White-Hot Hack (Kate and Ian #2)(3)
CHAPTER ONE
Two months earlier
The house was easily ten thousand square feet. Two winding staircases flanked the entryway on either side, and beyond them was a dining room with a table large enough to seat twelve and a formal living room that was three times larger than Ian’s entire apartment in Minneapolis.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” their Realtor, Linda, asked as she led them on a tour of the first floor. The ceilings were so high her voice echoed.
“It’s something,” Ian said.
When they reached the cavernous kitchen, Kate’s eyes widened. She opened her mouth as if she were about to speak and then closed it.
“Look at her,” Linda said, gushing. “She’s speechless.”
“Yeah, about that,” Ian said. “I specifically remember listening to my wife tell you what we wanted to see in a house. This isn’t remotely it.”
Linda gave him a conspiratorial smile and leaned in, enveloping him in the cloying scent of her perfume. “I’ve found that it helps to start with something a bit nicer. Sometimes when a husband sees the look on his wife’s face, he finds a little more room in the budget.”
Ian cocked his head toward Kate’s shell-shocked expression. “Is that the look you usually see?”
Linda’s smile faded. “Well, no. Not exactly.”
“The budget is not a concern, because we can afford whatever my wife wants. The specifications we gave you reflect what Kate felt comfortable with.”
“Well, perhaps she’d like to make some adjustments.”
“I would,” Kate said cheerfully but firmly. “I’d like to adjust them downward, in price and square footage. The number of bedrooms should be in the single digits. It’s just the two of us, and we’re going to be sharing one.”
Linda pulled an iPad out of her bag and began typing. “Let me check my list again. I’m sure I can find something that’s a better fit.”
Once Linda stopped trying to upsell them, they toured several homes that were more in line with their requirements, all of them located in secure, gated communities. But a gated community meant neighbors who might want to socialize, and that had never really been his style. The logistics of staying under the radar, especially with a wife in tow, were slightly more complicated than he’d anticipated.
“Do you have anything more private?” Ian asked during their second week of house hunting. “Maybe a little farther out?”
“A new listing just came on the market in Middleburg. I know you wanted to avoid small towns, but the home is on the outskirts and quite secluded. Of course, it’s much more square footage than you wanted,” Linda said pointedly,” but it might be just what you’re looking for. I can show it to you if you’d like.”
In the past when choosing a place to live, he’d always gravitated toward bigger cities. He could blend in, get lost. With over six million people in metropolitan DC and the surrounding area, the odds of randomly bumping into whoever had doxed him and hacked Kate were extremely low. But since they planned to stay for a while, maybe the size of the town wasn’t as important as finding a secluded property where they could keep the rest of the world out.
“Sure,” he said. “Let’s go check it out.”
As they crossed the state line, they passed a sign that said Welcome to Virginia and underneath that, Virginia Is for Lovers. Ian glanced at Kate, and they shared a secret smile. Traffic thinned out and the view shifted from suburban freeway to lush, open pastures and rolling hills.
“This is horse and wine country,” Linda said from the backseat as they entered the Middleburg city limits, which explained the abundance of horse fences and the two wineries they’d just passed.
“My wife loves wine,” Ian said, laughing.
Kate smiled, turning around to address Linda. “He’s right. I really do.”
“Then you’ll love it here. There are five wineries in Middleburg alone, and at least fifteen more in the surrounding areas.”
“Sold,” Kate said.
The GPS guided Ian down a narrow road off the highway, and they followed it for nearly ten miles before they reached their destination. The home remained hidden from view behind a tall stacked-stone fence. Ian typed the five numbers Linda gave him into a keypad mounted on a stone pillar, and a gate with a sign that read SOUTHFIELDS FARM swung open.
“This is a custom-built French colonial on seventy-five acres,” Linda said. “It doesn’t get much more private than this.”
The house came into view as they drove up the long, winding gravel driveway. Linda hadn’t been exaggerating about the size. Words like “country estate” and “chateau” came to mind, and he wasn’t sure Kate would go for it. But the stone exterior gave the home a solid, impenetrable feel that he liked, and if it didn’t already have one, he could arm it with a state-of-the-art security system for an added layer of protection.
“I can’t wait for you to see the inside,” Linda said, keying in the code for the lockbox that hung on the door.
On the main level, the rooms were spacious and plentiful. A floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace served as a focal point in the family room.
“The fireplace is two-sided so you can also enjoy it when you’re in the kitchen,” Linda said.