I have an answering dirty eye for him.
“Let’s at least pretend to be civilized, hm?” I brush my hair down, pull the chair closer to my computer, and open a terminal.
Finn hovers over my shoulder, watching my every move. My fingers tap-tap-tap on the keyboard at a slow pace. On any other day, I’d type like the hospital is on fire, but I’m painfully aware of the dragon breathing down my neck. I tap the wrong sequence by mistake, and an error message comes up.
“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Finn grinds out.
“If you’d give me some room, I’d be able to concentrate,” I snap.
Finn straightens slowly. “You better pray to God that you’re not messing with me and my family.”
That’s exactly what I’m doing. “Or what? You’re going to kill me?”
He gives me a blank stare and my watch flares yellow as my pulse jumps.
Something tells me that I don’t want the answer to that question.
Chapter Nine
FINN
I can’t tell if she’s Jinx or not. What I know for sure is she’s not like any fan I’ve ever met.
She glares at me as if my presence annoys her.
Yet, she kissed me hard and firm.
She switches between soft words and sarcastic barbs.
And she didn’t hesitate to elbow me right in the middle of my bruised ribs.
Her behavior is beyond erratic. She’s unhinged. Highly suspicious. And I don’t trust her as far as I can throw her.
Not that I’m going to throw her anywhere. Who knows if she’d call that “manhandling” and get me back by slitting my wrists. Or trying to kiss me again. There’s no telling what her deranged brain will come up with next.
J slips on three-finger sleeve protectors. Programmers often suffer from carpal tunnel early, so the tiny compression braces help ease the ache in the hands.
Now that I’ve given her room, J’s more relaxed. Her shoulders are hunched over the keyboard, and her eyes arefocused on the screen. She rolls her bottom lip between her teeth as she concentrates.
My eyebrows climb. “Are you doing cryptographic math?”
Her hair shifts up and down her back as she nods.
“Did the kidnappers send an encrypted ransom? Show me.”
If it’s that simple, if this is all just money, then I can see a happy ending in the near future. Dutch, Zane, and I would clear out our bank account to have the girls back safely.
“No, I’m not solving this to find them. I’m doing it to keep myself nimble.”
My astonishment shifts to disdain.She’s messing with me.
“Re-lax.” J holds down a few keys, and the second monitor fills with a new terminal. She makes a grand gesture to the screen. “I’ve got something loading.”
I’m surprised by the elegance of her code. “You hacked their?—”
“No.” She holds up a hand. “Not that. I didn’t sit there and brute-force a server for three days. I didn’t rewrite an algorithm. That would be showy and stupid.” She scrunches her nose. “I’m not showy. I’m patient.”
“What. Did. Youdo?” I growl.
