Page 23 of Cassidy

Once he was in, he slid the USB drive into an opening along the side of the laptop. He double-clicked the icon. Over his shoulder, she could see there was only one file on the drive. Somehow, she’d expected more.

Like maybe pictures or a video. Instead, what bloomed on the screen was nothing but gibberish.

Her hope plummeted. “The file is corrupted.”

“No, I don’t think so.” Gabe stared intently at the screen, slowly scrolling down to the bottom of the page. “It’s computer code of some sort.”

“Computer code may as well be gibberish,” she said, as Steele came up to stand beside them. “Unless you know what it means?”

“I’m not sure.” Gabe scowled as he returned to the top of the document. “It must be the code to some program.”

“Some program?” Steele echoed. “But you don’t know which one?”

“Not yet.” Gabe finally turned to look up at her. “It’s going to take some time for me to figure out what this code belongs to. Time we don’t have.” His expression looked tortured. “We need to try to find Travis. And I don’t think identifying what this code is related to won’t help us with that.”

She hid her disappointment. The code on this USB drive had to be the reason they’d taken gunfire. Which meant it must be important.

But without Gabe’s memory, they were still in the dark as to what was really going on.

“Why don’t you see if you can find the last cell tower your half brother’s phone pinged from?” Steele suggested. “That will give us a starting point.”

“Good call.” Gabe looked relieved to have a job to do. He turned back to the computer. As she watched, he took a moment to attach the mystery computer code to an email and send it off to the entire team. A smart move since now they all had ready access to the information.

No clue how to interpret it, but the ability to open it was half the battle.

Gabe pulled up a new program on his computer and began working the keyboard. It was a relief to know he’d retained basic knowledge of how to do these sorts of tasks since most of them were beyond the team’s abilities.

It gave her hope that he’d be able to unlock the mystery code very soon.

“Okay, I have the program up and running,” Gabe said. “But I need the phone number.”

“I have it here,” Rhy said, crossing the room toward them waving a blue sticky note. “Your mother gave it to me.”

Gabe took the note and typed in the number. After a few minutes, he said, “Got it. The phone pinged last off this tower.” He pointed to the screen. “And that call was made at three minutes past nine last night.”

“Looks like the tower is about two miles from the Wildflower Motel,” she said, reading the map over Gabe’s shoulder. A chill snaked down her spine. “That makes me think you and Travis were together at the time.”

“Together or Travis asked me to meet him there,” Gabe said. “I am not sure why I didn’t drive my car, though. It seems strange that I would have taken a rideshare all that way.”

“We should have your phone records soon,” Rhy said. “That will confirm your communication with your half brother.”

“And if you took a rideshare,” she added. “It could be that someone showed up at your house and demanded you go with them to meet Travis.”

There was a long silence as they pondered that possibility. Then Gabe abruptly pushed away from the desk. “We need to go back to the area where I woke up. Maybe the assailants left something behind.”

Cass glanced questioningly at Rhy and Steele. She’d damaged the undercover Jeep and didn’t have a car.

Steele nodded. “I’ll drive.”

“Thanks.” She caught up to Gabe who was halfway to the door. Their tech analyst was always focused when it came to his work, but this single-minded determination was off the charts.

The trip out to the Wildflower Motel didn’t take long as Steele flicked on his red and blue lights, forcing cars to move out of their way. She gave him a sidelong glance.

“Hey, we’re heading to a crime scene,” Steele said defensively.

“One that’s not in our jurisdiction,” she felt compelled to point out. “But hey, I’m not arguing.”

“Faster,” Gabe said from the back seat. “I wish I’d have thought of coming back here last night.”

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