Could she get him to use his computer without arousing his suspicion?
She chewed on a fingernail and ran through common password patterns that even the smartest people sometimes used. Duncanshouldbe smarter, but she didn’t want to rule it out. That’d be like kicking in an unlocked door.
Her password cracker was running when he logged on.
Yes!
Now she had his password and could decrypt his hard drive again later if needed.
She systematically went through his files looking for anything useful, starting with keyword searches that turned up nothing. It had been a long shot, but sometimes people got careless. More than one hacker, online predator, or undercover cop had given himself away by forgetting to use a VPN to mask his actual location. Given that, it wasn’t hard to imagine Duncan keeping a file with her name—or the name of one of the companies she’d hacked for him—in it.
And even with her on the loose, he was probably fairly confident about his home security. Undeservedly, but confident nonetheless.
Valerie was an ice block by the time she found the prize: a folder called TRAVEL. All thoughts of cold fingers and toes disappeared as she opened document after document of damning information.
Pure gold.
Communications with his buyers, who appeared to be Chinese. Confirmations of money deposited to an offshore account under a different name. The terms of his payment for a sniper. All under innocuous names like Bermuda, Tenerife, Santa Barbara, Flights, Hotels, and Cars.
Her heart sped up, excitement warring with disbelief.I own you now, asshole.
She resisted the urge to let out a triumphantwhoop, but allowed herself a quick fist pump.
Without delay, she directed the entire contents of TRAVEL to upload to a public folder she had on a cloud service, not bothering to check all of the files for relevant content. She could pick through them later.
A loud engine rumbled down the street and stopped in front of the house with the squeal of worn brakes.
Valerie bent over and squinted through a gap in the hedge. “Shit.”
A package delivery truck was parked in front of the house on the other side of the road. A thirty-something man with an athletic build jumped down, opened a roll-up door at the back, spilling rap music into the frosty air, and hefted a wide box, fast-walking it up the neighbor’s driveway.
She let go of the breath she’d been holding and slumped back into the rocking chair.
While the files uploaded directly from Duncan’s computer, Valerie switched to her email client and reviewed the draft of a message she’d written weeks ago. It contained a link to a web page she’d created to publicize any evidence against Duncan that she found and would be sent to a distribution list that included several journalists she admired, two random agents at the FBI, a Fairfax County police officer who had been her neighbor for a couple years, everyone at Aggressor, and the network administrators at the companies she’d been duped into hacking.
Once the files were copied to the cloud, she’d find a place to go through them in more detail and post the most incriminating ones on the site. The only problem was that many of the recipients would fear clicking on any link she sent. For that reason, she had picked a popular blogging site and hoped that at least the journalists and feds would be willing to check it out.
Thunk, thunk, thunk.“Hey,” a deep voice said, more surprised than suspicious.
She jolted. The delivery man stood on the porch holding two shoebox-sized packages. A spike of adrenaline hit her like a lightning bolt.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked.
Oh, God. Why hadn’t she kept track of him? How had she missed that his truck hadn’t started up again?
“Uh.” She cleared her throat. “Just getting some fresh air.” She should have had a prop pack of cigarettes or something. Who else sat outside in weather like this? “My parents keep the heat jacked up. Old bones…” She gave him a conspiratorial smile and a little shrug.
He narrowed his eyes at the darkened windows, but gave her an insincere smile in return and set the packages at the top of the stairs. “Okay, then. Have a nice day.” His shoes pounded the steps as he retreated.
Dammit.He was so going to call the police. If this was his regular route, he probably knew who the neighbor was, probably knew that a woman sitting outside next to the Hollowell house with a computer was bad news.
She snapped her fingers repeatedly at the computer. “Comeon,” she said under her breath.
Internet service providers prioritized downloading over uploading because most Internet users spent a lot more time downloading files—web sites, emails, and videos—to their computers and televisions than sending information back to the Internet.
So, the files were only about half done. Not that she needed to stick around for them to finish, but she had planned to keep watch in case something went wrong.
Now she had to bail.
