Page 105 of Stripping Bare
“Of course I do,” his mother said with a glint in her eye. “Are you just now figuring thatout?”
Reid shot a look at Grif. “That’s a good reason for Aubrey to stay an only child. She won’t have to vie for top spot in yourfamily.”
Grif glanced down. Then his focus moved to the tall windows overlooking Main Street. In the next few seconds, his attention seemed to light on everything but one of his familymembers.
Miss Joan’s mouth opened and she pressed her palms to her cheeks. “Oh, Griffin, a baby? Are you serious?” She rushed over to Grif and manacled her tiny arms around his waist. “Tell me it’strue.”
His sigh had a resigned air to it. “We weren’t planning to announce it for another couple of weeks. Carlie Beth’s gonna killme.”
But Miss Joan was too busy doing some kind of joyful River Dance around him to acknowledge his words. His brothers crowded around him, shaking his hand and slapping hisback.
“You’re working hard to oust Jonah as the favored son, aren’t you?” Reid asked him. “Between Aubrey and this new baby, you’re trying to get a corner on the grandkid market before any of the rest ofus.”
Grif’s grin was wide and cocky. “I can’t help it if my sperm are stronger thanyours.”
Behind his mom’s back, Reid gave his brother the middlefinger.
Their brotherly ribbing warmed Tessa. Reassured her that although Jonah could be closed off, he had plenty of people around him who would always draw him outagain.
“I’m so excited that I almost can’t think.” Miss Joan waved her hands in front of her face. “But as much as I want to talk about a new grandbaby, we have to refocus on Jonah and Tessa this morning. Micki made some progress lastnight.”
With Tessa’s dog in her lap, Micki was slumped in an easy chair that didn’t look much better than the couch. She appeared a little strung out, her normally sharp eyes slightly dull and her spiky hair flat on one side. Jonah obviously recognized the signs of an all-nighter, too, because he said, “I planned to attack the problem thismorning.”
Micki reached for his hand and he dropped down to sit on the arm of her chair. “I figured we could work it in shifts. I went back into DataFort’s records,” she told him, her voiceraspy.
“And?”
“I was able to get a thread on our hacker this time. Looked like he’d been poking aroundagain.”
Jonah’s attention lasered in on his sister. “You tracedhim?”
“Well, yes…and no. He was smart enough to bounce his tracks through multiple servers—Hong Kong, Mumbai, New York, and several others. I lost the trail in Rio. And unfortunately, I also tripped some trigger that locked up Tessa’saccount.”
“No big.” Jonah waved away Micki’s words. “It’ll take you less than fifteen minutes to fixthat.”
Tessa closed her eyes. None of this was legal. Then again, they weren’t exactly battling someone who played by any kind of rules or moralcode.
“But I started thinking about the hardware he sent you.” Micki said. “We assumed he modded ithimself.”
Tessa saw where Micki was going and jumped in. “But if he’s been so busy setting up the ground rules and scenarios for the game, would he have time to build all the hardware from the groundup?”
Micki’s smile was tired but admiring. “Finally, someone besides me who can give you a run for your money in the brainsdepartment.”
When Jonah turned his attention toward Tessa, his expression was conflicted, as if he couldn’t decide whether to draw her into this conversation or push her out. Finally, he said, “There are a helluva a lot of hardware manufacturers in the US alone. And if he bought his components overseas, it could take us years to track themdown.”
Micki pulled something from a canvas tote bag sitting on the floor. “Hope you don’t mind, but I detached one of the sensors when you took the vest off in the car yesterday. Don’t worry, I closed the wiring circuit.” She held the pieces of the lone sensor in her palm. “These are made by the same company as the vibrating motors Steele Trap uses for itscontrollers.”
“How did you figure thatout?”
“I had a hunch and called the head hardware engineer at about two in the morning Seattle time. He wasn’t too talkative at first, but I promised him you’d send him season tickets to the Mariners’games.”
Jonah nodded thoughtfully. “And?”
“And all this mess didn’t start until Tessa left Seattle, too, right?” Micki asked. “That has to meansomething.”
Everyone but Micki,Tessa, and Jonah filtered out of the apartment when he reminded them that they wouldn’t be any help with the technical aspects of tracking down thisbastard.
“The hacker-modder has to be someone I counseled,” Tessasaid.
