“Hello...sitting right here, you know.” Jeremy turned and looked at Bree. “Fine, what am I missing?”
She didn’t look at him, just kept studying the computers on the shelves around her.
“Nothing,” she finally said. “You’re doing everything right. That computer is a dummy system, that’s why you can’t find what we need. The real system is one of these.”
Jeremy turned back to the computer he’d been working on. “Are you kidding me? This system would be a hacker’s dream. Why would he not use it?”
Now Bree turned and looked at Jeremy, then at the computer system. “Actually, that’s a very good point. Why set that one up as the obvious culprit, unless hewantedsomeone to use it?”
Bree crossed over to Jeremy. Tanner expected her to demand he get out of the way so she could sit down, but instead she pulled the CPU out and turned it so she could see it.
Then muttered a curse.
“What?” Tanner asked.
“Too many wires.” She started following the large grouping of wires down past the desk, crawling along the floor to follow them to where they disappeared into a small fuse box.
She cursed again, and Tanner knew they were in trouble. “Freckles, what?”
She ignored him. “Jeremy, open a command prompt window and see if there’s a date.”
“Why?”
“Just do it!” Bree roared.
“Fine. Okay.” Jeremy’s fingers clicked on the keyboard. “Okay, I’ve got it here and...oh, damn.”
“Is it a countdown?”
Jeremy nodded, staring at the screen. “Yes. God, Bree, it’s counting down from 5, 4, 3, 2...”
Bree dived away from the fuse box as, not a split second later, it exploded all around them, with an ear-piercing squeal and a ball of flames. It knocked out the power, leaving the closet in darkness. Jeremy yelled out, his chair making a huge crash.
“Bree! Jeremy!” Tanner could barely make out anything in the dark, except for the fire that was beginning to climb along the walls.
“I’m okay,” she called.
“Jeremy?” Penelope called out.
“I’m alive.” The man’s voice was tight with pain. “Burned. The computer is toast.”
Tanner found Bree’s hand and started pulling her toward the door. “We’ve all got to get out of here.”
“Boss,” Whitaker called from the doorway. “The whole house is on fire. Every fuse box and outlet in the place just lit up.”
“Get everybody out,” Penelope called. “Take anything you can that might help us.”
Bree pulled her hand from Tanner’s. “I’ve got to find the killer’s operating system. It’s one of these other computers.”
She turned on the flashlight on her phone to give more light and began looking.
“Bree, we don’t have time for this. That fire is going to reach the door and block our way out in just a couple of minutes.”
He pulled at her arm, but she yanked it back.
“He knows we’re onto him now. That was his fail-safe. He may already have an alarm that lets him know we infiltrated his house. But if not, he’ll definitely know once he tries to broadcast again. He’ll shut it down. We’ll lose him.”
Jeremy struggled over beside her, holding his arm and chest at an awkward angle.
