White-Hot Hack

  “I packed for you.”

  She inhaled sharply. “Oh God.”

  He waved his hand in the air. “I call it Kate’s Costa Rica wardrobe!”

  “Did you pack actual clothes? A pair of shorts, maybe a sundress or two?”

  “It’s very hot and humid there, so I mostly chose lingerie and swimsuits. We have our own private pool, so I almost didn’t bother with the bikinis. But then at the last minute I thought, better throw them in just to be safe.”

  She kissed him long and hard. “You think of everything, don’t you?”

  “Always.”

  A car was waiting for them when they landed at the Tambor Airport, and from there it was a little over an hour’s drive to Santa Teresa and their accommodations for the next seven days. Nestled inside a lush, tropical jungle, the five-star resort offered luxury amenities and close proximity to the pristine beaches of the Nicoya Peninsula.

  A uniformed bellhop opened the door. “Good afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Smith. We’ve been awaiting your arrival.”

  Staff members quickly retrieved their luggage from the trunk as they stepped out of the car. Birdsong and the low, deep trill of tree frogs filled the air. A monkey howled intermittently in the distance as the concierge led them to their private beachfront lodgings.

  “Welcome to your villa.”

  Kate looked around in amazement. A perfect blend of outdoor and indoor living, the main open-air room led to a terrace upon which sat a hammock big enough for two.

  “You will find an assortment of cold drinks and sliced fresh fruit in the refrigerator,” he said as they passed through the kitchen.

  The opulent bathroom was also open-air and included a deep tub and outdoor shower that would make it feel as if they were standing in the rain in the jungle. The luxurious bedroom included a king-size four-poster bed with a flowing white canopy and curtains tied back with ribbons. Just off the bedroom sat a small pool and hot tub completely surrounded by flowers and jungle foliage.

  “This is absolutely beautiful,” Kate said.

  “Please let us know if there’s anything you need,” the concierge said. “Enjoy your stay.”

  Another member of the staff had placed their luggage in the bedroom while they were touring the villa.

  “I think I’ll go put on one of those bikinis,” Kate said.

  Ian grinned and helped himself to a beer from the fridge. “Or not. That pool looks very private.”

  When Kate returned wearing a bikini, she was laughing and twirling a pair of underwear around on her finger. “What are these?”

  “Vacation underwear.”

  She held on to the sides, stretching them out in order to get a better look. “Why’s the crotch missing?”

  He grinned. “Because they’re awesome.”

  “I’m pretty sure you didn’t buy these at La Perla.”

  “Nah. They’re special. You should go put them on.”

  They spent the next seven days enjoying their utopian paradise. Phillip had promised not to call unless something extremely earth-shattering transpired, and Ian’s laptop remained in its case. He only checked his phone a few times throughout the day; otherwise it remained locked in the safe in their bedroom.

  Kate had never felt so calm or so peaceful. They began their day with breakfast on the terrace, and then she attended a Pilates class while Ian worked out in the resort’s state-of-the-art fitness center, followed by a couples’ massage. Ian went on several fishing excursions in a nearby town. Then the chef would prepare what he’d caught—tuna, mahimahi, snapper and grouper—and serve it to them in their villa. They spent hours lying on the beach and walking hand in hand along the water’s edge.

  “I could live here,” Kate said one evening when they were lying together in the darkened bedroom among the twisted sheets, listening to the soothing sounds of the jungle. Ian was playing with her hands, rubbing her palms and interlocking their fingers.

  “Say the word, sweetness. I’ll make it happen.”

  But would he? If she looked him in the eye and said, “I want to spend the rest of our lives here, hidden away from everyone,” would he do it? And would he be happy if they did? If she’d learned anything in the preceding months, it was that he wasn’t ready for that. If she was honest with herself, she wasn’t either.

  She leaned over and pressed her lips softly to his. “Maybe someday I will.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The sun wouldn’t rise for another hour, and Kate and Ian were fast asleep in the quiet darkness of their own bedroom back in Virginia when the security system shrieked out its warning. Instantly awake, Kate shot up, heart pounding as she fumbled for the switch to turn on the bedside lamp and Ian threw back the covers and leaped from the bed. Struggling into a pair of jeans that had been draped across the arm of the couch, he scooped his phone off the nightstand and shoved it into his pocket.

  “Get dressed. Lock the bedroom door behind me, and then go into the bathroom and lock that door too. Stay there until I come back. Do not come out.” He had to shout over the earsplitting sound of the alarm as he ran out of the room.

  As soon as she locked the door behind him, she plucked her pajamas off the floor and hurried to the bathroom, shutting and locking that door too. She dressed quickly, her body vibrating with fear. As the minutes passed, she grew more afraid until suddenly the alarm stopped shrieking. She breathed a sigh of relief when her phone rang and Ian’s number flashed on the screen.

  “Where are you? Are you okay?”

  “I’m back inside. The police are on their way. I’m walking toward the bedroom now.”

  She came out of the bathroom, and by the time she reached the bedroom door, he was there.

  “It’s okay. Everything’s okay,” he said when she gathered him into her arms.

  He’d run out into the cold winter air without a shirt, and his bare skin felt ice-cold under her fingers. “You’re freezing.” She left him to grab a sweatshirt from the closet.

  “Whoever it was is gone now,” he said, pulling the sweatshirt over his head.

  “Maybe it was a false alarm,” she said.

  “Yeah. That’s probably all it was.”

  But Kate noticed he didn’t look at her when he said it.

  Ian and two police officers walked the grounds, examining the perimeter of the house and checking windows and doors for any sign of attempted entry. A light snow had fallen the day before, but their search didn’t turn up any footprints that would indicate an intruder had been responsible for tripping the alarm. After the police had gone and they’d showered and eaten breakfast, Ian disappeared into his office. Kate checked on him an hour later, and he looked up when she walked into the room, worry creasing his forehead.

  “I was just about to come find you,” he said. “We have a problem.”

  She sat down on the couch. She’d hoped he wouldn’t find anything, but the minute he’d gone into his office, she knew he would.

  “Someone hacked our security system. They tried to cover their tracks, but they didn’t do a good enough job. I modified the system after we moved in so if anyone ever hacked us, they’d leave with enough malware to make them think twice about another attempt. I don’t think they’ll be back.”

  “Good.”

  “They hacked the camera in the garage. They were probably trying to figure out the cars we owned to make it easier to follow us.” He rubbed his temples as if he was trying to stave off a headache building behind his eyes.

  “Are you okay?” She walked over to him, and he pulled her onto his lap.

  “Everything I’ve done to you. Everything I’ve already put you through was for nothing. There’s no way that someone following you and our security system being hacked aren’t related. Someone knows we’re here.”

  She’d never seen him look so defeated.

  “Maybe you should go home for a while,” he said.

  “I am home.”

  He looked at Kate. “Sometimes I feel like t
here’s the two of us, and then there’s the rest of the world. Do you ever feel like that?”

  “All the time.”

  She smiled and brushed back the hair that had fallen over one of his eyes. “You told me once nothing would ever do it for you quite like a smart, fearless woman.”

  “I also said beautiful.”

  “I signed on for this, and I knew exactly what I was getting into.”

  “I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

  “I could say the same about you.” She climbed off his lap. “Come on. We need something to take our minds off this. We could watch a movie. We could play strip pool. I know how much you enjoy that. We could build a big fire and take a nap in front of it. You know what I mean when I say nap, right?”

  He no longer looked quite so defeated, and a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “I love you, sweetness. I’ve made some mistakes in my life, but you will never, ever, infinity, be one of them.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The images on the video surveillance screen for the front gate caught Kate’s eye as she passed in front of it on her way to the fridge for some milk. Two men were stacking a large pile of lumber next to the gate while a third unloaded power tools from the bed of a pickup truck.

  There were two other cameras connected to their security system: the one located in the garage and one that captured and recorded anyone going in or out of the front door, but those screens were dark because Ian had disconnected the cameras after discovering they’d been hacked. Though he felt strongly that the malware he’d used to strengthen their security system would deter someone from attempting another intrusion, he told Kate he wasn’t going to give anyone the opportunity to obtain footage of them.

  “What’s going on down at the gate?” Kate asked when Ian walked into the kitchen for another cup of coffee.

  “They’re building a guard shack. We’re going old school with our home security. There’ll be another one up by the garage. I hired guards to man them twenty four hours a day. All ex-military. All armed.”

  Ian’s proactive measures didn’t surprise her at all and she nodded. “Good.”

  He set down his cup of coffee and reached for her, sliding his hand around her waist. “Are you freaking out about any of this?”

  “We are not like other folks,” she said, shaking her head. “As long as you don’t try to keep any of it from me because you’re afraid I can’t handle it, I’ll be fine.”

  Someone rang the gate, and when Kate looked at the screen, a car she didn’t recognize waited to be buzzed in. Ian pushed the button and the gate opened. “Come on. I want to introduce you to Rob.”

  “Who is Rob?”

  “He’s the man who’ll be accompanying you wherever you need to go when I’m not with you.”

  “You got me a bodyguard?”

  “I like to think of him as a special companion who goes everywhere with you.”

  Kate wrinkled her nose. “That almost sounds weirder.”

  “Then yes, I got you a bodyguard. I know you still have social engineering assignments to complete and things you want to do outside the house. This way you don’t have to feel as if your life has been totally disrupted, and I can feel confident about your safety.” Ian had admitted how much it worried him that someone might try to follow her again—or worse yet—approach her. All they’d have to do is wait a few miles down the road and when she drove by they could tail her until she stopped somewhere, which would leave her wide open and vulnerable.

  “By the way, he thinks you’re being stalked by a jealous ex-lover and that we’re taking the situation very seriously. He also knows discretion is important, so he’s not going to ask questions outside of what he needs to know to do his job. If someone with questionable motives tries to get near you, they’ll have to get past Rob first, and that’s not going to happen.”

  The doorbell rang, and when Ian opened the front door, Kate understood immediately what Ian had meant when he said no one would get past Rob; he was the tallest and broadest man she’d ever seen. Not fat, just a solid wall of muscle that stretched almost seven feet into the air. It was the first time she’d ever seen Ian look up to speak to someone. He was a good ten years older than Kate and soft-spoken, and his gentle handshake surprised her when Ian made the introductions. She listened as Ian went over a few general instructions with him. His hours would be eight to six every day, Monday through Friday, and they would provide him with a vehicle.

  “So we’ll see you tomorrow,” Ian said.

  He nodded and looked at Kate. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  There was something about Rob’s warm smile and calm demeanor that instantly put her at ease, and she decided that having a special companion might not be so weird after all.

  Later that afternoon, several employees from a local auto dealership delivered a Range Rover with heavily tinted windows that Rob would drive and a Lexus SUV with equally dark windows that Ian would use as his personal vehicle.

  “There’s always a chance they’ll just follow the new cars home again, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to make it easy for them to know for sure who’s inside them,” Ian said.

  Kate and Ian drove their old cars down to the barn—if you could call vehicles that had less than ten thousand miles on them old. The large, open building had room for the Spyder, Tahoe, and Navigator, with plenty left over for Rob and the security guards’ personal vehicles.

  “We’ll just tell people we confused horses with horsepower,” Kate joked.

  He slung an arm over her shoulder. “I do love your ability to roll with the punches, sweetness.”

  Kate laughed because it seemed they’d figured out what to use the barn for after all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Rob pulled up in front of the house, walked around to the passenger door, and opened it for Kate. She’d told him he didn’t need to do that, but he’d insisted. He had conceded on the matter of letting her sit in front, but only because she’d argued he was her security detail and not her chauffeur. She’d adjusted quickly to the protocol Ian put in place, and it no longer seemed strange to text Rob when she needed to go somewhere.

  “Good afternoon, Diane.”

  “Hi, Rob. How are you?”

  “Can’t complain. Where are we off to today?”

  “I’m meeting a friend at Tuscarora Mill in Leesburg.” Jade was working on a design job in the area and had asked Kate if she wanted to meet for lunch.

  “That’s one of my favorites. I’ll have you there in half an hour, give or take.”

  “Great.” That would give Kate plenty of time to come up with an excuse for Jade about why she hadn’t driven herself.

  She still hadn’t thought of anything by the time they pulled into the parking lot, but Kate needn’t have worried because Jade was already inside the restaurant, sitting at a table and sipping a glass of wine. They hugged, and Kate ordered a glass of chardonnay and opened her menu.

  “I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” she said.

  “Nope. I just got here five minutes ago.”

  “How have you been?” Kate asked.

  “Good. This job is keeping me really busy. You should see this home. It’s almost as beautiful as yours.” Jade stifled a yawn with the back of her hand. “Sorry about that. I went on a date last night with someone I met online, and I was up later than usual.”

  Kate smiled. “It must have gone well.”

  “It started off great. We’re the same age and he’s a widower, so I figured we’d have a lot in common, and we did. At dinner there were no awkward lulls in the conversation. We went to a movie afterward and I felt like we’d been seeing movies together for years. But toward the end of the evening, he started asking these weird questions about whether I’d ever consider dying my hair red and if I liked to wear dresses. I finally realized he was looking for someone to fill the shoes of his late wife in a rather literal way, and it creeped me out.”

  Ka
te grimaced and took a drink of her wine. “I know it works for a lot of people, but I didn’t have the best luck with online dating either. Luckily I met Ian shortly after my foray into the world of ‘everyone’s lying and the rest of you are just hiding your crazy.’”

  “Who’s Ian?”

  Yeah, Kate. Who’s Ian?

  “Oh, I meant Will. His middle name is Ian. I call him that sometimes. My middle name is Kate, so sometimes we do this whole Kate and Ian thing.” Oh my God, shut up.

  “Okay.” Her skeptical expression contradicted her words, and Kate hoped Jade didn’t think she was hiding some crazy of her own.

  “Tell me the kind of man you’re looking for. What are some of the qualifications you listed on your dating profile?”

  “I want someone who’s kind and will treat me well. I don’t mean that he has to be wealthy or anything. I just want him to be respectful. It doesn’t matter if he’s been married before, but I think maybe a widower isn’t such a great fit after all. Why, do you know someone?”

  “I might. I’ll let you know if it pans out.”

  Jade insisted on picking up the check for lunch, and as they put on their jackets and prepared to leave the restaurant, Kate started to panic. She’d forgotten about coming up with a reason for why Rob was waiting for her in the parking lot and really should have been thinking about it sooner. Her body temperature rose as they made their way toward the door.

  For the life of her, she could not come up with anything to explain the presence of Rob that would even remotely make sense, at least not in the next sixty seconds. She could claim she’d hired a car service because she knew she’d be drinking alcohol, but she’d only had one glass of wine—hardly enough to justify a designated driver. She could say she’d let her license expire, but the obvious solution would be to go to the DMV and renew it, not hire someone to drive you around. She could say her car was having some work done, but how many repair shops gave you a rental and threw in someone to drive it for you?