Page 59 of Heartbreaker

“Fuck,” I say. The telemetry systems broadcast vital information about a truck to the crew. If that’s been disabled or tampered with, it could if something goes wrong in a race, no one would know until it’s too late.

“Just like the dash cams, they’re transmitting a loop of healthy activity, but it’s activity that looks more like the truck is idling, not off like they should be. I can overwrite through the code on the dash cams and access the true footage while leaving the glitch in place, but I can’t with the telematics. We need to see if they’ve been altered inside the trucks.”

I hum in understanding, her words ricocheting through my mind as I enter the building and head right for the arena. My stomach drops when the door is cracked open, and the normal security guard is nowhere to be found. “Did you call Jackson off?”

“Yeah, he’s inspecting what happened to the Wi-Fi at the arena,” she says, sounding distracted.

“The Wi-Fi?”

“I disabled it. The dash cams work on Wi-Fi, so if our guy still has access to them, he would see us, and it would blow our cover. So I killed the Wi-Fi for the entire arena. It should be out for… twenty-three more minutes.” I shake my head and smile at my genius partner, who comes into sight as she moves toward me. “Good, you’re here.”

“Yeah, what do you need from me?” She bites her lip, then gives me a look I know all too well, the one that says you’re not going to love this.

“I need you to go into Rome’s truck, check that it is in fact disconnected from the transmitter. If it is, you have to reconnect it.”

“I have to?” I ask, eyes wide.

“I need to stay in the pit and make sure it’s transmitting again. I’m going to walk you through reconnecting it while I keep an eye on the monitors.” I nod.

“Fine. Tell me what to do.”

“Okay, so walk me through this like I’m three, Demi. What am I looking for?” I say into the earbuds connected to my cell, staring at a mess of wires and switches I don’t quite understand.

“It’s a wire—” Demi starts. Normally, I’d laugh, but right now, my anxiety is at a peak level, and I snap at her.

“Thanks so much; that means absolutely nothing to me. There’s a million wires in here, Demi.”

“If you would let me finish⁠—”

“Someone could be in here at any moment. I need to do this fast.”

“A red wire! My god, Lana.” I groan, spotting three red wires, but thankfully Demi walks me through finding the correct one, and I follow it to where it’s supposed to be plugged into a box.

“It’s being plugged into what looks like a splitter,” I say, trying to get a better look at it despite the dark.

“A splitter?”

“Yeah, I mean… That’s what I think it is. Hold on, let me get a picture.” I snap a picture on my phone and send it to Demi.

“You’re right,” she says, voice low and concentrating. “It looks like it’s rerouting the information, probably similarly to how the dash cams were rerouted.” There’s a moment before she speaks again. “Okay, take that off and bring it to me when we’re done. You’ll need to take the second wire as well. I might be able to use it to see where our guys are having the information sent to access it.”

“Won’t they notice if it’s gone?” I ask, hesitant.

“I might be able to set up a dummy truck, let it think that it’s getting the information it needs.” She sounds almost giddy as she speaks, even though I’m stress-sweating like I never have before in my life; I smile. She’s such a nerd with this stuff sometimes. I disconnect the small black box, slip it into my pocket, and tell her it’s done.

“Great, now I need you to insert the red wire into the third slot on the actual transmitter.” Biting my lip, I find the location and easily snap it into place.

“Done.” I hold my breath as time passes, then let it out with her next words.

“Perfect,” she murmurs. “I see it now. Just give me a second to see if anything was tampered with.”

“We’ve gotta hurry, Demi. This is sketchy. If someone comes in, we don’t have a good reason to be here.”

“I know, I know, just… give me…” she starts, then a relieved sound carries through the line. “Okay, perfect, it looks all good. We’ll still have the tech do a thorough look through before practice, but if I have to guess, this was staging a future sabotage.” Relief moves through me. “Get out of there. We’ve got ten more minutes before the Wi-Fi comes back on.”

As quickly as I can, I climb out of the truck, jumping backward until my sneakers hit the dirt again. I take a deep, relieved breath, knowing we’re finished, but that relief is short-lived. The world stops moving, and then I hear it.

“What are you doing, Lana?”