“We came here to hunt them out. Sending the entities to hell for all eternity is still the plan.”

Tessa stared at the determination glinting in silver eyes. Did he believe this was his purpose? No need to make it a mission impossible. “Then let’s go back inside and finish it. I can go in there and stir them up, Glenn. Did you notice the activity level when I’m inside there?”

“I noticed. We all did.”

Cole lifted his hand. Four angry red scratches welted across the back of his hand and down four fingers. “That little jumpy shadow has claws. It got me when it batted out the tape recorder. I don’t want to go back in, but I don’t want to leave this scared either or it will haunt me.” He pointed at the scratches. “Will I turn into a vampire or something?”

Glenn laughed. “No. Watch out, bro, this is how it starts. The skeptic wanting answers, wanting proof, wanting to find a way to disclaim it happened. Those look as painful tonight as they will be in the light of day tomorrow. No discrediting that.”

He turned to Paul. “How about instead of checking them out, you run full-on exorcizing them?” He turned to the other paranormal investigators. “Ready?”

A dozen men hooted and laughed, heading back toward the front door.

Glenn walked over to his truck and set her gun in the backseat.

When he came back, she extended her hand to him. “I won’t try to let go this time. Let’s do this, hardcore bumping in the darkness so it can bump back and you can chase it out.”

“Deal,” he said and took her hand, entwining their fingers, walking with her to the threshold. “Tell me about the shadowman before we go back inside. You called it Shadow. He was holding out his hand to you. This is the one you said tossed Sam across the room?”

She shivered. “He does seem happy to see me. He’s the nicest spook in there. But if he gets riled; oh, then Shadow can be very very scary. Shadow is the ghost that intervened, yes.”

“Do you want him to go?”

“I didn’t slip out last time, barefoot and sneaking, so he would stay in my life. I said he’s the best one in there. Not that I want to keep him. I don’t want to go back to scared all the time.”

Glenn squeezed her hand like a shot of encouragement. “Fear not. Tell them to go, Tessa.”

They stepped across the threshold. One of the men stated, “Nothing yet.”

Tessa blew out a slow exhale, gathering her courage. “Shadow, I want you to go!”

The front door blew shut like someone had slammed it. Only no one stood behind her and Glenn. She stepped farther into the house, past the living room, into the dining room, holding Glenn’s hand. She blew out another deep exhale, preparing her mind game against the ghosts. An ugly eerie overpowering fear had descended upon her upstairs where a demon had whispered in her ear after the front windows exploded. She bit down on a whimper, wanting to show Glenn she could go all the way.

The demonologist chanted in Latin, performing an exorcism. He swung a golden decanter with incense blowing white smoke in its path. He shook a glass cross and holy water sprinkled into the air in front of his path.

“Let’s go upstairs.” Had she really said that aloud? This time, she made sure she did. “Wakey wakey house, time to play truth or scare.” She held Glenn’s hand as she topped the stairs. “Sammy, are you here?”

A round yet tiny red orb flew around from the bed in a flight pattern around her head and back again. “Glenn?”

“It could be the IR reflecting off something.” Just the same, Glenn stuck his big calloused hand up and into the flight pattern. “Cold air. Sam Kendall, why do you stay here? You came to a bad end here.”

Tessa . . .

“Did you hear that?” she asked him.

“Yeah.” He pointed at the orb now floating back and forth in front of the broken panes of glass. The orb pulsated, like cranking energy, growing as big as a baseball.

A chair slid across the floor and thudded against the wall where it continued to rattle back and forth like some invisible force shook it from behind.

The radio at Glenn’s hip bleeped. “Basement. The action is down here.”

Tessa blew out two quick exhales. “Are you and Shadow friendly now, Sammy?”

The red orb pulsated again, morphing into a bigger perfect circle the size of a beachball and shot under the bed. The bed rocked right to left as the beast below shook it.

The closet door squeaked open in the dark, but an inky blackness darker than night and six feet tall blocked out the night with an even deeper shadow.

“Shadow,” Glenn breathed. “Are you attached to this house, the land, by a curse?” Glenn sat a K2 meter on the top of the entertainment center. “Move your hand in front of this and the lights will flash. Once for yes. Twice for no. Does a curse hold you here, specifically, to this location?”

The dark shadow blurred as if he had a superpower of speed. The K2 meter flashed once, and then flashed again as the inky silhouetted hand passed in front of the K2. Shadow stood not two feet in front of her. She squeezed Glenn’s hand.

“Is it Tessa? Is she why you stay here? Waiting for her to come back?”

The K2 flashed once. Tessa . . .

“No, no, no,” she refuted. “I want you to leave. Go back to the shadowlands and steal someone’s privacy there. I’m with Glenn now and I’m not coming back here. He hunts dudes like you. Go away and stay away, Shadow.”

Shadow passed his hand in front of the K2 twice, two sets of flickering all the LCDs. No? One shadowy hand pointed at the bed.

“She told you to go, shadowman.”

If she had thought the hair on the back of her neck was all ready straight up, gooseflesh popped over her nape to fluff it up some more. She swallowed. “Shadow, did you help Sammy pull the trigger?”

The K2 flashed twice again.

Glenn pulled her closer to him. “I need a yes, shadowman. Can you interact with the other entities in this house?”

The K2 flashed once.

Glenn let out a shaky laugh. “Yes. Good. Tell them to get out through the portal in the cave, before we seal off that doorway to other dimensions. If you don’t go, we will hunt you out intending harm and send you to hell for eternity. You will cease to exist. Do you understand me?”

The K2 flashed once.

“Go then, Shadow!” Tessa insisted. “Take Sam if you can.”

The K2 flashed twice and the shadowman pointed toward the bed again.

“Well, then take the short mean clawed beast from the shadowlands back with you. Thank you for keeping it in the basement and protecting me from it.”

The K2 flashed once before the dark blur of shadowman speed-crossed in front of them.

Glenn squeezed her hand. “Great job, babe.”

“Thank you. You too. How do we get rid of Sam?”

The radio bleeped again before a male voice full of awe stated, “The Holy Grail. A Rebel soldier.”

Join us Tessa . . .

“I’ll pass,” she whispered.

The radio bleeped again. A different man said, “The demon is in the basement. You wouldn’t believe what just happened. Wait until you see the evidence of two shadowfolk wrestling before disappearing into the night.”

Another bleep, another report. “Activity just spiked in the cave. We’ve got flashes of light. The two shadowmen slammed into the back of cave and vanished.”

After putting the radio near his mouth, Glenn called, “Paul, come up here.”

Glenn squeezed her hand. “See? We’re hunting them out.” He moved the K2 to the bed. “Sam, can you make the lights flash? Come near them and they’ll light up.” When nothing happened, he added, “What’s wrong bastard? No weed in the afterlife?”

The lights flickered on the K2 as the orb hovered over the bed. The lights continued to flash without cease. Tessa . . . I’m waiting for you.

She whimpered this time. “Are you trying to scare me?”

The lights flashed and then stopped before flashing once.

She could hear the Latin chant coming up the stairs before she could smell the strong burning incense or see the smoke spewing faster into the air. A drop of holy water hit her bare shoulder after a shake to the cross.

“I didn’t kill you, Sammy. That was your choice. Just like staying in this house and staying stoned. I’m glad you proved as weak on your promise to hunt me down and kill me as on every other one.”

The red orb pulsated a darker red, morphing again into an oblong transparency. The bed shook again as well as the K2 lighting up for the next minute.

More smoke filled the air, stinging her nose, as the hair on her arms as well as her nape stood up and another streak of gooseflesh traveled across her skin. The orb flew at her and it felt like her hair had been tugged. She could feel the scream building in her soul as she drifted further into this waking nightmare.

Glenn slid his other hand around her waist. “You didn’t ruin her when you hired out all the guns to hack her. You had no idea how big that would end up blowing into, counties, states even, a real sub-seven legend. She left your ass and went to school so it wouldn’t happen again. You didn’t ruin her success when you left the note trying to set that guilt trap down on her. She didn’t even come back here for your funeral.”

When the orb shifted shapes once again, Sammy’s image appeared within the six foot red oval.

Glenn continued. “You chose hell and I can understand you trying to hide from that end, but it’s time to move on. You can’t stay cocooned here like when you were high. Don’t worry, your buddies depending on you as their supplier will join you in hell someday unless they turn off that path. Turn or burn, bud. All you ever burned was weed and you didn’t turn. Go roast in hell, Sam Kendall.”

The demonologist sprinkled more holy water, throwing it to pass through the red orb again and again as the chant continued.

The orb elongated once more before the image of Sam changed to his last moment with gun pointed at his temple. Boom!

She screamed.

The red orb flickered, a scream as if from very far away floated on the air with the orb before it sizzled and popped where the holy water hit it. Each new sprinkle of droplets shrunk the red blob until it was the size of a burning red coal. The next droplets hit it and it shrunk in on itself like a star imploding in a faraway galaxy.

All three of them, Tessa, Glenn, and Paul, blinked from the ground where the explosion in the room had knocked them to their butts.

Glenn swung up to his feet, pulling her up by their locked hands. “Are you okay?”

She let out a shaky exhale. “Thank you. I don’t need First Aide but I did about wet my pants. I just might when we go after the demon and finish this. Go in. Get it done as fast as we can. Get back out. Hardcore enough for you, Glenn?”

He snorted. As they walked down the stairs, he said, “Go to the van and hack the house. I don’t want you to see what happens when sending a demon back to hell for all eternity.”

“No thank you. I’m a big girl. I lived here, remember?”

“We’re not negotiating, Tessa.”

“It’s more of a mind screw than the whole lot of you privacy stealing pranksters. You think I don’t know that?”

He tugged her hand, pulling her toward the front door. “Go hack the house. Don’t look toward the forgotten cemetery or the land where the Indians were slaughtered near the cave. It’s eerie out there, babe. Stay in the van.”

“Glenn,” she said in warning.

“Tessa,” he said in the same tone. “You’re a hacker. Go hack. I hunt ghosts. I’ll hunt.”

Well that was logical and she did not have a response other than, “Sounds good to me. Be careful. You don’t have to walk with me. I’ve got this.”

The hair still hadn’t settled down on her nape yet, so she hustled to the van without looking left or right. The wind rustled through the grass like whispers. She could feel them watching, listening, whispering. “It’s a trick of the wind,” she said to deal with the paranoia in dealing with the paranormal. She opened the van door and hopped inside with two other guys who yelped when she opened the door before she slammed the door shut behind them.

One of the dudes, laughed. “Well well, code junky. Guess you’re here to hack the house?” He scooted over and made room in front of the white noise.

She dove right in. How did this dude know she was a code junky?

As if she’d sent him the vibe, he answered, “Glenn mentioned it. So is your hat white or black?”

“All the shades of gray in a black and white pictured rainbow.” She looked at another screen showing six angles inside the house. The other dude tweaked the wireless audio, turning up the sound in the basement. She could see six men, including Glenn and Paul in the area behind the furnace. In another window, six men surrounded the opening of the cave.

An ear-splitting high pitched screech of electronic interference filled the air. The guy in front of the audio turned it down, but the scream still rang out. Tessa clapped her hands over her ears. So did the other guys in the van.

On a screen, the demon in the basement showed a black shape constantly moving, changing into different people with different traumas which had occurred on this land. As flashes of dark images blew from the demon like dark choking smoke from its mouth, for a blink it showed Tessa. Then it showed Sammy and she got another angle of the gun from the back of his head, something she’d never wanted to know.

She almost retched and then blinked, temporarily blinded, as two different screens flashed bright glowing white. Ears ringing, she blinked again. That thing had showed her image for a half second. What did that mean? Was she going to hell to join Sammy?

She became aware of male warriors on an adrenaline vacation shouting back and forth to each other. She couldn’t wait to get off this land and shake the dust off her sneakers. She shuddered as her mind’s eye held captured the dark inhumane form with her image in the black smoke pouring out its mouth. She shuddered again, remembering its screaming screech. She would have run from the basement when it hissed its name.

The back doors jerked open. Silver eyes catching stray moonbeams studied her while he smiled at her. Glenn wagged his finger at her.

She shook her head, but still walked toward the heat coming at her from his eyes.

He slid her down him. Lust flashfired through her, flipping her stomach over. He squeezed her, and then swung her around in circle. “It’s finished.” And then he kissed her until her brain blanked out, unknown fatal error.

One the guys in the van said, “That’s just wrong to hog the reward system, Reston.”

The other dude said, “Yeah, get a room.”

Glenn laughed, breaking the kiss, and hustled her to the truck. He stopped though, before reaching to open the door and placed his hands on either side of her. “Now I can devote all my time and focus my full attention on you. I think you might discover you underestimated my charm up close and personal. I’m not here to fix your network, babe, not this time.”

A noise strangled in her throat. Her stomach triple somersaulted. He wasn’t untouchable and neither was she this time.

Tessa sat next to him in his truck. But before he so much as started the engine, she said smugly, “Ha ha ha. My little sex buddy.”

She rose up on one knee and kissed a path up his neck and over his ear.

A baritone rumble sounded in his throat. “Don’t tease me, Tessa, or we won’t make it out of the driveway and away from spectators.”

Just the same, she lifted her face until she stared intently into his silver stare. “I’m running hot for you.” She brushed her hands down his shoulders, down his abdomen, down until he grabbed them in one of his.

“I mean it. Caveman instincts are roaring hot. I’ve been waiting too long for you.”

He started the truck and pulled out of the driveway. He laughed staring at her and not the road as he trailed his fingers up her knee on up her thigh. “You could make me wreck, Tess.”

“No more wrecks for me, thanks.”

“You’re lucky you weren’t killed when you flipped your jeep. And then you got a motorcycle. Hacking biker babe riding recklessly into trouble. You’re hard on a man’s heart sometimes.”

She snorted. “Nuh-uh. I lived in the middle of flipping nowhere, no one for miles. I learned to be invisible.”

He snorted this time. “I’ll take that action as soon as we get to where we’re gonna spend a little private time before you walk into tryouts.”

This man of action had pointed his full attention on her? She couldn’t wait to get to her hotel room. They would not leave it until one of them had to slink to the door for pizza. She had four days between jobs and she intended to focus all of her attention on Glenn. She looked up at him to find him staring down at her. “I’m on the pill,” she volunteered in a quiet whisper.

He blew out a shaky breath and lifted one dirty blond brow. “Do you want me to pull the truck over? That’s not really how I planned it.”

She laughed. “You’ve planned it?”

“Many times,” he muttered and then turned up the music.

When he pulled into the hotel, Glenn sat his gray cowboy hat on her head. He reached into the backseat again and pulled out a ball cap which he pulled down low on his brow. “Don’t look up, Tessa, at the cameras. I know you don’t if you can help it and that you have some unnatural ability to block the shot with your hand. Don’t depend on only your invisible superpower. Be careful, babe, please.”

He sounded so intense that she almost could believe he knew about Yori Korskovf. But he shared her beliefs about privacy even if he once had no scruples about anyone’s privacy. She had told Glenn about a black hat headhunter working hard to recruit her. She had never mentioned his name or his affiliation with the Russian mafia. She also hadn’t mentioned to him that the recruiter for Medatron was Yori himself since she patched his new insulin pump and discovered how exploitable the long range potential in wireless implantable medical devices.

After she slid the key through the lock, Glenn reached over and pushed open the door. “Hurry, Tess.”

So he’s in a hurry? “I don’t think I will. I think I’d rather drive you crazy for me.”

“I already am.” Instead of grabbing hold of her, and he had touched her many times since she’d arrived in the area, he walked past her to the bed. He leaned over, grabbing her laptop bags.

“Gonna need both beds, huh?” She clapped her hands together in front of her once. “Okay you convinced me.”

“Let’s go,” he countered.

“Go?” She followed him, ready to pull off his clothes. She didn’t intend for him to be in and out of her hotel room within a couple minutes. “Where are we going?”

He snagged the room keycard from her hand and tossed it back inside the room before shutting the door. “You’re checking out. You spend a lot of time in them, but you don’t belong in a hotel room, Tess.”

At the truck, he opened the door for her and then shoved her laptops in the backseat. She slid in next to him, confused what was happening, other than she was willing to go with him.

He pushed a button and slid open the moon-roof. “Watch the stars until dawn.”

Well that sounded good to her too. She didn’t want to tell him, but she had mapped his house back when she had her own car, a clunker for this trip with no new technology or tracking capabilities. His home was on the north side of town. She tilted her head back and stared in awe at the country view, the vastness of heaven’s floor.

Her mind flashed back to the captured image of the demon and her. She shivered.

“What?”

“I don’t know how you do that. Hunt ghosts, Glenn, fight demons, your forays into darkness. Scary stuff to stand there and not run.”

“I never said I wasn’t scared. I’m more curious though than scared, more determined to win, be it knowledge or fun.”

“That’s what I like about you, Glenn.”

“Yeah?” He pointed toward the open moon-roof. “Better get it while you can. You know how it is in the city.”

She still had four days, she wanted to say. Instead, she stared at the stars not about to pass on his wisdom. She had missed the view, so she soaked it in along the drive, a great vastness and swirling smear of Milky Way and beyond, until she was in awe and in a positive slant with the universe. “Wow.”

“Wow,” Glenn echoed her, but he was looking at her again.

Her stomach flipped again. How much longer until they arrived at his house? She resisted the urge to ask if they were there yet. She studied the stars again until midnight blackness tinted dark blue and then purple. She blinked, realizing dawn was on its way.

Tessa looked around. Oh they were well past the north side of town. If she didn’t know better, this looked like the exit to the interstate. “Glenn, where are we going?”

“We’re going to the city, to DC.”

“What!”

“I’m going with you. You might get so mad, babe, you do something reckless.”

“What are you talking about? And you so didn’t just call me reckless, right?”

“I didn’t stutter.” He reached for her USB necklace, sliding his hand under her shirt and up until he held the four sticks within his fingers. “Trouble hanging right around your throat, I’d bet everything I own. Tell me you don’t have something on here that Yori Korskovf would order you snuffed for if you don’t go along with him.”

“Oh God help me. How do you know that?” She’d wanted to rock his world. Now she wanted to hit him with a rock.

“See? Reckless. You need someone you trust to tweak that a bit. This has gone way beyond you rappelling down the rocks right where it specifically states, No climbing.”

“I can do my own tweaking, thank you. I’m not reckless, Glenn. It’s handy having the code hidden away under my shirt, tapping my belly ring to remind me that I’m armed and safe. I’d appreciate a direct answer to how you know about Yori.”

“When had you planned to tell me?”

She shrugged. “I wasn’t. You’re the one not answering.”

“Did I ask you to tell me your secrets? Then I’d tell you mine? Did I not show you how much you could trust me by hunting out your ghosts?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” she answered. “All the more reason not to put you in the path of possible destruction.”

“But you are on the path, in harm's way. Tell me again you don’t need someone to tweak your recklessness.”

“I’m getting ticked, Glenn. You told me we were going to have some private time. I thought you meant your house, not hours away in DC.”

“We will. Listen closely. I just made you a promise. You haven’t believed in them for so long, I wanted to make sure you recognized what you were hearing.”

She growled.

“You can choose, babe, Georgetown or Arlington. I have a house in both and they are both real close to DC. Maybe not Falls Church where you had mentioned, but close.”

“You have houses in Virginia?”

“I told you I was a land developer too.” He leaned to reach over in front of her. “When we get closer, I’ll ask you. We have hours in front of us to travel. I have something for you to read along the way.” He opened the glove compartment.

She gasped. Even though the cover was scorched with black streaks, she would know that book anywhere. “That’s my diary, dude!”

He snorted. “It’s been mine for ten years, but I’ll loan it to you. You tossed it on a bonfire, then turned and walked away without a second glance.”

“Listen, hacker scum.”

“Babe, with that trouble hanging around your neck, I wouldn’t be trying to pretend you haven’t put on a gray hat and hacked. You wore a black hat for awhile before you got your white one.”

“I’m not talking about this with you. Haven’t you heard? People are going to great pains to avoid employing former black hats as pen testers. I have my ethical hacking certification and I’m going to tryouts and then attaining the equivalent certification for the government. The recruiter at DefCon was pretty vague, but that’s what it takes for Big Brother.”

She grabbed her decade old diary which she had never imagined seeing again and scooted over to the passenger side. She scrunched down in the seat and opened the cover. She shook her head and turned the page. “I can’t believe you have this. That you read it! Cease and desist on the cover and turned to toast, but that didn’t stop you. See why I had to burn it? People were going through my stuff. I’d rather toast my own privacy than have it invaded and scrutinized before being told I suck. Is that an even trade for me burning your sonar equipment?”

“We are different people now, both of us. But there are things you should remember, things you should believe in again. I’m going to help you do that, Tess. I’m gonna be the guy who tweaks your reckless code.”

“Don’t sound so cocky damn sure,” she muttered and returned her attention to mucking around in her own emotions in her old diary. But when she hit a potent part and the target struck true, she climbed over the seat into the back with her laptops. She almost wanted to cry.

She kept reading though and then she wanted to thump Glenn again for reading her most intimate thoughts. “Dirty weapon here, if you chose to use it.” He’d never discussed the past with her in chat. He'd never let her know he’d peeked at her soul.

She read more, turning page after page until the first instances of her realizing she was playing with a bunch of hackers at night. She could still remember the faces to go with the aliases. All except for the one guy who kept coming at her from every direction, same dude with so very many different aliases. When he kept asking for her picture, she’d decided to see what would happen if they played it that way. But sooner or later he’d say something and she’d realize it was him even if she didn’t tell him so. Cole Stone had admitted that was him.

Nowadays, she didn’t give anyone her picture. Nowadays she’d split if he blipped on her radar recognizing his blackish gray hat right away.

She looked again at the page. Don’t go in there. Oh she remembered that pounding across her brain, her heart, so loud and clear she had no doubt at the time it was God. But she was having fun and she ignored the warning. From there, she took the hard way to learning to excel in security.

It had ruined her. Reading it again confirmed it to her. She’d not let anybody too close since then. Now she didn’t even have to work at constructing a firewall around her heart or work on her on mental encryption. Oh hell no. Now she couldn’t find shutdown.

She won a game face the hard way with a bunch of wicked slick players, but she liked it when she remembered she wasn’t ruined, just wise beyond her years.

“What page are you on?” Glenn asked.

“Don’t talk to me.”

“You’re in my truck; I have a captive audience.”

“Don’t play with me right now.”

“I’m not playing. Don’t you realize that by now? For a really brilliant female you are stupid sometimes. Give me evasive answers? Or riddles that make no sense? No, babe, I never believed your M.O., your think-I’m-a-dumb-hick act. What do you think of page twenty?”

Tessa closed her finger in the book. She thought about hitting him with it. “I’m gonna end up kicking you. And I don’t mean off a server.”

“How about page thirty?”

“Stop it, Glenn.” Tessa closed the diary and reached into her laptop bag for her music. After she plugged up her ears, music thumping, she opened a laptop. She glanced up at Glenn to make sure he wasn’t overly interested in what she was doing.

Her eyes met his silver ones in the mirror. She held his eyes for a second too long before she lifted her shirt to unclip her purple flash drive. How did he still do that, even when she wanted to kick him, she also wanted to kiss him? Those light almost eerie silver-gray eyes cast an enchantment over her. She slid on her shades to block him out.

Definitely time to focus on her defenses. Shades and tunes, she slid into the zone. She worked on the looped frequency and tweaked the code tighter, smaller, faster so if she needed it to defend herself against Yori Korskovf, then she would be prepared. If someone tried to take her down now, she’d take them with her at least.

Glenn’s phone rang and he placed it to his ear. “Reston.”

Tessa turned down her music for a no-tech hack and listened.

“Yep. I’ve seen her even if she thinks she’s invisible right now. She’s with me. We’re headed for my house in Virginia.”

Tessa growled. Who was he talking to that would need to know anything about her?

He paused, listening, and she turned her music off completely before Glenn spoke. “I know but plans change. I defer to your expertise if you want to help hunt out her cyberspook.”

“Glenn, who are you talking to!”

“Cole. He says hi and see you later.”

“God help me,” she muttered. “What mischief are you two trolls in now?”

“Us?” Glenn chuckled.

She could hear the male laughter coming from his phone. She humphed them.

Glenn looked in the rearview mirror. “Which house, which town, do you want to kick back and camp out for some private time?”

“Neither. I’ll give you the address when we get closer to DC.”

Glenn spoke into the phone this time. “Who Tessa? Being headstrong? Imagine that. Talk to you later.”

He hung up and sat the phone back on the shelf in the dashboard. He sighed. “Woman—“

“Don’t you woman me.”

“Where do you think you are going?” he asked so patiently she had to be impressed.

“I have a friend, Glenn, who I would trust to tweak my code when it needs it. He lives in Falls Church. I’ll stay with him.”

“Wake up, Tess, if you think I’m gonna drop you off at some dude’s house and drive away. I won’t let you fall to harm.”

“Let me? Go back to your cave and growl or something equally male. Cease and desist please.”

“I bet you got more of those than I did.”

“Cease and desist? Only when I was first learning. Don’t know how much that was due in part to Big Brother over my shoulder. He doesn’t like it when I swing my hacktivist hammer down on the Patriot Act and Homeland Security. He’s like the angel on my shoulder telling me to be wise. But we fight on the same side of the cyberwar at night and he hasn’t been my enemy for a long time.”

“That’s right; he hasn’t. He changed big-time too.”

She shook her head and tried to stifle another growl. “Although sometimes, if I think about those damn web cameras, I like to push his buttons when he pushes too hard into my privacy. Now I’ve seen Cole in real-time, been on the back his bike; that dude is trouble. What is the common denominator with you guys, tagging me?”

“You two are a lot alike, Tessa.”

She scoffed. “I’m not like him at all. See, you don’t know me.”

“Don’t get on the back of his bike again. Don’t tease my brother.”

“Pardon me? Like brothers in the male species or . . .?”

“As in the same mom. Cole Stone is my half-brother, my big brother.”

“Stop the truck.”

“Not gonna happen until we get where we are going.”

“There was so much going on when the ISP formed from the phone company, at the time, when the first network admin was breathing down my neck because his sons had a bet going on, I tied it to you because he was your dad, Glenn. But you didn’t have a brother. Glenn Reston, Cole Stone. Stop the damn truck. I didn’t leave Sammy for either of you.”

“Chill down, woman, but don’t hit nuclear winter. Cole has been fighting against your Russian cyber-terrorist for a long time. He’s gonna help me make sure you waltz in nice and safe to tryouts. Hopefully, if you decide to take that brass ring in cyber CT and Yori can’t stop you . . . you’ll have the invisibility, the immunity, and the resources to take him on.”

“Hello, God, if you are up there and listening and care what’s going on down here, then Glenn is one of the good guys now. He’s a hunter, working to bring about light. Make him stop the truck and let me out before I pull out my gun and ask him not so nicely.”

“A wise woman wouldn’t point that thing at me again. I like that about you, Tessa, when you’re wise about it. Don’t try to pray the truck into a flat tire. We’re getting close,” he added and tapped his GPS. “If you don’t tell me who this guy is that you want to stay with, then I won’t tell you what else I know about Cole’s interest in what is hanging around your neck.”

She didn’t bite. She wanted out. She wanted away from both Glenn and Cole.

“How badly would you like access to cruise facial recognition software and crunch images in DC where your admirer Yori is waiting in case you do show up to work for Homeland Security? Don’t look at me like I turned into Satan’s spawn. It’s all in the shades of gray, Tessa, but you like danger. I’d imagine it would be pretty tempting.”

She raked one hand down her face. “Take me to David’s.” She leaned forward and pressed his address into the GPS.

He snorted. “Dream on, babe.”

She picked up her cell phone and stared at it. She wanted to call David and have him hack Glenn’s truck to recognize an engine flaw so he would pull over. She wanted to let David know she was about to be his surprise guest. And to tell him who really stood behind door number three at tryouts. DHS, he’d freak with her.

She didn’t dare turn on her phone. All this talk of Yori and Homeland Security tweaked her conspiracy theories and the very real ability to track via cell phone. Permissions to surf facial recognition software for Yori without running from the cybergun? Easy access? Immunity? She blew out a deep exhale. Sounded sweet. “Do you have any more bombshells, Glenn?”

“I haven’t even started to rock your world. If there is another dude out there in competition for your affections, then I’d appreciate you letting me know I’m not the only one trying to crack into your unhackable heart.”

“David and I work as colleagues for a senator. We protect his heart, his pacemaker, from being hacked. We are only two of many. We climb, hike, go the nature route sometimes when we need a break, if one of us really needs to unplug and to live in the moment in real-time.”

“I want you unplugged, Tessa. That doesn’t make me feel any better. Are you serious about him?”

“We work together, Glenn, but he’s my bud. He’s also gay which makes hacking tandem with him safe and exciting. This life is hard enough on relationships without you getting like that. I work with mostly men. I don’t play with them. Don’t get ridiculous like Sam was.”

“Ouch. I’m not Sam. I’m not standing in your way. I know you don’t sleep around with the guys you work with. You don’t work with me. You’re free now and I’m not backing down.”

“Stop stalking me.”

“Stalking you? I’m protecting you! That out-of-control prank really skewed that, babe. Not all guys who are out to get you mean you harm. We’re not all stalkers and you’re a looker. I thought a woman wanted a man to come after her instead of letting her walk out of his life? I know this about you, Tessa, you could find trouble buried at the bottom of the deepest ocean on the other side of the globe. You can find the only trouble for hundreds of miles even in the middle of nowhere. But I’m not Sam. I won’t let you fall to harm.”

“Again with the let me? Better wise up, Glenn. Better wake up.”

“You watch out for everyone else’s ass. You are a protector. Who protects your sweet ass?”

“Why are you making this so hard?”

He pulled the truck to a stop in front of a brick house in a nice neighborhood. “Maybe I’m sweeping you off your feet. Off balance yet from too much too fast? Welcome to Arlington. Now let’s go inside so I can initiate shutdown on that firewall around your heart. Is that hardcore enough for you?” he repeated her question from last night during the ghost hunt.

He held open the truck door, before unlatching the back door. He folded the seat down and held out his hand. “On your own steam sometime today or would you rather me give you a piggyback ride?”

She accepted his hand. Off balance? She felt like Alice freefalling down the rabbit hole. “I wish I’d taken a chance on you when I was sweet. When I was Alice and you were Bob, I had both ignorance and innocence. It ruined me; have no doubt. I turned into evil Eve. And I tangled with Alicia and Robert. I can’t offer you my heart, but I can offer you satisfaction in the moment.”

He opened his front door for her. “Your heart isn’t corrupt. Who are Alice and Bob?”

“Don’t play dumb with me about point A and point B. You know as well as I do what that famous saying means even if I twisted it a bit. That’s you and me on the computer chatting back in the day. You were a good guy, intellectually challenging, funny, agreeing with me that most folks probably thought we were having cybersex in those private rooms. Now Eve is the one who played with Big Brother. Your brother. And sometimes I really gave him hell. That’s not too weird for you?”

“I hunt ghosts. It takes quite a bit to be over the top too weird for me.”

He reactivated his security alarm and turned to where she stood.

She felt the ping reverberate against her heart.

He placed his hands on either side of her. “Stop thinking.” He lowered his face and she couldn’t stop her tongue from flicking over her bottom lip. He must have wanted to kiss her too because then he was and soon she couldn’t think of anything except getting his clothes off.

She tugged at his shirt where he was pressed against her and she was pressed against the door. “Hurry.”

“No hurry. No way.”

“Four days, Glenn. I’ll give you four days and nights.”

“I’ll take that action.”

She slid her arm through his when he held it out to escort her. She couldn’t seem to pull her eyes off him to take in her new surroundings. Focused and in the zone, but she was not planning to play with code now.

The doorbell donged and Glenn frowned. “Wait back there in the bedroom. Lock the door.”

Glenn hustled to the front door. All their stuff was in the truck, his and her guns. No one should be ringing the bell. Cole was the only one who knew they were in Virginia, but Glenn hadn’t told him Arlington or Georgetown. He saw a white van back out of his driveway. He frowned again and opened the door.

“Grrr.” He glared down at white roses in a vase before he bent and pulled out the card. He read, “Don’t do it.” He almost had Tessa in his bedroom and she gets flowers, roses, with a card warning her not to do it. Not go to bed with him? No. Don’t go to tryouts.

Glenn walked back to his truck and retrieved his gun. He grabbed his cell and called Cole. He did away with civil niceties as soon as his brother picked up. “How in hell would Korskovf find her in Arlington when we just arrived? Her cell is off. She didn’t get out along the way. She wasn't seen; she was in the back when I got gas. He sent her flipping flowers, Cole, right to my front door!”

“It’s okay; take it easy. If he found a way to tie her with you, then he could have tracked your GPS or your cell. I’ll be there to pick you both up and bring you to my house. I guarantee Korskovf won’t come knocking in real-time at a DHS door.”

“I promised her some alone time with me, brother, and made sure she knew it was a promise.”

“You will have that. Later. You can keep your promise then. I’m on my way.”

Glenn hung up and turned off his cell. Korskovf knew where they were; he didn’t intend for him to find them with Cole. He bent and picked up the vase of two dozen white long-stemmed roses. He walked inside.

Tessa called out, “Where were we?” He could hear the smile and tease in her voice. She walked out of the bedroom and her smile flipped upside down. “God help me.”

He dropped the flowers into the trash. Then he turned toward her. “I’d say by how pale you are, sitting there where your legs collapsed, this isn’t the first time your Russian mobster has sent you white roses.”

He held up the card. “Don’t do it.” He crumbled the card in his fist. “Why didn’t you tell me he is after more than your code, more than your bright mind?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t think it was important. I don’t think he’s interested in me like that.”

“Remember when I asked you if any other men were my competition for your affection? Yes, Tessa. Him sending you white roses regularly falls into the category of who is after your unhackable heart other than me.”

He leaned down in front of her and cupped her pale cheek. “Cole’s coming to pick us up. I know I promised you private time, and we will have that later, but it never occurred to me Korskovf could find you here. I thought if I kept you in bed with me until tryouts, I’d keep you safe and sneak past your firewall in the midst of all that pleasure.”

“Oh, Glenn.”

“I still promise you the private time and the pleasure, at a later date. Right now protecting you from a madman is my top priority.”

“Why are you doing all this? You chased out my ghosts. You redesigned my land. You drove me to Virginia. Why put yourself between Yori and me?”

He bent down in front of her and captured her green eyes in his. “Focus, Tess. This is what a man does for the woman he loves.”

She leaned forward, holding his eyes while reaching for his hand. “Don’t do this to me, Glenn. I have tryouts and a government certification. When you go back to Kentucky, you’re gonna rip my heart out and take it with you. Do you think I’ll be able to focus then?”

“Don’t borrow trouble for down the road when you have plenty right now. You hate the Patriotic Act and Homeland Security. I was afraid you’d be so mad when you found out DHS had you over the proverbial barrel; you’d do something reckless like spit in their eye. I can see though, all that power at your fingertips tempts you.”

“Why are we going with Cole? I want to be alone with you before tryouts while I can.”

“Because he is the authority for this kind of ghost. Because absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

“His badge was once pretty tarnished. Has the power at DHS corrupted him?”

“No. He’s your digital guardian angel. Sometimes he might use his outlaw side to accomplish his goals for the greater good. You work for the greater good too, but even sweet-hearted people go to hell. Turn or burn. Tessa.”

“How did it go from Cole to me?”

“Yori Korskovf is paying a high prize to have you snuffed or captured and taken to him. If he’s sending you roses, woman, he wants your body as much as your mind. It’s too dangerous for you right now to leave it to chance and not be ready to meet your Maker.”

She crossed her arms over her chest.

“Don’t roll those lovely green eyes at me. You believe, Tess. You tried to pray us into a flat tire. You remember that now after reading your diary. It’s wasn’t nearly the perfect situation, but once upon a time, He might not have cleared out your ghosts but He didn’t let you fall to harm or lose your sanity. He didn’t let the sub-seven legend ruin you; you excel in that area. Who can say if you would have even pursued security if that didn’t happen? And you’ve walked through the fire to the other side.”

He heard another car pull into his driveway. He held out his hand to her before holding out the gray cowboy hat. “Put this on. The Man has facial recognition software and RFID tweaked into everyday life as you preach. Keep your face hidden from eye in the sky 'cause I wouldn’t put anything past what this cyber-terrorist can do to track you; not a conspiracy, for real. This dude is stalking you. But you had plenty of stalkers once upon a time. I won't let anything bad happen to you, sweetheart.”

He blew out a deep exhale and escorted her out to Cole’s car. Glenn sat up front after holding open the back door for her. He about choked after she spoke.

“Okay, dudes. Let’s finish this. Let’s find him, track him.” She lifted her USB necklace from her shirt. “Get me within 500 meters of him; I can twist around the line of sight. Line of sight and in range though is the simplest way. It’s a wicked defense and a slick offense.”

She pointed at Cole. “Can you remote into work? They surely don’t let you do that.”

Cole snorted. “Let me? Well I don’t know I’d go that far but yeah I can. I left the data crunching. Maybe we’ll have a hit on him via facial recognition software by the time we arrive at my house.”

After they arrived at Cole’s house and the garage door sealed them off from the world, Glenn huffed out a deep breath. For right now, he’d taken Tessa off the highway to hell. If the man managed to get his hands on her . . . Tessa wouldn’t go down without a fight. She’d be reckless as hell and end up there.

He joined them in his brother’s room full of computers and large screen LCDs. It was a sweet command center.

Tessa pointed at an image on one screen. “That’s Yori.” The man had a black hat, brown hair and beard, but he had looked up at the camera when he walked into the elevator and Cole had found it by sneaking around with eye in the sky security. “He looks the same as in New York City,” she added.

Glenn held up one hand. “You met with him?”

“We conversed on the sweet long range exploitation of Medatron’s implantable medical devices. He had a brand new insulin pump. I patched it. I wanted to patch everyone with a Medatron ICD, but he wants more of an assassin.”

Glenn growled. “Is that when he started sending you roses? After meeting with you in real-time and not digitally?”

“Pretty much spammed me with them since then.” She pointed at the man on the screen again. “Where he is, Cole?”

“Downtown DC ritzy hotel.”

“Great job. Take me there and I’ll take it from there.”

Glenn wondered if he could keep this woman from warrior-up mode without resorting to caveman tactics.

Cole pointed at her. “Are you trying to give my little brother heart failure?”

“Glenn knows I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I don’t intend to get real close to Yori. It’s not necessary. There will be no trace, no trail, just a wireless medical malfunction if anyone tries to look too hard at why his heart explodes. Don’t believe my M.O., player; I’m neither stupid nor reckless. Take me or I’ll call a cab.”

After sliding his hands down from her shoulders to her wrists, Glenn leaned in from behind her and breathed into her ear. “No deal. Eye in the sky can’t find you right now. Korskovf has an entire cyberarmy at his disposal, looking for you.”

She leaned back against him. “So I hide out here until tryouts? Lay low and be scared? Wage war, another siege? Been there, done that. Maybe this is why all of it happened, all the hands in the hack, the ghosts, so I’d be scared straight onto this road . . . so I would be the one to take down a man as evil as Bin Laden.”

She turned in his arms and lifted her shirt until she held the purple USB. “I can do this. I’m not ruined!”

Glenn slid one finger over the exposed skin down to her navel ring. “I never thought you were ruined, baby.”

Cole held out his hand toward them. “You are not ruined, Tessa. You will save thousands upon thousands of lives. Give me your code and let me show you a few things. You have his unique identifier, the precise looping frequency in a worm. I saw it at Haven. Share it with me and I’ll share with you.”

She unlatched it from her necklace, but held it in her hand, staring at Cole as if measuring how much trust she could place in him. “DHS, huh?”

“You’ll like it, Tess. They are going to dip into ICD security. Someone who believes in privacy as much as you, yeah we need you in the fight. It could be the ultimate assassin’s tool. You still want to save the world, right?”

She handed him the purple stick. “Right.”

Cole smiled at her. “Then use your superpower. Sit down here and let me show you how to be completely invisible.”

Glenn watched his brother and the woman he loved make peace and hack in tandem. They worked together, sneaking into systems to take them over for the greater good. They herded Korskovf out of the hotel room and past some security scanners on the bottom floor which was run by the same company Glenn used. They sent the signal to broadcast the frequency and the Russian walked through. Before he had even walked through the front glass doors, he fell to his knees and clutched his gut and then his heart. He fell face forward.

The two were busy backing out and hopping off piggyback rides into backdoors.

He grunted. “That was the scariest thing I think I’ve ever seen. And I know scary; I’ve seen quite a bit.”

She stood up and settled her hand on his chest. “Too much for you, Glenn? I hope not ‘cause now we can go back to your place and spend some private time alone. I can hear the clock ticking down the seconds until you walk away from here.”

He slid his arm around her waist. “There’s plenty of history around here, plenty of places to hunt ghosts.”

“That wasn’t how I planned to spend our alone time.”

“You planned it, Tess?” he teased her.

“From the moment I walked into Haven and saw you again.” She tipped up on her toes to whisper in his ear. “I love you, Glenn. Let me show how much while I can.”

Glenn pointed at Cole. “Get your keys, brother, and take us back to my house.”

After he shut his front door, shutting him away with the woman he loved in privacy, Glenn scooped her right off the ground. Her laughter made his gut clench, her happy smile aimed at him went straight to his head. “Guess what, Tess?”

“What?”

“I’m not walking away from here after your tryouts. I can remote in, delegate a little more with both Haven and my landscaping crew. It’s part of my plan. What do you say?”

“Yes, Glenn. Oh yeah.” She brushed her lips over his. “Stop thinking.”

“You don’t have to hack my heart. I gave it to you. Now I’m going to give you what I promised you. Do you believe that?”

She sighed. “You better, babe. I’m counting on it.”

“Now about page twenty in your diary . . .” he laughed.

“God help me.”

“He did. He gave you to me.”

“I may never let you out of bed.”

He laughed again and lowered her to the mattress.

Happily Ever Afters

#16 of 16 alternate endings, wrapped up tight to weave into the others.