AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Wow.” Raul sat beside her, shaking his head. “I can’t believe a system set up by Black Home Security would be hackable by anyone outside the system. I’ll have to tell them.”
Emma did a little digging. “Well, your precious Black Home Security’s cred is safe. The condo management must have decided on lobby staff and door locks from Black Home Security but decided that the video security system from Black was too expensive and opted for a cheaper system.” She looked up and gave a little smile. “Penny wise and pound foolish, as the Brits say. I expect the Black video security system would have been harder to hack into than this one, which was like punching your way into a paper bag.”
“Black Home Security videos are absolutely unhackable,” Raul bristled. He was incredibly cute when he was miffed, dark eyebrows drawn over dark eyes, jaw clenched. The thing was, there was very little that was unhackable, but she didn’t say so, just made a little humming noise.
“So, the Elektrica seems to be a pretty neat vehicle. I don’t have a car and was looking into it because Toby was so pleased with his. One of the things he loved about it, since he was, as he said, ‘mechanically challenged’, was that the company took care of routine maintenance. They would schedule check-ups for you and if you couldn’t make it, a company mechanic would pick your car up, take it to their operations center, check everything, and drive the car back. It’s in the sales contract. And one of the things they do is keep track of tire pressure. One of their selling points is that you’d have to drive over spikes in the road to get a flat tire, because since they monitor tire pressure, you know when you’re about to get a flat.”
Emma sat back, pleased. Raul and Colin shared a puzzled glance.
She sighed. “Don’t you see? To transmit data, there has to be a transponder which –”
“Which can be tracked,” Raul said.
“Exactly.” She turned her laptop around so both Raul and Colin could see it. “So, I have Toby’s last location.” In the search field was a long line of GPS coordinates.
“Where is that?” Colin peered closely at her screen.
Raul was trying to do calculations in his head, but he didn’t have to do that. A moment with her GPS app and she had the site. “That is at 22645 Ross Way. I have no idea where that is, I haven’t lived here long enough. Let me check a map.”
“I know where it is.” Colin tapped the map with a tear drop over a specific point. Emma still couldn’t figure out where it was since she didn’t recognize anything on the map. “It’s in a bedroom community outside the city limits. That’s a road that winds up into the hills and it’s a very wealthy area. I once looked at a property in that area and there is nothing under five million dollars. It would be more now.”
“Well, that’s weird.” Emma started another search and came up with a Facebook page. “It belongs to a Russell Stewart, a lawyer specializing in corporate law, especially franchise law. Living just outside Philadelphia.” She tilted her head as she studied the Facebook page then clicked through to a website that turned out to be the website of his law firm. Wolper, Wolper and Stewart. The law firm was busy, litigating seventy-five big lawsuits in the past twelve months, Russell Stewart being lead counsel for most of them. All of the trials held in the Philadelphia area. She tilted her head the other way, trying to make sense of this.
“I’ll see how many other properties this Stewart owns. Maybe they are all rental properties.”
“High end ones,” Colin said.
“Yeah. Maybe that’s his investment portfolio.”
Emma dug. “I think it is. He has eighteen similar properties scattered throughout the country, mostly in popular expensive cities. San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boulder, Boston and New York. The properties are managed by something called Sundial Property Management and he is –” she tooled around a little, “he is the majority owner, but has a manager. Leyla Cartwright, lives in Philadelphia, and whoa. She’s his wife. All in the family. The average rental is $10,000 a week. He’s making more from his real estate business than he is from lawyering. Wow.”
“Wait a minute.” Raul reached out and turned her laptop around. His eyes widened when he saw the initials at the top of the page. IRS. “Jesus, Emma, you hacked intoInternal Revenue?”
She sighed. So many people had small minded views about data acquisition. Data wanted to be free. “Well …”
He pushed his hands against the air, as if pushing away some thoughts. “Great,” he declared. “I’m all for getting as much intel as you can as fast as you can. And you’re the fastest I’ve ever seen. Faster even than Felicity and Hope and I thought they were the Usain Bolt of data.”
Emma waved away the compliment. “I’m not faster than Felicity and Hope. I’m just more used to getting economic data. It’s what I do.”
This time Raul’s eyes bugged. “You hack into the IRS for a living? How –” he waved his hand. “Never mind. Don’t want to know. Just grateful you’re on the side of the good guys. So, is Toby’s car still there?”
She switched screens. “Yes. Hasn’t moved since Sunday night. Which I think means he is still there.” She didn’t even want to think of him not being where his car was because that could mean that – Nope. Not going there. Not not not.
Raul drummed his gloved fingers once, hard, on the glass surface of the coffee table. “Colin, you know the area. How far is it from here?”
Colin frowned. “Depending on the traffic, I’d say between forty-five minutes to an hour.”
“Okay, we’ll let you know what we find out –”
Colin stood abruptly. “Oh no. If you think you’re going without me, you’re crazy. Apart from anything else, Toby was wounded. I’m a doctor, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Raul clearly wasn’t happy with the idea. “I haven’t forgotten. It’s just that I don’t know what we’ll find.”
“Exactly.” Colin nodded sharply.
“And I don’t know what it will take to get to Toby. I’m not happy with Emma being with me, either, but I’m even more unhappy with the thought of leaving her behind. I’ve had medic training, don’t worry about that.”
“Fine if Toby’s got a bullet wound.” Colin rolled his eyes. He stood straight, shoulders back, feet set apart, as if ready for Raul to knock him to the ground. He was an emergency room physician and you don’t get to be one of those if you are easily discouraged or lose your nerve easily, Emma thought. “Though I see about three bullet wounds a day on duty. At least. But suppose he’s concussed? Severely dehydrated? Been drugged? Could you tell the difference? I won’t be in your way. If there’s any fighting to be done, I’ll definitely leave that to you because you’re trained and I’m not. But I’ve been trained in medical emergencies which are not bullet wounds. Not only that, I care for Toby and you don’t. You’ve never even met him. Toby’s a means to an end for you, but for me he’s someone dear to my heart. I have a right to be there if Toby is being held a prisoner and needs help.”
