A Secret to Die For

by Lisa Harris

“What happened next?”

  “I stepped inside the apartment, you know, just in case someone might be hurt. Called out, but no one answered. I started to leave when I noticed the two men lying on the floor on the other side of the room. I admit . . . I kind of freaked. It’s one thing when you see a body on TV, but to see two actual bodies . . . That’s when I called 911.”

  “What did 911 tell you to do?”

  “When I assured her that they were dead—it was pretty obvious—she told me to go back to my apartment without touching anything, lock the door, and that she had people coming. That’s it.”

  “Did you see anyone entering or leaving the building?”

  “I looked out my window once I was back inside and saw two guys walking past the building. I don’t know if they were involved or what they were doing.” The man glanced back at the door to his apartment. “Can I go now?”

  “Fine.” Nate’s panic escalated.

  He rushed back into the adjoining loft to where Agent Brown was talking to another agent in the middle of the room.

  Nate interrupted him. “I need to know how this happened. We turned our witnesses over to you barely twelve hours ago, and they’ve vanished, and two people are dead.”

  Agent Brown frowned. “Trust me, I wish I had answers for you. We’re working as fast as we can, but right now we just don’t have much. We’ll scan for prints, but there isn’t a lot to go on. The guards are both dead. The one witness didn’t see anything, and so far, the building’s security camera didn’t get anything either. I’ve got someone going through the safe house’s interior cameras.”

  Nate reached inside his pocket for his grandfather’s watch, irritated when it wasn’t there. He wanted to make a deal with God. Promise him whatever he wanted if he would just bring Gracie back. He’d quit running. Start going to church every Sunday, read his Bible twice a day . . .

  He drew in a deep breath. He knew that wasn’t how it worked. He couldn’t make deals with God. Maybe because he wanted Nate to trust him instead. To realize that God was the One who was in control of the situation. That this world wasn’t Nate’s final destination.

  I want to see you in all of this, Jesus. I want to trust you even when everything seems to be falling apart. I just don’t know how to do this anymore.

  “Detective?”

  Nate glanced up. “Yes?”

  “We just found a possible lead on one of the city street cams. I need you to come with me.”

  29

  Grace’s eyes opened at the sound of her name. She stared at the ceiling, trying to figure out where she was. The last thing she remembered was trying to go to sleep at the safe house. Someone had broken in . . . Macbain had come into her room, insisting that they leave . . . They’d tried to escape out the window, but then the window had jammed . . .

  What else? And why did her body feel so . . . so heavy, and her brain like she’d just stepped into a fog? She needed to get up. Needed to find Nate.

  “Grace. Can you hear me?”

  She turned her head toward the sound of a voice. Macbain hovered above her.

  “Grace.”

  “What happened?”

  “A couple guys grabbed us at the safe house and brought us here.”

  Her mind fought to focus. How was that possible? They’d been inside an FBI safe house. Nate had promised her she’d be fine. Flashes of what had happened last night began to surface. Two men had come into her bedroom. One of them grabbed her. And then . . . nothing.

  “I need to get up,” she said. “We have to get out of here before whoever took us comes back.”

  “Just take a deep breath first, Grace.”

  He helped her sit up on the cot she’d been lying on, then waited as she put her feet on the ground. A wave of nausea spread through her. She pressed her hand against her stomach. What had they done to her?

  She tried to get up, then stumbled, barely catching her balance.

  “Whoa.” Macbain grabbed her shoulders, then helped her sit back down on the cot. “Seriously. You need to slow down.”

  She glanced around the small room, waiting for the nausea to pass. There was a window at the top of one wall and a door. On the other side of the room was a row of computer monitors hanging over a long desk that was covered with processors, cords, and dozens of other computer things.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “A basement, but as for the where, I don’t know.”

  “Have you seen anyone?”

  “Not yet. I only woke up a few minutes ago, but I’m assuming they’re waiting for us both to wake up. And by the way, if you feel a bit groggy and sick, I’m going to say it’s because they drugged us. I felt the same way when I woke up, but it should pass.”

  It had to, because she couldn’t think straight.

  “Do you have any idea what they want?” she asked.

  “Not yet, but I think we can easily assume it has to do with this whole mess Stephen was caught up in.”

  She glanced back up at the window. “We need to get out.”

  “The window’s too small. Trust me, I’ve studied the place the past few minutes. And the only door’s rock solid. I tried that too.”

  Maybe, but there was no way she was just going to give up. “And the computers? Can we use them to communicate?”

  “There’s no Wi-Fi or internet connection.”

  Great.

  The door opened, and a man stepped into the room. Nausea shifted into panic. She recognized the bearded face and piercing gray eyes from the bank.

  “You were the driver,” she said.

  “We meet again.”

  “You’ll never get away with this—”

  The man shot her a smile. “And yet I believe I already have.”

  Macbain stepped in front of Grace. “Just tell us what you want.”

  “It’s quite simple, really. I need you to implement the code that Stephen Shaw wrote. He discovered a vulnerability in the grid, and we’re going to use it to take it down. Everything you need is on this,” he said, handing a flash drive to Macbain. “My investors are expecting this breach in the grid’s vulnerabilities to be implemented within the next twelve hours.”

  Grace squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. This couldn’t be happening. Not after everything they’d gone through. There had to be a way to stop the grid from going down.

  Macbain took a step forward. “Wait a minute. Stephen worked for months on this project. And you think I can magically implement his code in a few hours?”

  “He’s already done all of the work, and you know more than anyone else about his procedures and methods.”

  “And if I can’t . . . or won’t?” Macbain asked.

  “I thought you might say something like that.” The man showed Macbain a photo on his cell phone of a young girl. “Then maybe you need to rethink things.”

  “Danielle?” Macbain grabbed the man’s arm. “She has nothing to do with any of this.”

  The man jerked away from Macbain’s grip, then pulled a handgun out of its holster. “Don’t ever do that again.”

  Macbain held up his hands and took a step back. “I’ll help you, if you swear you won’t touch her.”

  “And I’ll leave her alone, if you do what I say. In fact, if you can implement this code, I might be able to arrange safe passage out of the US for you and your daughter. Because, trust me, you won’t want to be here once the grid goes down.” The man’s smile faded. “And if you don’t come through, your daughter will die. If you try something funny with the code, she will die. Hopefully that’s enough to motivate you to do as I say.”

  “You can’t do this—”

  “Sit down and get to work.” He pointed to the other side of the room. “I’ll be monitoring everything you do very closely, so be smart.”

  Macbain started across the room, then hesitated. “What about her?”

  The man turned and caught Grace’s gaze. “The FBI might believe you don’t have the patch, but I
’m convinced you know more than you’re saying. You agreed to make the exchange until the FBI panicked and called off the swap. I want the patch. I was willing to pay for it. This time I’ll simply consider not killing you if you give it to me.”

  Grace hesitated. Their belief that she had the patch was the only thing keeping her alive. Without it, they didn’t need her. Or maybe it really didn’t matter if she had it or not.

  I have no idea what to do, God.

  She’d spent so much time over the past three years fighting for the desire to live. Now she knew she wasn’t ready to die.

  “I don’t have it,” she said.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s the truth. If Stephen left me something else, I have no idea where it is.”

  “Then start here.” He grabbed a bag off a table and dumped out the contents. She recognized them from the safe-deposit box. “Stephen left this stuff for you for a reason. If you don’t have the patch, then the answer to where it is has to be in here somewhere. Find it.

  “And Macbain . . .” He held up the photo of Danielle again. “I’ll be back in a minute. All you need to do is focus on your job.”

  Grace heard the click of the lock as he left the room. She glanced back at the table and the pile of papers Stephen had wanted her to have. But why? She couldn’t read or understand code. How was she supposed to help?

  “Find the Colonel. He can help stop this. I left everything you need to put an end to this with Oscar.”

  Oscar was supposed to have everything they would need to be able to stop them from taking down the grid, and the Colonel could help them stop it.

  They had the safe-deposit box and they had Matthew. They also had the malware that could take down the grid, but not the patch that could protect it.

  So where was it?

  What were they missing?

  “Do you know what’s crazy about all of this?” Macbain said, staring at the screen in front of him.

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ve spent the past few years building up that compound, with my generators, solar power, fresh water system, and weapons stash, and now they’re forcing me to implement Stephen’s work and take down the grid.”

  Grace picked up one of the maps. “You know we can’t actually take down the grid. You’re going to have to find a way to stall.”

  He spun around in his chair. “He’s threatening to kill my daughter.”

  “I know, but according to him, we’ve got twelve hours. Nate and his team will find us before then.”

  “I’m glad you’re so confident in their skills, but I’m not. No one knows where we are, Grace. What if it was your daughter they were threatening?”

  She took a step back and tried to fight against the rush of emotion. She wanted to believe that Nate and Paige would find her, but they had no idea where she was. But no matter what this man was threatening, they couldn’t give them what they wanted. Taking down the grid would be catastrophic.

  “All you have to do is add some kind of bug to the code or something,” she said.

  “You don’t just add some kind of bug to the code or something. And besides, Stephen was the genius. This . . . this is way over my paygrade. I’ll be lucky if I can actually add the code, let alone change it.”

  “What about your work in the military? Didn’t you do this kind of stuff?”

  “I wasn’t exactly playing the role of a black hacker. I was fixing security issues, not breaking into the nation’s infrastructure. And besides that, you heard what they said. They’ll kill my daughter if I don’t do what they say.”

  “Maybe they’re bluffing.”

  “Did you see the photos of Stephen’s body?” Macbain shook his head. “I’m pretty sure they’re not bluffing.”

  She braced her hands against the table. “I don’t want anything to happen to your daughter, but the alternative is that without electricity, food, and transportation, hundreds of thousands of lives are going to be at risk. There has to be a way to stop this.”

  Macbain looked at her for a long moment. “Do you really not have the patch, Grace? Because this guy clearly thinks you do. Maybe we could use it to make some kind of deal with him. If nothing else, it would ensure our getting out of the country.”

  “I’m not looking for a deal, and even if I were, I was telling the truth when I said I don’t have it,” she said. “If Stephen left me something else, I have no idea where it is.”

  “So telling them you’d make the swap was all just a ploy?”

  “It was to buy time. An impulsive decision to try to stop whoever’s behind this.”

  She continued digging through the diagrams of the power stations, infrastructure papers, and random notes Stephen had made, but none of it made sense to her. Why would Stephen leave her something she knew nothing about? No. If he had left her a clue, this wasn’t how he would have done it.

  She shivered in the cold, drafty basement. She was still wearing the red pajama pants and long-sleeved T-shirt she’d put on the night before. She wished she had a sweater. Her hand touched her wrist and her heart dropped as she looked down.

  Hannah’s silver charm bracelet was gone.

  Grace glanced at the other side of the room where she’d been sleeping. It had to be here. She couldn’t lose it. She tugged back the blanket of the cot, then checked underneath it. Nothing. She looked around the sides of the bed, making sure it hadn’t fallen onto the floor. Something shiny caught her eye. She blew out a sharp breath of relief, then stooped down and picked up her bracelet. She started to stand up, then stopped. Something was on the other bed. A cell phone was peeking out from underneath the pillow.

  She grabbed the phone, then glanced at Macbain, confused. If he had his phone here, then why hadn’t he called for help? Unless . . .

  The following thought left her queasy. Unless he was somehow in on this. But that wasn’t possible. Stephen had told her to find him. Said he’d help.

  She looked back at Macbain. He was still glued to his computer screen. She didn’t have time to analyze the situation. She needed to get ahold of Nate. She quickly turned on the phone and searched the call history, looking for Nate’s number. Most of the outgoing calls went to one number—she assumed it was Danielle’s. There were four incoming calls on Wednesday that had to be from when Nate and she had called him.

  “Grace? What are you doing?”

  She quickly turned around.

  “What are you doing?”

  There was something in his voice that startled her. A coldness that hadn’t been there before.

  “I was looking for my bracelet and found a phone.” She handed it to him, deciding to play innocent. “We can call—”

  “You idiot!” He grabbed the phone out of her hands, then smashed it against the wall.

  “What are you doing!”

  “You’re supposed to be looking for a clue to where the patch is.”

  “I said I don’t have it, and if something is in the stuff he left me, I have no idea what to look for.”

  Grace’s mind spun as the pieces started coming together, leaving a terrifying picture. Macbain had worked with Stephen in college when they’d first started seriously messing around with computers and hacking. But Stephen had told her to go to him, which meant Stephen, as far as she could tell, believed Macbain could help.

  She drew in a deep breath, determined to stand her ground. “This was you, wasn’t it? You’re behind all of this. You found a way to be on the inside of what was happening. Except your people couldn’t figure out how to implement Stephen’s code. Maybe he was never supposed to be killed. I don’t know, but he’s dead and now you’re in a panic, because you’re the one who has to do it now.”

  His whole demeanor changed.

  “Get over here and sit down.” Macbain grabbed a gun out of the drawer where he’d been sitting and aimed it at her. “I knew the charade would end eventually.”

  “Why play this game to begin with?”
r />   “When you called, I knew I’d just stumbled upon the perfect opportunity. The police wanted me to be a part of the investigation. I was sure one of you had the patch I needed. I couldn’t have planned it any better.”

  “And the accident on the lake?”

  “It wasn’t supposed to end that way. They were just trying to ensure you never guessed I was involved.”

  “And the phone call and the parking garage incident?”

  “Apparently the people I work for believed I had gone to the police and was working with the FBI. But I’ve straightened them out.”

  “But why try to take down the grid?”

  “Do you have any idea how much other governments are willing to pay to take down the US grid?”

  “Who’s behind this?”

  “Let’s just say I discovered that some of these state-sponsored groups have far bigger budgets than even the companies they’re hacking.”

  Stalling might not work, but she still wanted answers. “Why do they do it?”

  “You name it. Political reasons, espionage, simple cyber warfare, revenge . . . As long as I’m on the receiving end, I really don’t care.”

  “I might be able to understand why they are involved in this, but not you. You served your country. Why turn on everything you believed in? Why put the life of your daughter at risk?”

  “I lost my wife serving my country. Lost my daughter because my ex-wife convinced the courts I wasn’t fit to be a father. I woke up one day and everything I had worked for was gone.”

  “There are people willing to help—”

  “You’re a shrink. You should understand how hard it is transitioning back to civilian life. I couldn’t get a job, so we had to live off credit cards until the benefits started kicking in, but it didn’t matter. My wife had found someone else while I was gone and left me.”

  “So you found a job hacking for the wrong side.”

  “And I got Stephen thinking he was working for the right side.”

  “If you needed Stephen, why kill him?”

  “He wasn’t supposed to die. Not until he actually put his code into play anyway. But he found out the work he was doing wasn’t what he thought it was and decided to let people know what was happening. And so what? Even without Stephen, I’m still good at what I do. As for the grid going down . . . it’s going to happen eventually anyway. I figured I might as well get paid in the process, before I get out.”