thirty in the afternoon, Mal had a pile of papers listing boys born in 2011 in this municipality named Gabriel—none with the right last name, but some vague enough to merit researching. Several addresses were near enough to drive to today, and Mal actually considered starting the search.

But Chessie had been telling him for the past two hours that she was close. At least, he thought that’s what she was saying. Mostly she mumbled to herself in computer-speak.

He’d paid the empleado del municipal a handsome sum to leave them alone, but he had a feeling even that much cash wasn’t going to buy them enough time. And he doubted they’d get back in tomorrow. That guy would likely take the day off and spend his two months’ free wages.

“How close are you, Bill Gates?” he asked.

“So close.” She hadn’t broke concentration, except for the three times she’d lost her Internet connection and sounded a lot more like a different Rossi when her language got colorful. But she never stopped trying.

When he’d stop to look over her shoulder at the screen, it was nothing but a sea of binary numbers, white on black, flickering and flashing, moving. Mal’s findings weren’t great, but they were immediate. And tangible. And the day was getting late.

“How much—”

She held one finger up to stop him. “Portonueve.”

“What?”

“Come here and read this.” She reached for his hand, pulling him around to point to a word on the screen. “That’s the password that’s going to open many, many file drawers in cyberspace for me,” she said excitedly.

“Really? That’s great.”

“But this is where it starts to get a little iffy.”

“Starts?” She’d been at this for five hours.

She gave his arm a poke. “Be positive, honey. Pos-i-tive. Translate for me. Portonueve means…”

“It means door nine. Or ninth door. Does that help?”

She blew out a slow breath and typed. “Maybe. There’s a code in there that should be found in every password. Porto is door?”

“And nueve is nine.”

“Let’s try changing the number. Count from one to ten in Spanish and spell.”

He did, and she typed, but every time, access was denied. “Damn it,” she muttered on the last one. “Let’s flip it. What’s the word for window?”

“Ventana.”

She typed it. “Nope. How else can you get into a house or building?”

“Chimney?”

She laughed. “Okay. What’s the Spanish word for it?”

“Uh…chimenea, I think.” He spelled it, and she typed as he spoke. No access.

“Damn it,” he muttered.

“No, no, don’t panic,” she said, typing again. “Did you see that little string of numbers that flashed under it?”

“No.”

She clicked on a line of code, highlighting it. “You’re on to something with the chimney, Santa Claus. Tell me those numbers again.”

“Uno, dos, tres…”

Her fingers flew, and suddenly, the whole screen flickered, turned black, turned white—

“Oh no,” he said.

“You are such a pessimist, Mal Harris!” She held her fingers off the keyboard and stared at the screen, and suddenly, line after line after line started appearing, as if someone else were typing. “And a genius,” she added. “We are in the official government database listing every birth in the country of—”

“Perdóname.” A woman they hadn’t yet met walked in, pointing to a clock on the wall. “Estamos cerado. Se tenien que ir.”

“She says they’re closing,” Mal explained.

“It’s not even four o’clock!” Chessie exclaimed.

Yes, too early to close in the States, but not too early to siphon money off the Americans who really shouldn’t even be in the room. Mal reached into his pocket, aware that, at the table, Chessie slowly inched her screen down low enough to hide what she was doing but not turn off the laptop.


The woman’s expression softened almost immediately when the cash was flashed. Glancing at the door, as if she might get caught, her dark features melted. “No, no…” In other words: How much can I get?

Nothing had changed since he’d been in Cuba last, despite the fact that more flights arrived and an American flag now flew over an embassy. He handed her a wad of bills, and she let out a sigh and murmured an apology.