She had to get Scott out of jail, and to do that, she needed something to exonerate them both. Despair clouded her mind with a darkness she hadn’t experienced since watching her dad die. Despite all of her skills and efforts, Duncan had bested her, just like her dad’s murderer.
Once again, she’d failed the person she loved most.
With enough time, she could find something that would put her old boss away, she was sure of it. No person, no company was unhackable. But she didn’t have the luxury of unlimited time or money, and her foe understood exactly who he was up against, which made him more formidable than most.
It took everything she had not to lay her head on the polished wood desktop and bawl her eyes out. Or give in to sleep.
Instead, she worked her way through a handful of Skittles and dug through the last few forums before she had to hit the road.
And that’s when she hit pay dirt.
Between walking and riding the bus, it took Valerie more than an hour to get to Duncan’s house in McLean. She carefully navigated the quiet street through a slushy drizzle that made the sidewalk slippery, and hunched further into her parka.
If her plan worked, she’d either have Duncan by the throat, or he’d have her in custody. Or worse.
A stiff breeze cut through her jeans and the cold soaked into her tennis shoes, turning her toes numb. She’d donned her beanie, but why hadn’t she taken an extra fifteen minutes to buy some boots?
As she approached the Hollowell house, she scanned the enormous homes that surrounded him. Many of them had their front doors open, letting heat and warm, happy light escape through the glass storm doors. Inside, the homes had garland-wrapped bannisters and family photos lining the long entrance halls.
It had always bugged her that people left their doors open year-round here, and not just in the most affluent neighborhoods. Were they being inviting to neighbors or were their foyers too dark?
Or maybe it was a southern thing. Northern Virginia didn’t feel like the south as much as Richmond did, but the roots were still there.
Unfortunately, the open doors signaled that the homes were occupied, but surelyoneof Duncan’s neighbors was gone for the holiday. It was Thanksgiving weekend for God’s sake.
And…bingo.
The imposing white colonial with green shutters just this side of her target had two newspapers on the front walk and a yellow padded envelope tucked between the storm door and the cherry red front door. All of the blinds in the second floor windows were turned down three-quarters of the way, as were those on the side of the house visible to her as she approached.
Turning up a stamped concrete path as if she belonged, she mounted a short set of stairs. A square-cut evergreen hedge lined the front porch from end to end, providing a cozy—if cold—private hideaway complete with wicker chairs and a two-person swing.
Three oak trees that had refused to shed their rust-brown leaves conspired with the elevation of the house above street level to hide Valerie from view once she moved away from the steps.
Cupping her gloved hands around her eyes, she peered through tall mullioned windows, her view hazy through ivory sheers flanked by thick velvet drapes. Unlike her quarry’s home where the lights blazed brightly against the gray day, the first floor full of elegantly gaudy—and probably ridiculously expensive—furnishings was dark, buttoned up tight, all blinds turned down and shades drawn.
The owners probably had lamps on timers to make the place appear lived in at night, but anyone seriously casing the place could tell the occupants weren’t home. Alarm stickers on every door and window left no doubt that the house was protected, but that was fine. Valerie had no plans to break in. She just needed their location and a bit of privacy.
Nerves and excitement made her jittery, and she thought of Scott—freewheeling Scott who liked to sleep outside under the stars and never wanted to be stuck behind a desk—confined to a small cage.
Hang on.If all went according to plan, Duncan would be a wanted man by the end of the day. Then again, if he didn’t have anything incriminating on his home computer—or she couldn’t get in—she was back at square one. Lose-lose.
She opened her fully charged laptop and fired up the scanning software she needed. Within minutes she had located the Hollowell family’s wireless router and confirmed that he still used the same brand she’d seen in his living room at the company Christmas party last year.
Professional curiosity might have driven her to peek behind the television…
The router was—as expected—locked down tight, but she’d found the key on a zero day exploit forum, which listed hardware and software vulnerabilities that hadn’t been fixed yet. It was called a “zero day” exploit because essentially, the company had zero days to prevent a hack now that someone knew about the security hole.
Valerie had spent hundreds of dollars worth of bitcoin for access to this unpublished “backdoor” into the router, but it had been more than worth it. Within minutes she had injected malware into the system that would give her access to any computers connected to the network as long as they weren’t shut down—access undetectable to anti-virus software.
The biggest risk to her was that her computer might be transmitting her location. Now that she was part of her boss’s home network, the risk was real, despite her attempts to root out the code his spiteful flash drive had installed.
Every few minutes, she looked up from her work, expecting Duncan or one of his henchmen to march up the steps and shoot her in the head.
The image spurred her to move faster, and not too long after attacking his router, she had located his computer and pushed her way inside. The beauty was, he didn’t even have to be logged in.
Trying to stay aware, even as she was sucked into that zone where she forgot the outside world existed, she attempted to go through his files, but the entire hard drive was encrypted.
She’d been worried about that. For convenience, decryption was probably tied to his computer login, which meant she either needed to figure out his password—and since he wasn’t a moron, it probably wasn’t “123456” or, better yet, “password”—or wait for him to log on.
