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“I love you, baby.” Dylan kissed her.
Cam held her tight. “I love you, sweetheart.”
Thankfully, they’d found her.
Although she was still shaking, Erica knew she was safe.
* * * *
9:03 a.m., Friday – TBK’s parking lot, Destiny, Colorado
Cam held Erica tight. Dylan stood protectively on the other side of her.
Every employee of TBK was standing behind the crime scene tape that Nicole had put up around the parking lot.
Doc Ryder had pronounced Mitrofanov’s henchmen dead on the scene.
“This is an open and shut case of self-defense,” Jason said. “But let’s go over it one more time, okay?”
“Sure, but it most definitely is self-defense.” Dylan grabbed her hand. “Erica shot the asshole who had a gun pointed at her. We came out of TBK Tower and I shot the other one, who was pulling out his pistol as his buddy crashed to the ground.”
“If Cam and Dylan hadn’t arrived when they did, the other man might’ve…I don’t want to think about
that.” Erica sighed.
“Baby, we did arrive.” Cam brushed the hair out of her eyes. “We’re here for you. Always.”
“It’s a complicated mess, that’s for sure,” Jason said. “I get that Niklaus must’ve lifted your cell, Cam, when you were in my office. I’m not sure how we can prove that, but I’m hoping we can. He must’ve given it to his nephew. The text Erica got was certainly from the dead man. What I don’t get is why? Why did they want to lure her out here?”
“Do you think it has something to do with the strange code that showed up on my screen after I typed in Kip’s calling card into the password field?” Erica asked.
Matt and Sean came out of the tower. Dylan had sent them to retrieve her laptop for the sheriff right after the shooting.
Sean walked up with it in his hand. “Her abduction wasn’t just about the ten million but more about getting Kip’s code back into the system via Erica’s laptop. The two guys who took her must’ve been given a flash drive and loaded the code on it after they’d put her in the trunk. They left it for us to find, thinking we would not suspect it had anything to do with her kidnapping. Once it got logged back into TBK’s system, Mitrofanov’s hacker was back inside.”
“We uncovered an automated message that was sent from Erica’s laptop after she entered Kip’s strange code into the solitaire game,” Matt told them.
“Give me that,” Jason said, clearly irritated. “That’s evidence. You shouldn’t have tampered with it.”
“No?” Sean said. “Do you know what the differences are between a Trojan, a worm, and a memory resident virus?”
Jason shook his head.
Matt chimed in. “We’re your best bet then, Sheriff.”
“I’ll need to deputize you or at least give you a contract to work for my office then. That’ll cross the t’s and dot the i's for me.”
“Why not deputize everyone,” Nicole said, walking up beside Jason.
“Don’t worry. You’re my official deputy.”
“No. I’m serious, Jason.” Nicole pointed to the bodies on the pavement. “As long as Niklaus Mitrofanov and his gang are allowed to walk freely on the streets of Destiny, I say let’s deputize the whole town. Everyone is packing anyway.”
Sean shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. “The hacker we’re still chasing must’ve been notified that the virus had been activated. That’s when he must’ve reached out to Mitrofanov’s organization about the threat of exposure by Erica.”
Dylan nodded. “Jason, these two Texans know more about tracking down cyber criminals than anyone else in the country.”
“Then I most definitely am going to put a badge on both of them. I still think Kip’s involved, but I can’t figure out how. That new warden has him locked up tight.”
