Single Malt

by Layla Reyne

  “That’s why you like Cyber, why you stay in the cave?”

  He nodded. “I like the anonymity behind the screen. I’d been in front of it for so long. And I aced Crypto, almost failed Political Science.”

  Aidan laughed at the flipped phrase and slid off the counter. He took the bowl out of Jamie’s hands, his countenance serious once more. “You can’t hide forever. That’s no better than being back in the closet.”

  “I don’t see you getting out there.”

  Aidan dumped the bowls in the sink. “You sound like my sisters.”

  Jamie let him get away with that deflection, seeing as he’d done the same earlier. “Irish, Southern, we’re from the same stock.”

  “I think you might fit in better with my family than me.”

  “They sound like a fun bunch.” Jamie hopped off the island as Aidan headed for the dining table where their case materials were spread out in Jamie’s typical disorganized fashion.

  “Back to not fun.” Aidan rounded the table and took a seat on the far side. “What do you make from the interviews this afternoon?”

  Jamie seated himself across from Aidan. “Dr. Griffin is in the clear. Director Altman too, though I want to dig into his son.”

  “Agreed.” Aidan pulled Griffin and Altman’s files out of the leaning stack of personnel files and tossed them on the floor.

  “I think we can also exclude the lab manager with the ancient laptop. Between his antiquated hard drive and million cables, I’d say he’s a member of the Luddite camp with you.”

  Aidan glared across the table, but dug out the lab manager’s file and tossed it on the floor with the others. “That leaves two dozen scientists and students, seven lab managers, Altman’s son, and—” he slid another haphazard stack of files between them “—GNL network security.”

  “If you can do a prelim review on those—” Jamie nodded to the network security files “—I’d like to examine the back trace I ran after the hack today, and dig deeper into persons we flagged already. With GNL, you should focus on Jake, Mike, Emily and Dave.”

  “Dave?”

  “I don’t think he’s involved, but that stash of extra key cards gives me pause.”

  “On it. What are you looking for?”

  “Online aliases, hacker histories, the like.”

  “How’s an FBI agent going to do that?”

  “An FBI agent isn’t. StickyHeel12, on the other hand...” He’d created the alias in college, a play on his alma mater’s mascot and his jersey number.

  “Very clever. And I don’t want to know any more. What do you need for this hack-a-thon?”

  “A full pot of coffee.”

  “I can do that.” He moved to stand, and Jamie caught him by the wrist.

  “It’s not the same, you losing Gabe and me losing Derrick, but I think, I hope, for both our sakes, that it gets easier. The heart’s a resilient beast.”

  “I hope so too.” Aidan’s eyes met his, the warm brown swirling with a little bit of sadness and something else Jamie couldn’t identify.

  Something that stoked the hope in him and had the beast in his own chest stirring again.

  Chapter Ten

  The siren call of sizzling bacon and the rich aroma of fresh brewed coffee lured Aidan out of his room the next morning. Two steps into the living area something crinkled under his foot and he took in the devastation that had been wreaked on his living room. Two laptops sat open on the pickled-wood coffee table, a beige couch cushion on the floor in front of them, a Walker’s-ass-size dent in the middle cradling giant headphones. Multiple coffee mugs and a minefield of snack food detritus littered the table and floor. And everywhere among the rubbish, teetering stacks of colored files and yellow legal pads with Walker’s chicken scratch all over them.

  In the kitchen a certain hacker hurricane bounced in front of the stove. Hair in disarray, wearing yesterday’s wrinkled clothes, Walker hummed CCR’s “Fortunate Son” and tapped out the melody with a spatula on the counter. Aidan was ninety-nine-point-nine percent certain he hadn’t slept a wink.

  Avoiding the scattered files and papers, Aidan dropped his stack on one of the barstools and snuck into the kitchen from the far laundry room side. “Should I take your song choice as a personal indictment?”

  Walker jumped a mile, swinging around to face him. “Dude! No sneaking up on me when I’ve got burners going.”

  Aidan raised both brows on his way to the coffeemaker. “‘Dude’?”

  “What’s wrong with dude?”

  “You’re too young to appreciate it.”

  “I own not one but two—” Walker held up two fingers “—copies of The Big Lebowski. That entitles me to use the word dude.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Pour me one of those?”

  Casting his gaze about the living and dining areas, Aidan counted six mugs. “Haven’t you had enough already?”

  “Are you judging me?”

  “Maybe a little.”

  Pointing the spatula at him, Walker gave a perfect Soup Nazi imitation. “No pancakes for you.”

  Aidan narrowed his eyes. “Do I know you?”

  Walker laughed, easy and carefree, and Aidan, enjoying the lighter mood, filled another mug for his partner, against his better judgment. Walker split a pile of steaming silver dollar pancakes between two plates and crowned each with mouthwatering slices of crispy, thick-cut bacon. Snagging the bottle of syrup by a pinky, Aidan followed Walker and the plates to the other side of the bar.

  “I’m surprised you can eat anything after ingesting all that junk food.” Aidan climbed onto the stool next to Walker, placing the syrup and their drinks between them. “Where did you get it all? I’m sure none of this stuff was in the pantry.”

  “There’s a twenty-four-hour Wal-Mart on the island.” Walker said it like he’d found the Holy Grail. “I borrowed the car. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “I guess I should be glad this was all you came back with.”

  Walker snickered. “Don’t look in the pantry.”

  Aidan watched in horror as Walker doused his entire plate in syrup. “Do you really need more sugar?”

  “Sugar and caffeine are all I’m running on right now.” He shoveled in a bite and washed it down with a giant gulp of coffee. “Gotta mainline it to get through the day. Oh, that reminds me...” Dropping his fork, he jumped off the stool and bounded over to the table.

  Aidan stifled the Energizer Bunny comment on the tip of his tongue when Walker turned to him, wide-eyed and earnest. “I got us a lead.”

  After a quick few bites, Aidan extricated a slice of bacon from Walker’s maple moat and walked over to the table, careful not to drip any syrup on the floor. “You need to eat.”

  Hands full of folders and legal pads, Walker bent and ate the bacon right out of his hand, lips brushing over fingertips. Aidan gasped as his heart kicked, triple-beating over itself.

  In his ADD state, Walker didn’t notice and kept right on babbling. “Usual hacking channels didn’t turn up much last night. An illegal file-share here, an Xbox Live account there, which, by the way, I found your “Destiny” stats, and bravo.” He made a circular clapping motion with his hands.

  “Whiskey, focus.”

  Walker narrowed his bloodshot blue eyes. “You owe me a game.”

  “Fine, get to the point, Sonic.” At some point, the image in his head had transformed from the Energizer Bunny to the supersonic hedgehog.

  “I may be fast, but I ain’t that fast.” He held this thumb and forefinger an inch apart in front of Aidan’s nose. “And I am a wee bit taller than a hedgehog.”

  Aidan swatted the hand away and his voice took on the annoyed edge he sometimes got with his nieces and nephews. “The lead, Walker.”
>
  “Oh, right.” There was no hostility in the other man’s voice, just his tired, overstimulated brain jumping from one topic to another. “Dave’s in the clear. His alibis check out. And I talked to him this morning about those cards. They’re dummies. He keeps them as a check on his staff.”

  “Smart, though I’m guessing that’s not the lead you walked away from pancakes for.”

  “No, but I like Dave, and I wanted him to be clear.”

  “Walker.”

  “Sorry, lead, right.” He flapped his hands around, as if somehow clearing his mind. “I remembered what Dave said about med students playing God.”

  “Go on.”

  “I focused my searches on students getting both their MD and PhD.” He placed a hand on a small stack of manila and red file folders in the middle of the table. “Much smaller pool.”

  “I’d imagine so. Takes a certain kind of masochist.”

  “Like you getting your MBA and JD?”

  “It’s a very special hell.”

  “Which is where I went looking for our potential bioterrorist.” Walker picked up the top two folders and handed him the standard manila one first. “May I reintroduce Kevin Currie. Grew up in Philly, undergrad at Penn, three years into his PhD at UT Med, and just finished his first year in the MD program.”

  Aidan flipped through the standard biographical data and background search he’d read last week. Nothing here had warranted a flag. “We interviewed him yesterday. A bit defensive, but I attributed that to being overworked and sleep deprived.”

  Walker handed him the red file. “May I introduce KrnuL_PaniK_1013.”

  “KrnuL_PaniK?”

  “When spelled correctly, an operating system’s internal kill switch, in idiot’s English.”

  “Idiot’s English?”

  Walker talked over his affronted gasp. “I assume 1013 is an X-Files reference.”

  “Dorks.”

  Walker punched his arm. “At least he has some creativity, FBIGuy74.”

  Aidan shrugged and returned his attention to the file. “The red folders are cyber aliases?”

  “Wal-Mart to the rescue!”

  “More like you stole Agent Hipster’s idea.” He skimmed through the alias information Walker had gathered. “What has Mr. PaniK been up to?”

  “Aside from attending every major Black Hat convention in the northeast when he was at Penn and in southeast Texas since moving here—” Walker reached over the top of the folder, flipped a few pages, and pointed at a list he’d highlighted “—he’s hit some impressive targets.”

  Aidan whistled. “How come they didn’t catch this when running his background check?” He tossed the folders on the table and stepped back to the bar to grab their coffees.

  “His alias is buried deep. Someone this good covers his tracks.”

  He handed Walker his mug and took a sip from his own. “He’s first on our list today.”

  “Already called Dave. He’s sending over Kevin’s class schedule. Did you find anything in the network security files?”

  Setting his mug on the table, Aidan retrieved the stack and held the top green one out to Walker. “Not as much sugar was consumed, but I still found the bad guy, or girl, rather.”

  Walker opened the file, his blue eyes widening. “I would have figured Jake, not Emily. He seemed more squirrelly when I interviewed them yesterday, though I did think she was keeping a secret.” He tossed Emily’s file onto the table with Currie’s. “What’d you find?”

  “Single, mother died, father requires full-time care for early-onset Alzheimer’s. She’s barely making ends meet. Plus, she’s got no good alibis for two of the attacks.”

  “Neither one of them? She said she was alone for one of them, though I expect she wasn’t, but she said yesterday she was at the care facility with her dad during the other.”

  He was rambling a mile a minute, drawl thickened, and Aidan needed to break down and better understand the various parts of what he’d just said. He leaned a hip against the table and took the mug out of the other man’s hands. “Back up a minute... What’s this about her not being alone?”

  “I got a vibe when I questioned her and Jake. I was almost certain she wasn’t alone during the Tuesday morning breach. I thought she was protecting someone, Jake maybe, since he kept looking to her for guidance, or that she didn’t want people to know who she was with. I would know something about that.”

  Yes, he would, but that wasn’t what caught Aidan’s attention in his partner’s run-on sentences. “What do you mean Jake kept looking to her for guidance?”

  “He didn’t want to answer questions without her go-ahead. Though by the end, I thought that might have more to do with protecting their boss. I ruled Dave out so there goes that theory.”

  Walker reached for his coffee and Aidan shifted in front of it, blocking him until he finished unpacking everything Walker had said. “Jake’s alibis checked out. If you’re right, and she wasn’t alone during the Tuesday morning breach, it wasn’t him. She’s hiding something, and he’s careful with his words around her. Either he knows who she was with that morning or he knows something else they don’t want us to know.”

  “Maybe something to do with the breach they did work together.”

  Aidan nodded. “Let’s add Jake to the list of interviews today, and we question him without Emily.” He reached back for Walker’s mug and handed it to him.

  His partner guzzled it down in one long swallow and slammed the mug on the table. “I almost forgot...” He darted into the living area and came back with one of the laptops, setting it on the end of the bar. “I got us another lead.”

  “Someone besides Kevin and Emily?”

  “Not that case.” He woke the sleeping laptop, and after logging in through an encryption window, familiar bank account ledgers appeared onscreen. “I had some time last night while searches were running and this isn’t the office, so we can talk about it here, right?”

  Aidan moved directly in front of the computer. “What’d you find?”

  “The accounts didn’t trace back to the detectives.” Walker reached around him, their arms brushing, as he minimized the account ledgers and revealed an internet browser window. “This—” he pointed at the homepage for KAG Holdings “—is who owns those accounts.”

  Aidan racked his brain and came up blank. “I’ve never heard of them.”

  “I doubt you would have.” Walker shifted to stand beside him, one arm braced on a barstool. “It’s a Bahamian holding company.”

  “What do they hold?”

  “Well, that’s the odd thing.” He nodded at the computer. “Try the links.”

  He gave Walker a skeptical look then began clicking on the links. About, Holdings, Contact Us... They all led to an Under Construction page. “Nothing’s here.”

  “Meaning the site’s actually under construction, or...”

  “It’s a dummy corp.”

  “I’d venture a guess KAG’s only assets are those bank accounts. But somebody was smart enough to set it up in the Bahamas.”

  “Favorable tax regime.” Aidan recalled overhearing something of the sort at one of Gabe’s office functions.

  “Per Wikipedia, after tourism, financial services account for fifteen percent of the Bahamas’ GDP.”

  “Thank you, interwebs.” He closed the laptop and turned to face Walker. “Is it possible KAG is a holding company for the detectives’ dirty money?”

  “Or for anyone involved in orchestrating the crash. You said there were more files on the flash drive. Maybe there’s something there.”

  “I left it in my safe at home.” Walker got that hurt look on his face again, and Aidan didn’t want him to think it was a matter of trust or doubt. “It wasn’t on my mind when we left Satur
day, and even if it had been, I wouldn’t have wanted to risk traveling with it. I’ll get it to you when we’re back in California. For now, can you follow the website anywhere?”

  His face brightened and he yanked his phone out of his pocket. “Already on it. You drive, I’ll keep digging,” he said, turning for the front door.

  Aidan grabbed him by the back of his wrinkled T-shirt, the momentum yanking Walker backward into his chest. “A shower and clean clothes would be appreciated.”

  Walker turned his head, their noses inches apart. “By who?”

  This close, Aidan’s gaze wandered over his face, seeking comfort in the striking features. Blue eyes, electric in the early morning sun. Toffee waves falling over his forehead, begging to be brushed back. Matching stubble covering his jaw and neck, rough where the former appeared the texture of silk. Add the scent of coffee, lingering White Cristal and pure man, and Aidan was tilting forward. His hand in Walker’s shirt splayed out, feeling the firm muscles beneath it, and he leaned into the touch, a live wire crackling as heat ran in a feedback loop through that single point of contact. Walker’s face dipped toward his, lips scant inches apart, and the circuit overloaded, sparked to fire, then died as icy guilt flooded Aidan’s veins.

  “Go, Jamie.” He pushed the other man forward, and in a repeat of last night, Walker grabbed his wrist. Aidan’s heart stopped and ice melted where skin met skin.

  Walker smiled wide. “Thank you, for trusting me.”

  Aidan’s heart beat again, a little softer for the warmth that seeped in around it. He made a joke to ward off thoughts of things he couldn’t have. “I’ve never seen someone so happy about potential hours of beating their head against a wall.”

  “Not why I’m smiling.” Thumb flicking over his pulse point, Walker dropped his wrist and strutted to his room, holding up his right hand, two fingers raised again. “That makes two.”

  Two what?