Page 12 of Royal Hacker

“How did that work out for you last week when you blew your cover and upset Jessica?”

There was silence on the other end.Maybe I went too far.I worried someone wouldn’t be there to catch her when she was doing things wrong and that she would really get hurt.

“Patty, you there? I’m sorry if I upset you. What you did last week had me scared. Doug was bigger than you. You could have been hurt. You also didn’t know if he had friends in the club that would have hurt you.”

It felt like ten minutes before Patty spoke. Her voice cracked, and she was sniffling. I hadn’t meant to make her cry. I’d just wanted her to realize what she’d done.

“I know I messed up. Jessica was mad at me, and that’s harder than anything else when she’s mad or disappointed in me. I will try to think my plans through better in the future or ask for help.”

“I will always help you, if you need it. No matter what comes out of us trying to date.”

“We’re dating? But you’re sex on a stick, and I’m an IT hacker with funky hair. You work to put bad people away. I sometimes skirt the law to get what I want. I also apparently have no filter.”

When she finished talking, I heard a loud bang and immediately went on alert. It sounded like someone had broken into her place. Then she screamed. “Fuck…”

“What happened? Are you okay? Do I need to come over?” I was ready to grab my keys and head toward her house when she finally replied.

“No, I hit something. I’m fine. I don’t want to talk about what just happened.”

Though I wasn’t quite sure she was okay, she’d asked me to drop the conversation about the noise, so I did. “Yes, we will start seeing each other, and I hope it turns into something.”

“Okay.”

“Great. I will see you tomorrow night at seven.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

I clicked off the phone and reclined back in my office chair. All week, I’d looked forward to our conversation. It’d taken everything in me not to call Patty earlier in the week to see if she was still interested.

When Brock walked in and flopped down on the chair in front of my desk, I had the biggest smile on my face. I didn’t give a shit if he was about to give me crap.

“I take it you finally called her,” Brock said. He was fiddling with some papers in his right hand.

“Yes, we are going on a date tomorrow, and then we will talk about the research she has done.” Brock was shifting in his seat, and I could tell something was on his mind. I thought I probably wasn’t going to like it.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t think the man we arrested is our guy. Something isn’t adding up with his story.” The team had been working the last few months to catch a serial killer. We finally got a break this week when he left fingerprints on his latest victim.

“Why do you think we have the wrong suspect?” This case had already drained me for the last few months and looked like it would open back up. Brock set a grainy photo on my desk.

“This picture was taken last week. The photo shows our suspect in another state when the victim died.”

“Keep digging into this and see what you can find. Pull whatever you can, and we will meet as a team tomorrow morning to talk about it.”

7

Patty

For the past week, I’d been working as Bridget’s assistant. She’d also assigned me a new security case for a local company that had been hit with ransomware. Bridget had set up interviews for my replacement at the end of the week. I would miss the days of doing nothing, but I knew helping Bridget would mean she could take on more cases.

Not sure what role I would take, I knew I would start working at Black Hat sometime in the near future. Neal and I would work it out in the next few months. Neal was doing an excellent job, and the company ran itself. Maybe one day, Bridget would consider merging the two, and I could let her run her own division at Black Hat.

I was looking forward to my first date with Sam that day. I didn’t want to work. I wanted to go home and get ready. I was leaving early to meet my hairdresser at the house. I was thinking of changing my hair color to ruby red.

“Hello, Patty,” Bridget said while tossing some work files on my desk. She sat down in one of the two pink-and-white desk chairs in front of my desk. Sophie came over and took the other.

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