Glenn snorted and shook his head. If he answered her question truthfully, then she would ghost in a blink. “I’m the guy running this ghost hunt. You don’t even need to be in the van collecting data, hacking the house. I’m the guy saying you will stay in your hotel room until I tell you your ghosts are all gone.”

“You big dumb jerk.” She spun on her toes.

Glenn caught her arm. “Gonna walk your way out of the sticks at night again? I’m not Sam. Bring it.”

“Oh you must be a very foolish man. Too bad, I like wise dudes.” She shook her head. “Here I thought you had a wickedly sharp mind.”

“You better hope I’m smart enough to get you out of here now and keep you out of here without your buddy Shadow following you.” He opened the passenger door. “Get in my truck. I’m more than ready to help you if you hesitate.”

She climbed in and he shut the door. He blew out a deep breath. This was the woman who had visited the same stomping ground as he had. He’d seen her. He knew her. Right where the sign said, No climbing, she’d rappelled down and climbed back up the rocks in the National Park. Another sign prohibited swimming, precisely where she swam. No diving, no surprise where she chose to.

Sam had done nothing to protect her if he had bothered to come along and not to stay home and stay stoned. She’d run wild and reckless, way way too sweet. If Sam discovered she was having fun though, he tightened the choke collar around her throat, chiefing the peace pipe, putting an end to it until even hope was too much for her as had been evident from her diary. Her past had been molded by that and now she was taking it all wrong; Glenn was trying to get her out of something that could try to follow her and to haunt her all of her life.

She huffed. “You broke the rules, Glenn.”

“You’re the one who breaks rules for a living. And for the record, you could do it remotely. You could go into the same career field but go into medical security with my brother. You’d travel some, but you can do it from anywhere.”

“Cole Stone is your brother?”

“Same mom,” he confirmed.

“Oh man! How sweet that must have been. Big Brother with all the little web cams is big brother? Not your bud, your brother, in a bet, in a hack. You with the sonar, him broadcasting?”

She shook her head. “Warring with drug dealers and narcs wasn't enough? Your dad as the first network admin was breathing down my neck because his sons had a bet going. It didn't make any sense; I couldn't find another Reston brother. Cole Stone’s stepfather; I didn’t know that. You’d be out at my house at least once a week when the ISP first formed, from dialup to DSL, my my my.”

“Try this one, Tess. That recruiter from DefCon, and the reason you had so much trouble deciding to do it, because it was with Big Brother? . . . The real headhunter works for Homeland Security, your favorite thing to hammer. Cyber CT would be with Cole in DHS. Couldn’t really picture you working in that environment but you two are a lot alike; you may like that. Your plan is to step right up into a career there.”

“How dare you insult me like my pen testing is even in the same league with Cole's privacy piracy? DHS? Mean not funny.”

He cranked the music up. Let her temper cook on that for a while. Broke the rules? He snorted. He had not even begun.

In chat, no sex, cross that line and she would shoot you dead. When she was married, cross that line and she would point a gun at your heart. He’d crossed the line last night before his brother and the ghost hunters interrupted them. If she hadn’t noticed that; he was doing something wrong. It was time to break some damn rules.

When he pulled up to the hotel, sunset over, he couldn’t guarantee simply because he didn’t see Shadow, that the shadowman or any of the other spooks had not followed her. That’s what poltergeist did; and she had a special friend, a jealous ghost just like that. Activity had kicked up immediately upon her arrival to the house, to the land.

“I’m not getting out, Glenn. It’s my house even if I never wanted it. You can’t hunt there without my okay.”

He turned off the truck. “If you aren’t with me as in within my line of sight, Tessa, then you are supposed to be with Cole within his line of sight. I won’t argue this point with you either. I won’t stand back while a Russian mobster with a legit but flawed medical supply company recruits your lovely head. From what Cole tells me, the cyber-terrorist makes Hitler look like a nice guy. I’d bet everything I own he’s not attracted to only your intelligence. Even in Podunk, could you be any less invisible, Tessa?”

“Too much too fast,” she whispered.

“I’ll escort you inside. Hammer on Cole but work it out. You headed up a department, woman. Play nice with my brother.”

He tugged her hat a little lower on her face and walked with her to her hotel room. He hadn’t left her much choice, pretty much ready to haul her inside if she refused.

He locked the door behind them and knocked on the connecting door. When Cole swung it open, Glenn pointed one finger at him. “Not on the back of your bike.” He swung his finger to Tessa. “Work it out. She knows everything.”

“Glenn!” Tessa stepped in front of him as he was on full retreat. “Where are you going?”

“To deal with some creepy things, monsters under the bed in your head, to hunt them out of your life. Call me if you see anything creepy,” he told Cole.

“She might have spooks on top of cyberspooks following her?” Cole held up two fingers like waving a cross in her direction.

Glenn took advantage of her mouth parted in surprise at his departure and kissed her until her knees gave way. Turn up her heat and turn her over to his brother? Mistake! He lifted his mouth from hers, staring into steamy green eyes. “Pack up. You both are coming to my house.”

Cole looked at him and shook his head, laughing. Although Cole grabbed the few things he’d brought inside, he asked Tessa, “What have you done to Glenn?”

“Not nearly enough,” Glenn muttered as he grabbed up three of her laptop bags, sliding them over his shoulder. Then he snatched the other three out of her hands, leaving her only with her cell phone.

Cole pointed at her phone. “Turn it off or I’ll take out the battery. Korschovf will track you down as soon as he or one of his cyber-warriors is able to tie you to the fraudulent male name with an equally fraudulent address in Alaska where your cell is registered. You’re not stupid. Don’t be stupid. You knew he might come; you pulled a gun when I came through the connecting door last night.”

Cole turned to Glenn. “I got this; she’s not making me crazy. And now he’s upped the price on her head.”

“Tessa,” Glenn growled and slid his arm though hers.

Tick tap, tick tap, tick tap, she teased him just walking, hips swaying to the beat.

He escorted her right back to his truck where the engine was still warm and air conditioning cool, right back where he’d taken her from. Cole was right. She was making him nuts. And she looked like she was about to nuke out.

“Enough is enough,” she declared. “Stop at the liquor store so I can go inside. Tell me no again and I’ll ghost so fast your head will spin.”

He didn’t like it; it didn’t bode well; but he didn’t want her to walk in or her image captured over a security camera that spooks could access. His brother had him practically paranoid. “I’ll go in; you are hiding from yet another man. What do you want?”

“What will you drink with me? How about whiskey?”

He sighed. “You hardly drink; why aim for getting drunk?”

“I’m more than happy to go inside, Glenn, and get it myself.”

This wasn’t looking good, he decided as he made a quick trip inside. At least she was still in his truck when he returned.

She nodded and accepted the brown bagged bottle. “Please hurry now before I break the seal. Do you think Cole will drink with me? It might be easier to handle hearing about Homeland Security.” She scoffed. “Might be easier for him when I bring down my wand of opinion on DHS.”

“I’m pretty sure he won’t. I’m pretty sure I don’t want you intoxicated and all worked up while I’m gone hunting out your ghosts tonight.” He rotated the stiffness out of his neck. “I need a little help with her, God. She’s turning me into a caveman.”

Once he escorted her and her things into his living room, Glenn explained about the shadowman to his brother. Glenn needed to go. He had a hunt planned that was soon to start. He had to make sure the shadowman was still in her spooky house.

When he glanced back at Tessa, she had broken the seal and slammed back a shot. “Oh hell no.”

He walked over to her and spun the cap back on. “Wait for me. It might be dawn. Talk to Cole. Stay out of the pool with him. And don’t get on his bike. Sleep if you want, but wait for me, Tessa, before you start drinking. If your ghosts are all gone, we’ll celebrate.”

Cole slapped one hand on the counter before pointing at her again. “What have you done to my brother?”

Glenn waved his hand toward their surroundings. “Make yourself at home.” Then he brushed his lips softly over hers. “Wait. Later, gorgeous.”

She couldn’t move forward if he couldn’t chase out the things scaring her in the closet of her mind. Not the ghosts in her house scaring him, more like the realization of how very much he wanted to stay. He walked out the door, the man of action he was.

During the night with his friends and fellow paranormal investigators, he couldn’t stop thinking about her no matter what he tried. A couple guys asked Glenn what he was thinking about before Glenn realized he was smiling, grinning like a fool! He’d been struck with that ever since letting her into his head in chat.

Nothing happened for the first six hours into the hunt, just an overall extra creepy feeling. They were about to call it a wrap for the night, when a friend of his switched into another mode, cussing the air and spirits in the house, trying to provoke some response. They broke off into groups again and Glenn sat upstairs with a digital recorder and a thermal scanner.

He glanced at Paul, the demonologist, before calling the shadowman by Tessa’s pet name for it. “Shadow, if you can touch me, come push me. I took Tessa away. She’ll never be back. Show yourself.”

A loud squelch of sound like electronic interference screamed from downstairs.

He remembered the noise from last night and from a decade ago. That sound had scared her so badly she’d pointed a gun at Glenn. One of the entities in this house got its kicks scaring her. She wasn’t thrilled to face it, but she wasn’t terrified of the shadowman. Glenn didn’t believe the sound to be associated with Shadow.

Fast and out of the corner of his eye, Glenn caught a glance of the six foot shadowman a split second before Shadow shoved him out of the chair where Glenn was sitting. At least it hadn’t followed her. At least he got proof of the shadowman pushing him this time. At least the shadowman came out to play.

For the next forty minutes, all the entities in the house started hitting, responding, before everything fell to silence and a creepy feeling again. Although it was five in the morning, dawn hinted at the sky. Time to call it quits for the night and review the evidence.

On the drive home, Glenn held the recorder up to his ear, listening to the playback for electronic voice phenomena. Two sets of voices, like a conversation, an argument, in dark rattled hisses and the other a deep growl. Hair lifted off his neck again, fairly certain who these two male voices represented, fairly certain what they said, fairly anxious to clean it up and listen again.

He walked in to find Cole on the couch with the TV on, music thumping, laptop on the coffee table in front of him.

His brother snarled at him. “Thanks.”

Glenn stared at him, not really ready for another problem. “You aren’t bleeding. You don’t seem to be drunk. Your clothes are still on. Thank you. Where is Tessa?”

Cole stood and held up one hand. “Wait.”

“What all ready, brother?”

“She took off on your dirt bike an hour or so ago.”

“She’s gone?”

“No. She turned it over. She’s bleeding. She’s drunk. I don’t think all her clothes are still on.” Cole pointed down the hall. “She’s in your bedroom.”

“She’s just one little fluff of female, Cole! I asked you to watch over her for a few hours in real-time. Too much for you?”

“Listen. She’s worked with almost all guys her entire career.” Cole waved his hand down his body. “There’s a firewall around her. We did not reach an exact truce, but I can’t grab hold of Trouble like you can.”

“Damn well better not,” Glenn growled and walked toward his bedroom. “God,” he muttered along the way, “I know You’re funny, but this seems to be bordering on mean. I don’t know will happen after I walk in this door. If she’s three sheets past tipsy, I don’t know if I’ll say no.”

He opened the door.

She launched at him, smelling of whiskey, wrapping her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck. “I can’t work for Homeland Security,” she whispered like this might surprise him. She brushed her lips across his. “I didn’t mean to spill your bike. It’s okay.”

“Are you?” He settled his hands on her where she was wrapped around his waist. Her jeans were no longer on and his fingers slid over silky skin. Which was more dangerous, to keep his hands on her or to pull back and look at her?

“Are you okay? See any spooks tonight?” She sounded worried.

“When the evidence is all together, I’ll show you. It was a pretty slow night though.”

“Are they asleep, Glenn?”

“No. Not as active as I had hoped. Maybe tomorrow night after I tear up your yard some more.”

He walked forward and leaned down to sit her on his bed. Beside his bed, a mostly full bottle of whiskey waited. Well, she didn’t drink often maybe she shot it fast? He looked down at her leg, where a scratch, not road rash, showed below her thigh. Blood had run down her long lean leg, dried trickles. He sighed and walked into the bathroom to retrieve a washcloth and antiseptic.

She had the blinds closed over the wall of windows overlooking his land, closing out the morning sun. Shades of gray touched his bed, and the woman on it, and Glenn leaned back down to her. Her jeans had a long rip down the thigh. When he picked them up to move them over, his hand closed over the front pocket. A memory long faded jogged in his mind, no doubt what was in her pocket.

He tipped her face up to get a good look at her. Yeah, she’d had some to drink but her green eyes were red and glassy. She was stoned! She had obviously found some of Sam’s stash. “Not in my house. Damn you, Tessa, you better not have gotten high in my bed.”

“I didn’t. I went for a ride on your bike.”

He stood up with the washcloth after her wound was clean.

“I can’t work for DHS, they are out to get you, and you know that. I couldn’t think of you out in my spooky house, they are out to get you. I’m pretty paranoid right now, Glenn.”

“Good.” He stood there madder than he could remember; mad at her for bringing the wrecking ball so close to them. At the same time, she looked mighty good, yet mighty distressed. He thought about the way she had said they and he started to laugh.

“You’re not laughing at me while I’m freaking out?”

“No.”

He returned the washcloth to the bathroom, but he chuckled some more. Her diary had plenty on the evils of getting high and getting married, don’t mix them unless you planned to stay high for the rest of your married life. He doubted if she had smoked dope in ten years. He was glad she was paranoid; she wouldn’t want to get high again. She wouldn’t be asking him to get high with her. He had no intentions of falling back into that lifestyle. No intentions of her falling back into it either. Now they would not need to have this discussion in the future.

“Yori has a lot of power, a lot of cyber-warriors . . ..”

He leaned his face down to hers. “They are out to get you, babe.”

“That’s not funny, handsome.”

“Am I laughing?”

“I got stoned! I got cottonmouth and the munchies, remember those? Damnation,” she growled, clearly angry with herself. “I drank and then drove your bike right into a ditch where I lit up. Maybe it’s this area, kinda like a dead zone for phones, a stupid zone for me.”

“Don’t beat yourself up. Bad choices don’t have to be permanent choices; a person can always turn it around.”

“I resigned from a great and very lucrative job, in a wonderful city where I was invisible, wanting the new career even if I had to work at accepting Big Brother. That’s like fraud to so mislead me. I’m unemployed for heaven’s sake, consulting only. I don’t know about partnering with Cole.”

Glenn dropped back on the bed beside her. “I take it you didn’t sleep.”

“I was waiting on you, Glenn. I was worried about you, scared for you in that house.”

“Stop worrying, stop being paranoid, just be mellow and then come over here and snuggle into me. You’ll feel better, you’ll see, when you wake up.”

She slid over and he wrapped her close to him. He stroked one hand down her back. She snuggled closer and sighed.

“Do you feel safe now, Tess?”

“Yeah, Glenn. I do. It’s real nice.”

“This isn’t a dare, not a challenge, so don’t take it like that. Go to sleep because nothing else is going to happen between us. You won’t be stoned, Tessa, when I make love to you.”

She humphed him, but then moved a smidge closer and sighed again. Her breathing evened out and she was asleep in a little more than a minute.

Glenn tucked her head under his chin. “Only sweet dreams for her, Lord. Give me wisdom to deal with this woman; the clock is ticking down to when she’ll leave. Help me hunt out her ghosts so we’ll have some time before Tessa goes. Keep her safe.”

He closed his eyes, and tried not to be overwhelmed by sexual thoughts while he held her. He pulled her right up against him, one arm over her holding her to him. He liked it; he’d wanted this for a long time.

He remembered way out in the middle of nowhere, her inviting him in for sweet tea no where close to as sweet as she was, happy to see him to fix her crappy phone lines, another real-time sharp mind to interact with as she awaited him getting her back online. Closer to attaining his dream and his goals, he drifted to sleep.

Glenn blinked awake, shades drawn, room cool and dim. Sheets beside him were cool too. Where was Tessa? Oh man, what time was it? He stared at the clock, not thrilled to discover it was past noon. He needed to run up to Haven, to get out to the job of landscaping, to review evidence, to hunt ghosts. He needed to see Tessa. Maybe he really needed to start delegating more.

After a quick shower, he dressed and headed toward his computer room where he expected to find her. Sure enough, it sounded like a warzone out there. He found her on her laptop with his brother on another, shooting each other in the head, spawning immediately, and doing it again. “So have you worked it out or working out your frustrations?”

“He’s a snoop; I can’t stand them. I’m not interested enough in anyone to be.”

“She just mad cause I walked in here when she was leaving an encrypted draft in a shared email with the leader of the Russian mafia.”

“Tessa, come with me to Haven. I’ll check the evidence there too. Then I’ll bring you back before I go out there to landscape and then hunt ghosts.”

“You didn’t get enough sleep, dude.”

He did not remind her that she obviously had not either. He held out his hand and she placed hers on it. “I need coffee,” he admitted before he escorted her to his truck.

On the short drive to Haven and still pre-caffeine with a heavy coat of daze over his brain, he couldn’t seem to wait and knew it to be unwise. “Why were you communicating with Korschovf?”

She slid her hand over his on the seat between them. “I don’t want any of that to touch you. It’ll scare you, Glenn.”

“You ghosted, Tess. Why go back to an old alias? Why not turn your cell phone back on? You sure didn’t do that for me when you poofed from Podunk.”

“Pixie didn’t cut and run on you this time. I came here to see you. That’s why I didn’t want to do the designs remotely. If I’m in this area, then I want to hang with you. You could share some of the responsibility. Surely all your enterprising won’t fall to dust?” She winked at him. “I have pixiedust; I’ll help you.”

“It’ll scare you, Tessa. Hell it scares me and I don’t scare easy.” He pulled the truck to a stop before holding open the door for her.

“Might be I know a thing or two about how to stand and fight.” And she placed her hand in his.

They both grabbed a coffee and headed into his office. Glenn set the digital recorder on his desk. This would scare her out of the room. Yet he couldn’t seem to let go of it; his desire to know what she possibly could have to say to the black hat headhunter seemed to grow stronger. “Inbetween jobs, is the Russian who you are consulting with?”

“No it’s a part-time gig.”

“With the Russian who wants you snuffed?”

“With a U.S. Senator, dude.”

“Well well well. Heart hacking, you have your hand in it all ready. You his guardian angel, Tessa?” Glenn leaned back against his desk; stretched out his legs and cocked his ankles.

“He helps support the scientist studying invisibility. No benefits but lots of perks. He fights for the right to privacy. It’s all good.”

Glenn reached out to pull her closer. “Do you trust me, Tess?”

“Were you not listening?”

“Then I am asking you to share with me what you are talking about to Yori Korschovf.”

She leaned against his desk too, right beside him. “Like I asked to share in the ghost hunt? Right before you turned into that guy, the one who thinks I need protected. That’s sweet, Glenn. Now wake up.”

He grinned. “A positive stroke and a low blow. You don’t think we’re negotiating? That’s sweet, Tess. Wake up.”

He moved around to his computer, pulling her next to his chair. “After you hear these EVPs, you’ll see this shadowman for what he is. You’ll be glad I’m keeping him away from you and you away from him so he won’t follow you. The portal is close to your house and he can leave if he wants; I know he can. I intend to prove it.”

She shook her head. “I don’t get it. You hunt ghosts. He can communicate, intelligent. Do you want Shadow to follow you home? Kinda keep him around to keep learning from, to interact with like a puppy?”

“Not cute. Not cuddly. Not lurking in the background when I pull off your clothes and take you to bed. No.”

She shivered then but he started the recording through the computer to clean it up. She shivered again when, Leave me alone, growled clearly now that the hiss was reduced. He didn’t need to tell her of all people that it was Sam’s voice tweaked with something inhumane and dark.

The rattled hiss of the next voice made him shiver. Get out! Bring me Tessa.

The rumbled growl roared, Bring me Tessa back!

Then the hiss rattled again, Yes bring Tessa back.

“Do I need to tell you which one was Shadow?”

She listened to the rest, shaking her head. “I can hear you asking him questions. That’s not you answering though.”

He showed her the footage through the thermal imager of the shadowman shoving Glenn out of the chair.

“I thought you said it was pretty quiet!”

“It was.” He was not going to tell her that he believed the activity would spike if she set foot on the land again.

She pointed at the screen. “I don’t want you to go back out there!”

“This one is different for me, Tessa. I have intimate knowledge of more than history. It’s where the skeptic in me got spooked out. I’m personally involved. Usually when you go in to help someone, it’s to find out why it’s not what it seems, not haunted, or maybe for fun, for some kind of proof to back up that they are not crazy. It’s usually for knowledge, not usually this spooky for me. So what does that make it for you, terrified to the Nth power?”

“I like that about you, Glenn.”

“What that I had the crap scared out of me once and had to find out all about it so it wouldn’t scare me like that again?”

“Exactly.”

“In all the ways you know now, babe, to hack, to hack a heart, and you think it’ll scare me if you tell me, which means it must scare you, which means it must be a bad scene. I don’t want you to try and protect me, silly woman. What is happening with Korschovf?”

She slid off the arm of his chair onto his lap, looking up at him from the side. Green eyes shooting sparks, she confided, “My phone was off. I didn’t even know until this morning. He went after my friend!”

“In the cyberwar?”

“No. As in boom goes his apartment. He’s gonna come ghost with me in Podunk until tryouts. He’s a wickedly slick individual; you’ll like him. We both work for a senator who has a Medatron implant in his heart. Yori does not want David or me to show up to work full time for his enemy.”

He rubbed one hand down his face. He was trying not to react and have his reaction set off one of hers to the firewall around her heart. “You were right. It scares me. Is that cyber-terrorist coming for you, too?”

She pulled her shirt up to expose white skin, a navel ring, and four flash drives dangling from a necklace. She fingered the purple USB. “See this; it’s a prototype. A perk for working for the senator. It can be invisible for thirty seconds.”

“Beta invisibility? Not sure I can swallow that one, babe, but if it exists I’m sure you’d be in on it. What’s on that?”

She grinned up at him. “Want to watch it disappear?”

“Stop trying to distract me,” he warned her, but she pushed a tiny button on the side of the USB while it sat on his desk. Before her finger was back from the tabletop, the thing vanished! He couldn’t believe it, blinking, counting, wondering what other secrets she might possibly keep. “That was only twenty-one seconds,” he said when it reappeared precisely where it had disappeared.

She reached back up to it and hooked it away on her necklace again. “Prototypes. Glitchy.”

“What’s on it?”

“A program that patched Yori Korschovf’s new insulin pump. Also a worm to reverse-engineer it, to destruct with a buffer overflow of insulin straight to his heart. One keystroke, 500 meters, exploitation, assassination long range, no trace no trail. The true state of vulnerability in Medatron and Yori’s one legitimate business.”

She scoffed. “I thought I was helping him. Wanted to believe he wanted to make it right, to protect people with medical implants.” She closed her eyes. “Then he attacked the senator last night, and later tried to roast toasty my friend who defended the senator and defeated the Russian cyber-terrorist.”

Glenn counted slowly, silently to ten. He blew out an exhale. She couldn’t go to the haunted house to hide out. If Shadow saw her; the shadowman would not go into the cave behind her house and through the portal to the shadowland. He had to finish this! He’d called all these guys together, promising them a wild time.

On the other hand, floated through his mind, take every second with her while she was with him. Or he could ghost with her. He’d never personally had the other type of spook after him. The woman should come with a warning label.

She smiled at him. “I’m gonna stick around here to meet David in a while.”

“At Haven,” he repeated to make sure he heard her right. “You are meeting some man, yet a different man, here at Haven, another hacker, while I’m gone hunting out your ghosts tonight?”

“Glenn,” she rubbed her hand down his chest. “Please don’t use that tone like what I said could be a bad thing. I’m pretty sure I told you three months ago I wasn’t seeing anyone like that. Tell you what we’ll do, we’ll go over all your evidence, clean it up, documented and time-stamped. If you want, we’ll send it viral. That should surely clear up some time for me tomorrow?”

”My, my,” came the comment from the doorway. The young bearded man tilted his head. “Even better than your credit score.”

“David,” she sprang off his lap and hugged the dude. She swung her arm. “This is Glenn.”

David nodded, narrowing his eyes on Glenn. “Did you punk her once upon a time?”

Glenn stood up. “That’s between the lady and me.”

David smiled viciously. “Sub-seven legends don’t die. Hurt her again, and your credit score will not nearly be as fine as you are. And that’s only strike one, hate for you to lose Haven.”

Glenn had come around the desk where Tessa stood blushing bright red next to her friend.

She held up one hand. “Sometimes David and I don’t agree on what’s mean and what’s funny, but he is joking. Punking you. Excuse him for being grumpy after his apartment blew up and he drove a bunch of hours to get here.”

She turned to David. “Let’s get you some caffeine, dude. Back off. He’s mine.”

“Tessa,” Glenn crooked his finger. Did he want to turn that dude loose in Haven and then leave? No. She looked up so expectantly at him, he tried not to blink. He did trust her. “Give me a kiss before I go.”

She slid her arms around his neck. “Good luck. Be safe. Happy hunting. Please make them go.” Bold green eyes stared into his. “Later, Glenn, I promise you.”

He kissed her until he was ready to close his office door and slide everything off his desk except for this woman. He had to go. He had plans to go. He was supposed to go.

He forgot why he was leaving her side. This woman had stopped believing in promises. Now she was making him one? “Deal,” he assured her and turned to go while he still had an ounce of willpower.

Glenn picked up his cell, deferring to the one person he did know who dealt with cyberspooks on the hunt, and called Cole. “Get up to Haven. She’s leaving my sights now. Don’t let that spook get her.”

“Deal,” Cole agreed and hung up.

Glenn nodded at her before turning to go. He turned back before he walked out the door. She was watching him. She shot him a lopsided smile. God, he prayed, don’t let her ask me to stay.

Tessa plopped back in a chair next to David, fanning her shirt from her hot skin, watching Glenn walk out the backdoor. Was there anything she could say to change his mind to stay? Maybe, she decided, if it was only him and her. It wasn’t; there was a madman from Medatron after her. By default, Glenn would be her most vulnerable weakness to attack. Just so long as Yori didn’t find that out; she needed Glenn to go.

She looked over at David, and then she looked up at the ceiling. “God, I need a little help. Stop Yori, so I can show Glenn that I can go all the way, hardcore, bump in the night with him.”

When Cole walked in, she pointed to the chair on the other side of her. “Okay, partner, this is David. David, if you go ahead to tryouts you will hear tales of Cole Stone at DHS where you will be working. What do you say to that?”

David scrunched down in the chair, sucking down his coffee. “Is this a bad dream?”

“No. I don’t want you to have any, but I told Glenn we would crunch all his evidence so we are all three going to work on this.”

“Great,” Cole muttered like it was anything but. “So you are agreeing to startup a business with me?”

“Yeppers. Yori will still be your enemy. He’s David’s enemy. He’s my enemy. He won’t be Glenn’s.”

David countered, “If we attack from Haven, Glenn will be.”

Cole shook his head. “Not if we take Korschovf out of the game entirely.”

Both of these guys liked playing with cameras, surfing eye in the sky. She worked on cleaning up the evidence, while they crunched facial recognition software for Yori Korschovf in DC.

When Cole found him, she was no longer limited, her line of thought no longer a direct line of sight and long range attack on Yori.

“Okay, Tessa,” David said to her. “You’re up.”

Hardcore, bump in the night? She’d meant with Glenn, not assassinating Yori. But wouldn’t someone have taken out Hitler early in the game if they’d had the chance?

Cole held out his hand. “Give it to me.”

David shook his head and held out his hand. “I’m the one who had my apartment splattered for a block. Besides, Tessa, I’m gonna head out for the senator’s favorite scientists. We both know that’s a special USB. I can’t hack for DHS.”

“You’re a snoop too, like Stone, you might like it. Try it, dude, and if you don’t like it go over into invisibility then.”

Tessa plugged in her purple USB. She jumped onto a griefer’s site, the one’s handling the security scanners at Yori's hotel. She changed the radio signal to emit the unique signal for Yori’s insulin pump, unheard by ears, undetected unless Yori walked through them. “We’ll leave it up to the Big Man Upstairs.”

Cole nodded at David. “I vote we herd him outside.”

David typed on the keyboard in front of him, and then the fire alarm and sprinklers set off on the top floor of the hotel where Yori had a room and Cole had a camera tracking the Russian’s moves.

Tessa watched as the Russian came down the stairs, down into the lobby, out past the security scanners. Yori walked through them and out glass doors. He wrapped one arm around his stomach and bent over a bit as he pulled out his cell phone.

All three of them watched and listened over the hotel’s security system as Yori said into the phone. “Blow up Haven.”

David hung up his phone which had rung as they watched Yori.

A fire truck rolled into sight in front of the hotel. Even though a paramedic helped Yori into an ambulance, Tessa knew it was too late. Unless God intervened with a miracle, the insulin shot into Yori’s system from his pump would shutdown his heart.

She glanced up at the ceiling. “Thanks for the help, God, but if I have to go tell Glenn that Haven has been blown up, I don’t think he’ll be so keen on the idea of me staying to remote into work.”

David turned the phone over in his hands. “You have gone over the edge if he makes you this crazy to start praying.” He held up his cell phone. “I cloned Yori’s phone, old school wardialing. He called me. Not a hit. Don’t tell Glenn—“

Glenn spun her around in her chair. Devastatingly handsome, smiling brightly, she could feel the thrum of adrenaline racing off him. “Don’t tell me what?”

Cole tossed up his hands. “That Haven will not be blown to hell.”

“Mean, brother,” Glenn said. “Not funny.” He scooped Tessa up from her seat and spun around. “They’re all gone, babe.”

“That’s wonderful, Glenn.” She squeezed his neck. “Thank you,” she enthused, catching his adrenaline buzz, and kissed him.

He walked out the backdoor of Haven, heading for his truck.

“Where are we going, silly man?”

“You have my undivided attention now.”

“Good. I wanted to show you though, Glenn, that I can stand by you and can go all the way like you asked me. Hardcore bump in the night. You think I don’t want to help people who are being spooked out when I can understand it? It’s not like they can call the cops.”

He drove fast toward his house. “Plenty of time for that, Tessa. I intend to persuade you that you can work from here. You don’t have to go. I want you to stay.”

She grinned, staring out at the stars winking down at them from the open moon-roof. She’d all ready made plans with Cole so she could stay and remote in. Glenn had her diary; he knew things she wouldn’t flat out say to any man. They were going to have mind blowing sex if they ever got around to it. “I love you, Glenn,” she whispered near his ear.

“I love you too, Tessa.”

“Would you consider marrying me, Glenn Reston?”

“I thought you’d never ask, woman.”

After he pulled into his driveway, he picked her up like she was a little piece of fluff. “Time for hardcore bump in the night.”

Happily Ever Afters!