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She finished eating and set her plate aside. “Look, guys. I know things over the past few months have sucked. And some of the things I’ve done haven’t helped that situation. Things I did for my job in the name of catching Miles Arrieta. But I promise you, I want justice for Nick. I loved my husband, and I know he loved all of you guys too. Please, can we put the past behind us and work together to make things right—or as right as they can be?”
She met Kyle’s gaze and saw a flicker of doubt in his eyes, but he didn’t say no, which she figured was better than nothing.
To keep herself occupied, Natalie stood and collected everyone’s dirty plates. She figured cleanup duty was the least she could do when they’d fed her so well.
After scrubbing the dishes, she rinsed them and set them aside for drying. It wasn’t until she was about halfway through the batch that she noticed someone had moved in beside her with a towel. Spencer. Soon, Gage joined them to put away the clean plates. Before long, the dishes were done and she reached for the cookware on the stove.
“Here, let me help you with that.” Scotty picked up the heavy frying pan and clunked it into the sink, washing it himself.
“Thanks.” She blinked back unexpected tears at the team’s unspoken acceptance. “I really appreciate it.”
“No prob,” Scotty said, washing the spatula. “Just be honest with us from now on, okay?”
Natalie wiped her damp cheeks and gave him a wobbly smile. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Kyle said from behind her. “If you all are ready, let’s get down to business.”
5
“Hayley’s done some additional analysis on Coran Williams’s network.” The rest of the guys sat, but with Kyle’s energy levels buzzing near the flash point, he paced the length of the condo living room. If he was honest, the adrenaline zapping around inside him had nothing to do with the current mission and everything to do with the woman snuggled into the corner of the armchair. Natalie was the only woman present today. The other guys’ girlfriends were at work. Well, he supposed she was too.
He shook off his thoughts of how soft and silky her skin had felt in the bathroom and did his best to concentrate on the task at hand. “We’ve found something interesting about those e-reader files. While the number of e-readers attached to Williams’s network is vast, there are only four centralized servers here in the US where the readers connect to the internet.”
“Well, that just made things a whole lot easier,” Gage said, sitting forward to leaf through the documents.
“Yep,” Kyle said. “Those locations need to be our focus. The servers are spread out across the country: San Jose, Minneapolis, Savannah, and Bangor. Funny enough, Coran has homes close to each of those locations.”
“Yeah, that’s frigging hilarious,” Scotty said.
“And you’re sure this information is accurate?” Natalie asked.
“If Hayley says so, then yeah,” Scotty replied. “She’s the best cyberanalyst I’ve ever met.”
“Okay.” Natalie untucked her feet from beneath her. Kyle couldn’t help but admire the graceful way she moved, like a dancer or a cat. “Then that means Arrieta will be looking to access one of those servers to upload his virus.”
“Why would he need to use one of those servers? I mean, he’s targeting the whole internet, right?” Spencer frowned. “Couldn’t he do that from anywhere?”
“He could,” Natalie agreed. “But given his behavioral patterns, it’s likely he’d use one of Williams’s hubs, as an added layer of revenge. He’d do it just to make a point.”
Kyle raked his hand through his hair. “With something like that he could bring down an entire country’s infrastructure. Electrical grids, hospitals, water supplies. They’re all tied in to the internet.”
“Well, damn!” Scotty blew out a loud breath. “That’s bad.”
“That’s not even the worst of it,” Natalie said. “I overheard Doug talking with someone high up—I’m not even sure what agency. If we can’t stop Arrieta before September11, they’re going to take out those servers by any means necessary.”
“Dude.” Scotty gave a disbelieving snort. “That sounds like they’re planning on bombing the sites or something.”
Natalie didn’t answer, just raised a brow at him.
“You can’t be serious,” Kyle said. “No way would they detonate warheads on US soil.”
“When I asked Doug about it, he said desperate times call for desperate measures.” Natalie tucked her arms tighter around herself, just as appalled as the guys were about the news. “So, we either get our butts in gear and find Arrieta or disaster strikes, one way or another. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” Kyle moved in beside her chair. “You guys up for it?”
“Hell yeah.” Spencer snorted. “Just tell me what you need, and I’m there, boss.”
“Same here,” Gage said. “We didn’t come this far to let Nick’s killer tear the world apart.”
