Tessa slid her hand down his arm. “Silly man. All colors make up white and I’m partial to the shades of gray between black and white on life’s spectrum. White is light while black is darkness, the absence of color, the mean not funny state of mind. You think I’d be shooting for CT tryouts if my hat were black? Do you doubt my ethics, Stone?”

“See, Tess, we’re on the same side this time.” His large hands lifted from the keyboard and picked her up onto his lap.

She laughed. “I’m pretty sure I can’t think; nevertheless work, when you touch me like that.”

“Life is good,” he murmured in her ear.

She shivered when his warm breath whispered in her ear. She nodded at the screen, watching Glenn and the demonologist in the basement. “How does he do that?” She shivered with the creeps this time.

Cole shook his head. “His hat is white; he is light fighting against the darkness.”

On two different camera angles, like two different teams of gamers tossing out all their flashbangs at once, flashing lights from the cave exploded into bright white as did a little room behind the furnace where Glenn and Paul had trapped a demon. The ringing in the air slowly diminished until she could hear again.

While men wooted over the radio to each other, she grabbed Cole’s hand and pulled him from the van. She jumped, wrapping her legs around his waist. “It’s finished!” Then she started anew by kissing Cole for all she was worth.

When Glenn came outside, he interrupted them where Cole had collapsed against the backhoe. “Get a room, kids.”

Tessa lifted her lips from Cole’s. “I have a room.”

“Me too.”

“What are we waiting on, huh?” She jumped to her feet and hugged Glenn. “Thank you for everything.”

Glenn, clearly hyped and thrumming with adrenaline, swung her around. “You’re most welcome, Tessa Kendall.” He kissed her cheek. “Handle my big brother’s heart with care, okay?”

“Well, well, well,” she smiled from Glenn to Cole, Glenn Reston and Cole Stone, brothers and not buds. Her excitement in having this horrid haunted chapter of her life completed was too overwhelming for anything to make her angry. She walked back over to Cole. “When did you plan to tell me?”

“I believe my brother picked a fine time.” Cole steered her toward his motorcycle. “You’re not mad?”

“Nopey.” She swung one hand toward her no-longer-haunted house. “It’s all good. Why, do you have something else you’d care to trust me with?”

He turned, his hands closing over her hips like maybe he thought she would run away. Silly, silly, man. He blew out a deep exhale, seeming perhaps the least confident she’d seen him this far into real-time.

She smiled. “It can’t be that bad. Just spit it out, Stone.”

“About those tryouts . . . at DefCon, you about left the recruiter eating your dust when he suggested the CT team would be for Big Brother.”

She laughed at that and lifted one hand to wave down her body. “Do I look like Big Bro material to you?” She laughed again. “You surely don’t, but once you were. Maybe that gives me some hope, Cole, that this big leap of faith is as right as I believed it to be. You look like trouble. Sometimes I like trouble.” She winked at him, and then nodded at his bike. “If you ever get around to bringing it.”

Glenn laughed next to them, lifting one hand above his hair and zipping his hand right above his curly blond head. “Maybe you should give her some room, so her logic can reboot?” He nudged Cole. “Hurry while the happiness bubble is still in the air around her.”

Cole fastened his hands back on her hips. “Open your mind, babe. You’re big on preaching that. Just like you’re big hammering on the Patriot Act and Homeland Security. Medical cyber CT will be with the Department of Homeland Security. I know this because I have a white hat too. I work for DHS.”

She shook her head when he didn’t laugh. “That’s a mean not funny joke. Those long reaching invading tentacles of Homeland-steal-all-your-privacy-Security? The privacy pirates are planning to dip into implantable medical device security? You said you didn’t have a badge anymore.”

“ID badge. Who doesn’t in our world?”

Glenn volunteered, “I have one for my server room.”

She blew out a deep exhale, feeling the imprint of his big hands on her hips. She had resigned from her job, handed over her responsibilities of a department, her ID badge and the RFID trackers identifying her. “I don’t right now.”

“Your hat is white though. If people who believed so strongly and enthusiastically in the right to privacy and in freedom of speech don’t stay in DHS, it could be the very spawn of Satan like you hammer. How long do you think it would be before our country is a fully policed state if people like us don’t stay in power there?”

“You’re killing my happiness buzz, dude.” She glanced back at the old country house by the light of the moon. “It’s still a great night be alive. Carpe noctum, Cole.” She swung onto the bike and turned the key.

He swung over, keeping her in front of him. After he slid his arms around her waist, holding her tight, she kicked it in gear. Keeping the bike only fast enough to maintain balance, they bumped over the gravel road. He breathed into her ear again. “You never need to come back here. Shake the dust off your shoes when you leave this time.”

One if his big hands slid under her shirt, fingering over and around the dangling guns at her navel. His other hand slid down her waist, over her leg, closer to the middle.

“What are you doing, Cole?” She laughed and tried to give them more speed to stay balanced.

“Multitasking, Tess.”

“I’m gonna crash your Harley.” When his hands kept moving, she groaned. “I’m serious!”

He laughed, but his hands came up over hers on the handlebars, cranking up the throttle. She couldn’t seem to think, squirming in the seat back against him, ruled by her hormones and her heart. When they reached the hotel, she lifted her head back and up on his shoulder to study his gorgeous face. “My room or yours?”

“Mine,” he held out his hand, palm up. “Let’s get our stuff and head out to your future, to Virginia, to my house, to my bedroom.”

She pulled on the hat he handed her. She felt confident they wouldn’t be traveling to Virginia for hours and maybe days, planning to jump him the second he opened his hotel room door and push him back on the bed right there. “Whatever you say,” she agreed.

“Never thought I’d hear you say that, Tess.” He pulled his hat low before slipping his arm through hers. “Maybe we’ll stay.”

He hurried inside, slid open the electronic lock, and picked her up. He kissed her before the weighted door even clicked closed. With no lights on in his hotel room, and only the lone light from her bathroom beyond the open connected door, he lowered her under him on the mattress. “Look at me, Tessa.”

She opened her eyes and stared into his navy gaze seeming to blaze from within. He groaned and nudged her with his hips. He smiled a streak of straight white, dimples carving into his cheeks. “I love you.”

She closed her eyes. She didn’t care what he called it as long as he didn’t stop. But he didn’t stop, didn’t stop whispering it in her ear, against her throat, down the V of her shirt. His hands roamed and she moaned.

She opened her eyes when his trail of I love you’s came back to her lips. She locked her legs around his waist. He wanted to hear it, he wasn’t moving forward in this wonderful dance until he did, she could see it in his eyes, feel it in the restraint of his body. At this moment, she could even believe it. “I love you, Cole Stone.”

“Good.” He groaned and kissed her, long lost loners bonding together in real-time.

She couldn’t figure out why there was a red glowing dot like a laser pointer on Cole’s chest after she pulled off his shirt. It’s important, think! She moaned again and couldn’t remember what she was thinking in the first place except how hot his skin tasted. She couldn’t figure out why he grabbed her hands on each side of her head, staring at her forehead like she had something evil written there, affecting him like an arctic blast of wind. The stiffness of his body against hers changed energy. “Cole?”

He lowered his lips to her ear. “Run into your room and shut the door.”

“What the—“

He moved off her in a blink and pivoted to his right. Someone was in the room with them! Although Cole’s big body blocked her from seeing who, she could see a glint off a gun. It clunked against the wall as Cole held the hand holding it.

“Go!” Cole barked at her.

She jumped off the bed, ran into her room, ran straight for the stack of laptop bags where she kept her gun. She cocked her gun to lock a bullet in the chamber. Yet when she pivoted, she heard thuds of flesh hitting flesh and saw Cole with the gun.

The other man slid down the wall to the floor as blood trickled from his lips.

“Who is that?” she asked, never having seen this man before.

“My enemy’s messenger, his scout.”

“I’m not a big fan of DHS either, but it wouldn’t cross my mind to physically attack and try to kill you.”

The stranger swiped at his mouth, glaring at his gun now in Cole’s hand. Round face full of hate, the man spit on the ground next to Cole’s foot. When Cole stepped back and talked quietly into the phone, mean brown eyes shifted to her. “How could you join someone like him?”

Tessa stepped closer, offended on Cole’s behalf, her temper ticking. “Someone like him?”

“Homeland Security,” the man spat again.

“So?” she snapped. “A man is not defined by the department he works for. You think that gives you the right to hunt him down? Someone like you makes me sick.”

“Yori will be livid, Tessa Kendall.”

She shivered. This man knew her name upon seeing her? “You’re Yori Korshovf’s messenger?” Yori was the black hat headhunter, the head of the Russian mafia, owner of Medatron, and leader of the cyber revolution. She wished she’d never patched the hole in his new insulin pump. “Is your message for Cole or for me?”

Cole hung up the phone and pointed the gun right against the other man’s temple. “Shut up.” Cole pressed the snout hard against the other man’s forehead. “I got your message loud and clear.” He glanced back at Tessa. “Get your stuff, babe. DHS is coming.”

“Surely if I’m considering working for them, that shouldn’t shock my system with paranoia.”

“Woman,” Cole barked this time. “Stop talking. Go get your stuff together. Put away your gun. Get ready to go.”

She tossed up her hands. “My car is dead in the garage. I can’t go anywhere.”

“God,” Cole said like his patience was near an end, “please help me with this specific lady. I was wrong to take her logic offline.”

Tessa huffed and turned into her room. She shut the connecting door like he had originally asked and then collected her clothes and laptops.

She heard the murmur of male voices, but couldn’t make out the words. She counted down from ten, trying to stave off the temptation to open the door and hear what they were saying. But before she reached three, the door opened by another stranger.

He looked at her and cocked his head. “Heart hacker, huh?”

She didn’t like the way he was studying her, like she was some kind of curiosity. “What is that supposed to insult me? That’s like calling me female, a truth the same as hacker. Nothing wrong with either. Let me guess; you’re from Homeland Security? You think I’m the security freak?”

The man tossed up his hands. “What is that supposed to insult me?”

Cole walked through the doorway before grabbing three of her laptop bags. “Thanks, Joe.” Cole turned back to Tessa. “He was complimenting you, babe. Or razzing me.” He grabbed her phone, shut it off, and stuck it in a laptop bag. He scooped up the other three laptops over his other shoulder. “Put on your hat. Time to fly.”

“Where are we going?” she asked him as he hurried her down the hallway, out the lobby, and to his motorcycle.

“My turf,” he said, stuffing her laptops into side bags before revving the engine. “Hold on, Tessa.”

She slid her arms around his waist and hugged him hard. She leaned her lips toward his ear. “Is this a job non-virtual hazard? Do you have men come after you often?”

He pulled out his iPod and handed it to her. “Everything will be okay. Enjoy the ride.”

So Tessa plugged her ears, and over the next couple hours discovered they had most of the same music. In little more than twenty-four hours, her car had died, Cole pulled in right behind her, and she’d been riding with him since. She’d tried to burn down her house; she’d been through a freakish fight with ghosts, and she’d been ready to lock the door to this man’s hotel room, locking them in for days. Like she’d do that with any guy, this guy was DHS! Her new career was DHS, not Big Bro, a mean-not-funny misdirection by the recruiter. She shook her head. Too much way too fast, her mental encryption cracked wide open, full throttle, thinking a thousand miles a minute, trying to process, she started to list it out again and to break it down differently.

Cole glanced back at her. “Stop it.”

“What?”

He shook his head this time, but pulled into the next rest area. He swung his leg to sit beside her. His music thumping in her ears, he kissed her. He pulled her over almost on top of him, still kissing her, his deep rumbled groan igniting another spiraling firework in her stomach.

She forgot they were in a public rest stop right before dawn. She forgot what Homeland Security even was. She forgot everything but freefalling with this man.

He lifted his head, panting. “Mighta backfired on me.” He smiled down at her, confidant again. “Couple more hours, babe.”

He swung back over his bike and they rode off! She was back to listening to music, taking in the scenery, wind of freedom whipping her hair as she enjoyed the ride. He made her crazy!

After he zipped them through morning traffic, he pulled into a subdivision in Falls Church. He pushed a button on his keys and a garage door opened before he steered inside. He pulled the bike to a stop, parking in the garage as the door sealed shut behind them.

No, she did not, she tried to tell herself. She tried to find the silver lining, the invisibility factor she liked. She did not just meet the guy and ride a bunch of states to his house? Oh yeah she did. A DHS dude, way to go! She thought maybe she might have found trouble. Trouble held out his big hand, palm up toward her. An undefined error corrupted everything but the strong pull to him. She placed her hand in his.

Cole laughed and tugged her toward him before scooping her into his arms. He laughed again and kissed her. The woman in his arms, swept literally off her feet, lost hold of her second of pause and of shyness when she stared at him. She may well intend to have sex with him right now. Trouble filling both hands, Cole pushed his feet forward on autopilot into his house.

He stopped at a back window, pulling open the drapes to reveal the sparkling high noon reflection off his pool. He nodded toward the hall, toward his bedroom. He shook his head again and could not wipe the silly grin off his face. “You wanna sleep or swim.”

He lowered her to her feet. She had a weakness for the water; he knew it; she knew he knew it since he’d told her he had her journal. Surely she didn’t really think he brought her here specifically for sex? That wasn’t like Tessa at all. Did she love him or did she tell him what he wanted to hear?

He stifled a groan. Did she realize Yori Korskovf had been scouting for her, not him? Of course it was a bonus Korskovf almost won; Cole was so wrapped up in Tessa that he hadn’t even known anyone had come into her connecting room. In fact, she made him so crazy, he didn’t realize it until a streak of fear shimmied up his spine at the red laser gun sight on her forehead.

She opened the door leading to the pool. She walked out and looked it over before nodding toward a security camera over his pool. “Is that on?”

See, security, her logic had rebooted and would probably save them both. Focus, stay focused, he repeated in his head. “Yes.”

She shook her head. “You and cameras.” She walked directly under it and stripped off her shirt. She tossed it up and over the camera. She smiled at him, bold in her inspection of him, walking over to him.

Cole blew out a shaky breath as she pulled him toward the pool. She didn’t want to swim. She shot him another sinful look, lifting the USB necklace and dropping it on the table. No, her green eyes were so hot where they roamed his body, she wasn’t getting ready to swim. He was in trouble.

“I’m on the pill,” she confirmed, sexy as sin in hot pink bra, belly ring, no long chain of USBs this time.

“Easy, Tess. I can’t swim with you.”

She stepped up and into his personal space at the side of the pool. She reached for his belt buckle. “I don’t want to swim with you either. But hey, I’m feeling like a reckless hack. I’ve come a couple hundred miles for this. Bring it, you big tease.”

He held up four fingers. “The number of days until tryouts.”

She held up four fingers. “The number of minutes before your jeans are off and you’re in the water.”

“I didn’t bring you to my turf purely for this.” He slid his eyes over her hot body just the same.

“Oh yes you did,” she assured him, pulling at the button on his jeans.

Cole looked up at the blue sunny sky, asking for direction. “Mean not funny. You created me to have a sexual thought tick through my head every seven seconds. Then there’s Tessa, standing there like a centerfold for Satan. We’re not going to make it four days alone together here, huh?”

She laughed. “You don’t really think He’s going to answer you?”

“Yes. If I can simply step away and calm the roar of desire to be able to listen. If I can only stop smelling you, wanting to taste you, wanting to take you into that water and let you have your wicked way with me.”

She snorted. “Yeah. That’s me in a nutshell. I do this all the time. Have I gotten so good at invisible you don’t see me?”

He snorted this time.

She lifted her hands from free roaming, but it was too late and he grabbed hold of her and jumped into the water.

He pushed up from bottom, sending them both to the surface. Her legs wrapped around his waist as he kept them afloat. “You make me crazy,” he assured her.

She laughed a bit wickedly. “Not yet but I promise I will.”

He backstroked until he grabbed hold of the diving board. He lowered his mouth to hers, and spoke against her lips. “I love you, Tessa.”

His cell phone chirped from the table beside her USB sticks.

“Oh hell no,” she said. “This is a flipping conspiracy.”

He laughed. “I agree,” he stated but still his fingers worked at the snap and zipper on her heavy wet jeans. Her long legs were still wrapped around him.

The phone in the house rang out. His landline? “I gotta get it, babe.”

“Remember this,” she whispered, “when my phone rings in the middle of the night.” She dropped her legs from him, kicking off underwater away from him.

Cole jumped out, water gushing off his clothes, and rushed toward the phone inside the doorway. Caller ID showed his colleague Joe. “Stone.”

“Yeah, Cole. The rat we picked up in your hotel room has been exterminated during transport to the safe house. We lost two guys.”

Cole rubbed one hand down his face. “Damnation.”

Joe continued, “Before transport, he said Korskovf planned to hack a senator’s heart to pull her out if none of the spooks looking for her turned up anything today.”

“Do we know which senator?”

“Your little lady might.”

“Thanks for letting me know.” Cole hung up.

He looked at the half-dressed water nymph in his pool. More trouble, she should come with a warning label. But he’d known that for a long time, prayed for it. Careful what you pray for, he thought, wondering how they would make it four full days alone with no other outlet. He knew she’d meant it as a good thing, wanting to help patch up the lethal holes in Medatron’s implantable devices. She wanted to save the world; of course she’d want to help people.

He dripped a path into his bedroom and changed clothes. He grabbed another towel and carried it outside. He set it down on the table next to the pool and picked up her necklace with four dangling USBs.

“What’s the big emergency?” she asked, treading water. She laughed, “Someone hack DHS?”

Me, he thought, if you don’t start sharing some answers. He didn’t say that. Instead he asked, “What’s on these?”

“Hey, I was in the pool with you. I didn’t crack anybody.”

“Don’t break out the sweet and spicy temper, babe. Don’t you trust me?”

She stepped out of the pool, coming closer to him, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to resist her if she touched him. One small hand reached out and he exhaled shakily when it closed over the towel. Yes, please, woman, put on some clothes. He’d never thought he’d want her to do that if he had her alone in real-time.

“I trust you.”

There, he was without a doubt past the firewall around her heart.

She walked to the door and reached up under the towel to slide off her wet jeans.

Caught in a trance, his legs moved forward to follow her. Her bare toes left wet marks where she dripped a path to the garage and started going through the side bags to retrieve laptops and clothes. Wasn’t her gun in there somewhere? She looked about frustrated enough to point it at him.

He left her in peace as she searched for her clothes and then she disappeared into a bathroom off the kitchen. If he asked her to tell him about Korskovf, she might change her mind about trusting him; she might change her mind about pointing her gun at him. Korskovf would be their enemy no matter if she wanted to work for DHS or partnered with him in medical security. Cole had to ask her. Please, God, why can’t she tell me on her own? I love this woman, come on!

“Wow!” she gasped after she walked in behind him into his home command center. “Too sweet, hacker.” She stepped next to him and nodded at her USB necklace in his hand. “How much do you trust me?”

“Completely,” he stated without hesitation. He pointed once against his forehead, once against his heart, and once at his computers.

Her green eyes turned darker green, warm and soft, staring at him. “That’s sweet, Cole. No wonder I love you.” She pointed at the silver USB. “Don’t try that one.” She pointed at the purple USB. “This one is worth a fortune to Yori. The code I wrote that patched him in New York City and the code to exploit it and take him down.”

Cole held up one hand. “Korskovf has seen you, as in face-to-face in real-time? You fixed the security vulnerability in his new insulin pump.”

“That’s what I just said.”

“Oh, Tessa,” he groaned. If Korskovf had seen her in person, no wonder there was such a high price on her head. Korskovf didn’t care how he got her as long as he did. Not only her code, he wanted Tessa.

She whispered, “He wants me to consult for Medatron. He wants an assassin, Cole. I ghosted when he wouldn’t take no as my final answer. The messenger came for me, not you, right?”

“I won’t let anything bad happen to you, babe.”

She pointed again at the silver USB. “Don’t plug that one in.” She pointed at his cell phone. “Can I borrow that or should I turn mine back on?”

“You need to stay invisible, Tessa. The man from the hotel didn’t make it back to Yori with a report, so Korskovf can’t know you’re with me.”

She tipped up on her toes, placing her lips near his ear. “I need to speak with David, Cole. Right now. Do you want to drive me to a payphone?”

“With eye in the sky running facial recognition software everywhere? No. Korskovf has a price on your head, Tess. He wants you found. He wants you before you show at CT tryouts. I don’t want anyone to know anything about your whereabouts.”

He handed her his cell. “What is so blasted important to risk exposure?”

“We’re colleagues, contracted you might say, by a senator who has a pacemaker made my Medatron.” She paused before giving him the senator’s name. Then she pressed in numbers on his cell, calling whatever guy she hacked with that Cole knew nothing about.

“David,” she said with relief like she might have been worried something had happened to him.

Cole frowned and continued to stand there, blatantly listening. She didn’t seem to mind the invasion of her privacy. Don’t ask her about David, his logic warned him.

“Because that’s whose cell this is. No, dude, mellow out. DHS isn’t about to swoop down on you.” She paused. “No,” she growled before glancing at him and whispering, “I don’t want his credit score. You don’t either, David. It’s not Big Brother for tryouts.”

Cole could hear the long groan. So David was planning to tryout with Tessa for cyber CT. He didn’t sound any more pleased to learn it would be for Homeland Security than Tessa had.

“David,” she said in another whispered warning tone. “I’m unplugged for awhile. Yeah,” she glanced at Cole and hot red color flooded up her face.

Cole arched one brow. Don’t ask her about David, pounded across his brain again. His heart suggested otherwise, that he snag the phone right from her hand and find out himself.

“Tell me the senator hasn’t been attacked,” she said into the phone before looking at Cole again. “He hasn’t. He might be. Yori is looking for me. You too I’d imagine. You pick Russia over DHS?”

After another pause, she said, “Me either. Call someone else on the team and warn them what we expect. Then disappear, David. I’ll see you at tryouts.”

She hung up and handed the phone back to Cole. “The senator is fine. David is fine. Maybe we’re being paranoid? Maybe Yori sent that henchman for you?”

“Keep believing that,” Cole said with a grunt. “Tess, you care about this David. I can hear it in your voice, see it in your eyes. I suspect you hack together. Do you date this dude?”

She laughed. “No, but he might be available if you want to.”

“Oh,” Cole said, feeling better and not better at the same time. He grinned at her. “I have my hands full.”

“Not full enough,” she said quietly, but when he followed her eyes, Cole realized she meant his keyboard not her body. Just as quietly she asked, “Those 256 shades of gray you hack in give you remote access to facial recognition software?”

“Yes,” he answered succinctly.

“Did you ever use it to see me?”

He didn’t want to answer; his job came with some perks surely. “Tess, don’t ask me questions you don’t want the answer to.”

She held out her hand again. “Okay. I’ll call the senator and he’ll hide us both away for a while.”

Cole snorted. “Thanks, babe, but I can watch out for you.”

“Yori is powerful. You know that. He’s probably like your number one enemy. I can’t stand the idea of him finding out I’m hot for you. He can make Hitler seem like a jolly guy. I’d give Yori anything, Cole Stone, if you ended up in jeopardy because I’m so crazy for you.”

Cole sat down, pulling her onto his lap in front of the computer. He wanted to sweep her off her feet, not vice versa. “What am I going to do with you, Tessa?”

She laughed a bit wickedly, but didn’t run any suggestions past him. Finally she cupped his cheek, “Wanna fly to Russia and be an accessory to an assignation with no trace and no trail, no smoking gun? No. What am I going to do with you, Cole?”

“Not fly to Moscow.”

“I know most of the scientists studying the secrets of invisibility. The senator is a strong supporter. Wanna ghost and go work for them?”

“Are you bored, Tess? God, please help us, if she's bored and starts to actually look for trouble.”

“Why do you do that?”

“Cause that’s what you do; you talk to Him like you are consulting your best bud. He answers, Tessa. The answer isn’t always yes or on a timetable you choose. Look how long I’ve waited for you.”

She frowned.

He admitted one step more. “He told me to wait when I wanted to come after you in the city. Do you know how difficult that was for me, especially when you started dating a cop?” She looked a touch irritated, so he added, “No man wants to think of the woman he cares for having that hot fling between first available and then truly available.”

“You’re embarrassing me.”

“I’m being honest with you. I’m not telling you I love you to get your clothes off. I do love you. I really shouldn’t be trying to get your clothes off at all, but I’m simply a man. I won’t try to get them off you again, Tessa, until we share the same faith. We must have something solid to roll onto from the bed or the pool, something to stand on and to build on, besides what I’m pretty sure will be the hottest sex in my life.”

She groaned. “And you think we’re gonna make it four days, just you and me alone in this house, with no distractions? No sex either from what you’re saying. Sorry, dude, but I don’t put myself in the path of temptation every day. I’m not promising I won’t sprout fangs and sink them into you. I’m attracted to more than your brilliant mind.”

“I hear you, Tessa. What do you propose we do about it?”

“Find Yori, make the world a better place. Hack with me, Cole.” She plugged the purple USB into a front port. “Look at the worm. I’m not done tweaking it. It could exploit his pump at 500 meters, but it needs to work much faster if it’s more than me at risk.”

Her green gaze broke a fresh wave of love over him. How did she keep doing that? He’s the one who wanted to protect her. He didn’t have her idealist qualms. He had no problem with using DHS access to find Korskovf. He knew, however, she would have serious problems with the next step. Cole didn’t care what she said; she was no assassin even if she did write the code.

“How do you usually talk with Yori?”

She lifted her lips in a lopsided grin. “You ruined me, Cole.”

“Encrypted drafts in a shared email account without actually sending any emails?” He remembered when he taught her such a thing, without giving her a code to decrypt it. He’d known she’d find out how, so it hadn’t been an if she decoded it, but a when. “Not ruined. Wizened you up a bit.”

He remembered watching her with web cams in her house, trying to get the sonar and the cams to function way out in the sticks on a crappy dialup network. One night when he was chatting with her, he watched her barefoot, stoned, and dancing, her belly ring catching the light. He’d shutdown the broadcast. His angle was back off her shoulder when she sat and toked a joint, and Cole had sent her all kinds of different cryptographs, trying to encourage her to use her brain, not kill it off.

She lifted her shirt, the remaining three USBs hanging low to her navel ring. “Look again, dude. Ruined. I’m a total security freak.”

“Stop. Tempting. Me.” He shook his head, no, no, no. Korskovf had seen her in real-time. No way would the mobster settle for only her code. Oh hell no, not invisible. Whether she thought she was invisible or not to men, Cole knew with certainty that Korskovf liked more than merely her brilliant brain.

Tessa, an assassin? The same woman who hesitated when she started first person shooters about shooting cyberfolk in their digital head? No more, however, now she was lethal. “Go shoot dudes in the head and let me work.”

“Been dismissed, have I? Stop tempting me. You know my favorite thing to do is go where someone says no. No swimming . . . must swim there. No climbing . . . must climb it. No spelunking . . . oh baby, here I go. Just exactly like you, don’t pretend otherwise. I know you.”

He pointed at the doorway. “I don’t care what you do to entertain yourself. Let me work and I’ll find Korskovf.”

She stood up. “Why didn’t you say so sooner?” Instead of leaving the room, she surfed off his right shoulder.

“Do you mind, lady?”

“So you like to watch but not be watched. What fun is that?” She laughed and left the room.

She returned in a couple minutes with her laptop and pulled up another chair, sitting beside him as he had her at Haven. Surfing off his shoulder like Cole had for years wherever she networked. He wasn’t inclined to share those murky shades of gray. She didn’t seem to be too interested in the half dozen screens in front of him. Instead she’d plugged the purple USB into her laptop. Then she plugged in her earbuds and hit the zone.

His first hit of Korskovf’s captured image came time-stamped last night from a DC hotel. Cole grunted, cranked up the resources and pushed up the crunching time. Come play in my sandbox, he thought, pulling up another image time-stamped two hours ago leaving the hotel.

He glanced at Tessa busy tweaking code. While the search ran, he glanced over at a screen divided into four views of his house. The sun sparkled on the pool and a raft floated to the shadow of the diving board. He looked back at the search, pulling up another match of Korskovf leaving the city limits, timestamp showing an hour ago.

Cole glanced at Tessa again, back over at the security cameras where the raft floated under the shadow of the diving board. He looked again. Tessa had covered that camera with her shirt. This had been captured earlier, looping. The search of facial recognition software identified Korskovf again, thirty minutes ago and a couple miles away. Crap. He stood. “Be right back.”

She called out, “Good thing you don’t have any ICDs with Yori’s identifier.”

“Spray and pray,” he muttered while going to his kitchen pantry and retrieving his gun from the safe. He’d locked it up again, what two hours ago maybe? He hoped Tessa was broadcasting the signal.

He checked out the backdoor, walked out by the pool, seeing Tessa’s pink shirt fluttering in the breeze over the camera. He checked the garage. Nobody there. No one had come into the house; he’d kept his head enough not to be running so hot for her that someone could sneak up on them.

Cole cocked his head, hearing quiet footsteps on his roof. He did not have ghosts, but cyberspooks.

He didn’t want to alarm Tessa, so he stuck his head in the doorway. “So you’re broadcasting it?”

“This is a test. This is only a test. In case of an actual emergency—“

A loud thud came from a front room above the house.

Tessa stopped smiling. “Oh no! Call Glenn. Why didn’t you tell me it was haunted?”

Heavy thud thumps rolled across the roof and down before a splash cannonballed the pool.

“A haunted pool?” She shook her head. “I’m leaving.”

“No.”

Cole walked closer to the open window overlooking the pool. A man in dark clothes with dark hair floated face down in the water. “No. I don’t want ghosts,” he growled, but listened as more thudding footsteps ran across the roof. How many would be up there, pointing a gun at him if he walked outside? How many would go after Tessa?

She came out of his computer room with her laptop closed and USB nowhere in sight. She pointed up at the running feet above her head. “Give me your keys or take me. No more ghosts. I wanna go.”

Another huge splash hit the pool as one man jumped down to save the other.

Tessa screamed, staring out the big glass door for a second or two before she ran out the backdoor! Not away from danger, but right into it! She’d run right past him; he’d not stopped her because his logic did not process she would run toward trouble.

A third man jumped down off the roof beside the pool, falling but pointing his gun at Tessa. Cole wanted to growl, Go ahead and shoot her! Instead he stepped outside with his gun pointed at the man threatening Tessa, hoping another man didn’t jump off the roof.

Tessa had opened her laptop and pulled the purple USB from her shirt, booting back up. “I can fix this.”

A man in the pool pulled the drowning man to the side, floating him on his back. In a minute, he coughed like he was coming around.

Tessa plucked the purple USB out of the laptop and tossed it into the water! As it sunk, she snagged the silver USB and plugged it into her laptop.

Cole tilted his head, wondering why the heck she drowned her code and what was on the silver USB she had warned him twice not to plug in?

The dry intruder with a gun stared at Korskovf as he staggered on his feet at the shallow end, coming up the stairs with assistance from the other soaked man. She had revived their enemy.

Cole advised her, “Look away, Tessa.”

“No,” she jumped to her feet. “No ghosts, babe,” she advised him.

“Get her,” Yori growled. “Get her code.”

She glanced at Cole, to the USB, to Cole. “Don’t take my code, Yori. I saved your life.”

The man with the dry clothes, holding the gun, tapped her touchscreen on the laptop. Nothing happened. He tapped the touchscreen again impatiently. “I don’t see anything, boss.”

“Give it to me,” Yori demanded. “Give me your gun and get the car!” The Russian mobster held the silver USB carefully between his fingers, holding it up so he didn’t drip on it.

The other wet Russian pulled his gun out of a shoulder holster, water pouring off the metal. He started to manhandle Tessa, but Cole pushed the gun up against his back. Korskovf pointed the other gun as he dripped and panted to regain normal breathing, not pointed at Cole but pointed at Tessa. Korskovf had scored Cole’s most vulnerable spot.

“Easy, Cole,” she soothed. “It’s okay.”

“The hell it is,” he barked.

Yori Korskovf nodded at Cole. “You go first.”

“Please, Cole,” she urged him.

He walked out the front door to the waiting SUV in front of his house.

Yori stumbled out next, stumbled right into the open door.

The other wet mobster shoved Tessa forward a step. “Hurry it up.”

She waved her hand in front of her at Cole. If she thought he or she was getting into the SUV, then she was crazy.

“Get in,” Yori growled. “We have a plane to catch.”

Cole kicked the door closed and shot the tire. The car screeched as wheels spun out, one rim scraping against concrete.

He grabbed Tessa’s upper arm and ran her to the house. He slammed the door.

“That was good,” she said with a smile. “Nice. I didn’t think of that.”

“I ought to kick your butt! What were you thinking? Throw away your code? Go with the cyber-terrorists after saving the godfather’s life? Do you have a death wish?”

“No.”

“He’ll be back. You know that. I guess we’ll ghost into the invisibility field.”

“That’s so sweet, Cole.” She tipped up on her toes, brushing her lips across his cheek. “I love you, too. I copied my code onto one of your computers.”

“Woman,” he started.

“Don’t be sexist, dear. He won’t be back. Do you honestly think Yori will make it a mile down the road before he plugs that silver USB into his insulin pump? He had a close call after all.”

“I’m sure he’s already plugged it in.”

“It will kill anything electronic that plugs into it.” She shook her head. “I didn’t think God would approve if I assassinated him, albeit almost by accident.”

Cole laughed. “No ghosts here. No Russian spook hunting your head.”

“He plugged it in himself. Not me. Is it mean or funny? What color does that make my hat?”

“Funny, babe. And a white hat.”

She tipped up on her toes, pressing her lips against his.

“Ready, Tessa?”

“For what?”

“For me to shutdown your logic for the next three days before tryouts?”

“I knew you were trouble.”

“All your trouble though, Tessa. Will you be all mine?”

“I’ll work especially hard at hacking your heart, Cole.”

“You don’t need to. I give it to you. Like I could keep it safe from you anyway. Silly woman.”

“Hmm. I don’t have an unhackable heart anymore.”

He scooped her into his arms. “Did I sweep you off your feet?”

“I’ll need to conduct some more tests from your bed, a little research, but I’m thinking yes you did.”

Happily Ever Afters!