White-Hot Hack (Kate and Ian #2)(43)

She hadn’t driven the Spyder since she’d started working for Ian, and it felt good to be behind the wheel again. Her familiar route beckoned, and on a long and fairly deserted stretch of the highway, she cranked up the stereo and tapped the shift paddle in time to the music as the car zoomed along. Her mind wandered as she thought about the upcoming holidays and Chad and Kristin’s wedding. There were more social engineering strategies to plan, and Ian had promised to start teaching her phishing techniques she could implement from her home computer. She looked forward to seeing if she could convince people to click on the links she sent them, which would give her access to their networks.

She was so wrapped up in her thoughts and the music that at first she didn’t realize the car had begun to lose speed. She turned down the stereo so she could listen for any troubling engine sounds and was alarmed to discover she couldn’t hear the engine at all. The speedometer reading fell rapidly, and she pulled over to the shoulder as the car coasted to a gentle stop. It seemed odd that such a new and expensive vehicle would be having mechanical problems already.

She was about to call Ian when her phone rang and his name flashed onto the touch screen. She hit the hands-free button on the steering wheel. “Hey. I was just going to call you.”

“One hundred and two miles an hour? Seriously, Kate?”

It wasn’t a mechanical problem at all.

It was her husband.

“Oh my God, you did not hack my car.”

“Yes I did.”

“Does that special app of yours track my every move?”

“Technically, yes. But I wasn’t spying on you. I wrote a program to monitor your speed, and it sends an alert anytime you exceed one hundred miles per hour. Imagine my surprise when the most annoying beeping interrupted my nice hot shower.”

“One hundred? That’s it?”

“One hundred miles per hour is quite generous.”

“So then you just… killed the engine? You don’t think that was a bit heavy-handed?”

“How so?”

“You could have called me and told me to slow down.”

“I had to act quickly. Cutting the engine and bringing your car to a nice, gradual stop is highly preferable to the jarring and abrupt stop that would have occurred had you hit a tree or other inanimate object.”

“You hacked my car.” It shouldn’t have surprised her because clearly the man could hack anything.

“I thought we’d already determined that.”

“You’re the one who bought it for me. You said you wanted me to have fun with it. I was having fun.”

“Yes, but if I’d known you had a death wish, I would have bought you something slower. Like a Ford Focus.”

“Turn my car back on,” she said as sternly as she could.

The engine purred to life. “Carry on, sweetness, but please drive safely. I’ll be waiting for you at home.”



She went into Safeway and filled her cart with enough groceries to make dinner for the next several days and pushed it out to the car. She reached into her purse for her key fob, but it wasn’t there. She specifically remembered locking the car and throwing the fob into the inside pocket of her bag, where she always kept it. Maybe she’d missed the pocket and the fob had settled among the contents at the bottom of her purse. After sifting through everything twice, she shook her head in confusion.

Oh, goddamn. Had she dropped it on the ground by mistake? She retraced her steps but didn’t find it. Inside the store she spoke to an employee who promised to keep an eye out for it and call her if anyone found it.

Back outside, she leaned against the car and pulled her phone out of her purse.

Kate: I have apparently lost my key.

Fifteen seconds later, the locks of the car popped up with a loud click. Five seconds after settling herself behind the wheel, the engine turned on.

Ian: Is there anything else I can help you with, sweetness?

Kate: No thank you. I’m sure I can handle it from here.



Ian was lounging in their bed when she got home, shower fresh, with wet hair and his naked chest on full display. A sheet covered him below the waist, but Kate could almost guarantee his upper body wasn’t the only part of him that lacked clothing. The detritus of their illness—the crumpled Kleenexes, the water glasses, the Vicks and the cold medicine—had all been cleared away. She stood in the doorway, leaning against it with her arms crossed in front of her.

He stretched, shooting her a calculated smile in the process. “You were right about the shower. I’m feeling so much better.”

“Is there anything you won’t hack?”

“I put fresh sheets on the bed and everything.”

“I’m driving along and the engine just… cuts out,” Kate said.

“I lit that candle you like. Can you smell it?”

She inhaled the mix of sandalwood and vanilla. “How is it even possible to hack a car?”

He scoffed. “That car is nothing but a smart phone on wheels. If it’s connected to a network, I can hack it. First I— Well, I can tell by your expression you don’t want to hear exactly how I did it.”

“No, I don’t.” Well, maybe a little. The fact that he could hack a moving vehicle fascinated her, but his continued disregard for boundaries frustrated her enough that she would postpone asking him to explain it.