Page 26 of Operation Heartbeat

She refocused on the screen where three precise rows of letters were written. On the plane, she’d spent time splitting up the code and categorizing the letters into groups of size, shape and inconsistencies. So far, she’d noted the letterChad been written in four different ways, which rarely happened in everyday handwriting. The odds had to be one in one billion.

She settled into the plush leather sofa with the laptop on her knees and stared like an owl at the screen until the little letters swam in and out of focus.

She shook her head. Maybe she should go to bed. It was around four in the morning in Turkey time. That meant it was eight in the evening back in the States. At home, she’d befinishing up her chores, such as filling the dishwasher or folding a load of clean towels, eager to settle into bed with her book.

The prospect of going to bed with the big, sexy SEAL who’d had his handsall overher was a hardno. It was bad enough that she could still feel the echo of his touch, of his mouth moving over her throat…and his hands on her bare skin.

Con had been everywhere, kissing and fondling. Sophie had been eagerly responding too.

Then he had to throw her in the pool.

Was pool sex a fantasy for all guys?

She nibbled her bottom lip in contemplation, reliving that moment over and over again when she told him about the perfume. He’d looked at her like she’d just told him that Santa Claus wasn’t real.

Then he’d gone into the hotel room, leaving her to make her way inside, naked and wet.

From a scientist’s standpoint, she was pleasantly surprised at the outcome of using the perfume. If it lured in a man as hot as Ryan Constantine, then it was deserving of the hype.

From the perspective of a divorcee about to dabble in the dating world…she would definitely not recommend.

She’d beensoclose to sealing the deal with Con, and then it fizzled out the second that perfume washed off her skin. Dammit.

Without the perfume, he didn’t want her. But she wasn’t here to have a fling with a big, hot guy.

“I’m here to use my brain,” she muttered under her breath.

Too bad the man was a walking god. She’d never seen a man like him in person before, let alone been touched by one.

She gave herself a stern talking-to. “Focus.”

After another half an hour of toying with different variables in the cryptogram, she set aside the laptop and picked up theman’s phone that Con had given her. She wasn’t trained to go through phones, but it was no different from a computer, and she’d hacked a few in her day. To know how to fix something, you had to know how to break it. Or so the motto went.

She swiped through the guy’s browsing history. A lot of gaps revealed that either he didn’t use the device for long stretches or he deleted the history. A short while later, she switched to searching his maps and locations.

Their guy didn’t seem stupid enough to pin his locations. However, hehadentered a few destinations into his GPS, both of them in the US.

Her brows puckered in concentration as she explored the addresses. One belonged to a hotel. If he’d stayed in that place, he enjoyed none of the bells and whistles of an establishment like the one she and Con were staying in right now.

The other address was for a gas station.

Hmm. That must mean he needed gas. Which meant he rented a car.

She did a search for any payment apps that could possibly tell her where he’d been over the past month and located one instantly. Hunched over the phone, she continued her search, aware of the silence and only the thump of her own heart in her ears. At least Con didn’t snore the way Benjamin did.

She scrolled through receipts for meals and gasoline purchases made in Turkey.

She researched the addresses and felt a tingle run down her spine.

These purchases were all made right here in Istanbul. The city where they were currently staying.

Pushing into a better sitting position, she tucked her legs beneath her and began her deep dive into his very detailed purchase history.

She shook her head in wonder. Dear god, this was almost too easy. Either the guy was missing a few brain cells or he was cocky enough to believe he wasn’t leaving a big glaring footprint everywhere he went.

Or it was a decoy trail.

She paused with a finger hovering over the screen, over a receipt that had been photographed as verification it had been paid in full.

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