Page 104 of The Black Trilogy

When I got back to Albany House, I snuck up the rear stairs from the garage, keeping my fingers crossed Luke had gone to bed so I could avoid talking to him. Stupid for someone who’d once thrived on confrontation.

“How was the office?” Dan asked.

Rats. Should have used the front door. Because Luke was sitting next to Dan, typing away on his laptop with Nick the other side of him.

Smile, Emmy. It intimidates those who want to destroy you, so said my husband.

“Yeah. Good. Great. I had spinach salad for lunch.”

Dan laughed then grew serious again. “Luke might have found something.”

Really? “Like what?”

Luke looked me in the eye for the first time since our argument. “I got an email alert a couple of hours ago to say someone was in my mainframe at work. They tripped an alarm while they were looking at the code for my new program, the same one the kidnapper wanted. I’m trying to track them.”

I had a bad feeling about this. “Have you got very far?”

“Yes and no. Might sound crazy but, I think I know who it is.”

“Go on.”

“Well… You see… The thing is… I’m involved on the fringes of the online hacking community.”

I recalled the time I’d caught him in the police database. Fringes? Yeah, right. “I already knew that. And?”

“You did?”

“Sure, and it makes perfect sense. You build cyber security products. The best way to defend something is to know every possible way to attack it.”

I worked that way as well, except in the physical world rather than virtual.

“And you’re not judging me for being a hacker?”

“That’s not the sort of person I am. You’d know that if you thought about it. I didn’t lie to you about everything.”

Plus, I’d be a complete hypocrite if I got upset at Luke for skirting the bounds of legality.

“I guess.” He paused to type in another command. “Anyway, there’s this hacker called Diablo. He’s one of the best, and we’ve always had a rivalry. Until now, I thought it was friendly, but I’m ninety percent sure that’s who broke into my system. I recognise his footprint. So, if we can find Diablo, we might also find the kidnapper.”

“I hate to rain on your parade, but I doubt that.”

Dan looked at Nick, Nick looked at Dan, and Nick raised an eyebrow.

“Mack,” I muttered to him.

Did Mack use the name Diablo? I’d lost count of her aliases over the years, but she was a hacker, and she’d just been in Luke’s system.

Nick rolled his eyes. “You really think so?”

“Let’s find out, shall we?”

Luke narrowed his eyes as I slid his laptop over to my side of the table, but he didn’t try to stop me. A minute later, I’d navigated through our company website to the internal messenger program Mack herself had written. She’d clear out his browser history afterwards.

Diamond: Diablo???

A second later, her reply came.

Mack: Oops.

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