Page 56 of Hacker Identified

Chapter18

Zack

As I stepped up to the tee on the sixth hole, my mind was filled with thoughts of my upcoming wedding. I was about to marry the love of my life, and I couldn’t be more excited.

Antonio’s phone chimed as I sliced my club through the air.

“You’re supposed to put the phone on silent, fucker.” I growled as I watched my ball drop on the edge of a large pond with two gators.

Zane chuckled, placed his ball on the tee, and hit the ball with precision. I loved my brother to death, but I was competitive as hell and hated losing.

“I think Zane had his wife somehow put a chip in his balls and is using some technology to assist with his golf game. Three weeks ago, every shot he took ended up in the sand or water.” Antonio’s phone chimed again.

“My wife is brilliant when it comes to hacking any system imaginable. What she can’t do is engineer something combined with her computer skills. Believe me, she’s tried, and I swore the toaster almost burnt down our house,” Zane said as he put his driver back in the golf bag. “A month ago, Leon Rickle hired us to look into his wife’s disappearance. He didn’t want to talk in the office. All our conversations were on the golf course, and he gave me tips. Now, why the hell does your phone keep going off?”

“Kat was sending me updates. She’s going along with Hannah to a protest. Then she plans to bring Hannah over to the party afterward.” Antonio climbed into the golf cart. “She also sent me the coordinates of where they are.”

I couldn’t understand how Antonio could be so calm about his wife heading into potential danger. Protests happen every day, but what worried me was if one went south. The chance of that happening was low. Normally the only people angry with wildlife protests were the contractors who were being stopped. Each day a job site was held up cost companies millions of dollars. I’d heard of corrupt CEOs hiring people to chase protestors.

“I’m surprised Kat sent you her location. I thought you could find her at any time?” I remembered hearing about the fight after Kat found out he’d put tracking devices in all her shoes.

“Brock is working on a new solution. The GPS kept bugging out, so she agreed to send me her location until new trackers are in place. We have the iPhone tracker on, but someone could easily steal her phone.”

I knew my brother had a tracker hidden in a necklace for Sophie. For the last few months, I’d relied on Texan or location sharing, but the thought of someone stealing Hannah’s phone had come to mind.

I finished the hole two over par, and Zane got a birdie. The next few holes, we all shot the same. When we made it to the tenth hole, Antonio was staring at his phone with his brows drawn together. “Can you check Hannah’s location? Something doesn’t feel right. An hour ago, Kat sent me the location where they were meeting up. She promised to send me the protest location. Except I haven’t heard anything, and now her phone is off.”

I clicked on the app and waited for the location to appear. But it wouldn’t update. The last time her phone had synched was forty-five minutes ago. My stomach turned as I flipped to my contacts and selected Hannah’s name. It didn’t even ring once. The call went straight to voicemail.

Zane had his phone pressed to his head. “Can you search for your sister? We have her last location, but something’s off?”

He pulled the phone from his ear and put it on speaker.

Sophie’s voice came through the speaker. “Let me access the cameras in that area.”

Texan placed his hand on my shoulder as we waited for Sophie to tell us, we were overreacting.

“Fuck. No, this can’t be right.”

“Talk to me, Sophie,” Zane said.

Sophie sniffled. “Kat’s SUV is in front of the building. So are three fire trucks and two ambulances. The firefighters just brought two bodies out in bags, and the entire building’s destroyed. No way, it was a simple fire. Looks like a bomb went off.”

I felt a tear trickle down my cheek. The love of my life was dead, and I didn’t protect her.

Antonio hit my side. “Don’t think the worst. Kat was with Hannah and there’s no way my wife would let anything happen to either of them without a fight. Let’s get to the crime scene and assess.”

* * *

Hannah

My head pounded as I slowly opened my eyes. I was locked in a cell, one like Watson used to put me in years ago. Except light shone through the windows on the far wall illuminating the area. I wasn’t alone either. There were at least twenty women and kids were in similar cells. Kat was in one next to me, analyzing every inch of the steel bars.

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to remember how we’d ended up here. That’s when the memories flooded back. Nicole had set me up, because Tim kidnapped her daughter. To get her back, she had to take me to a specified abandoned building near the ocean. When I’d walked in with Kat, Tim lost his shit and instantly killed Nicole. All because he had fake bodies already set up to make it look like I died. So, an extra body was needed to take Kat, and he killed Nicole.

Before Kat and I had time to react, the room filled with smoke, and I felt dizzy, but I couldn’t recall anything else.

Kat turned and strode over to the bars between our cells. “About time you woke up. When we get out of here, we need to work on getting your body immune to sleeping drugs.”

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