Page 17 of Blood Game

“I don't know...”

“You set up the server,” James cut him off. “There's always the usual access built in with a particular code sequence. You created it, you can break in.”

Kris glanced at Innis, dressed in camo, combat boots, with blue eye shadow, then at James Morgan in jeans and sweatshirt. The pretend soldier, and the other who had no need to pretend.

“Well, I suppose if you have an order from the court.” Innis replied. “But not out here. My computer is in back.”

“Go in through the back door?” she whispered as they followed him to a workstation in an office at the back of the café.

“All servers have them. It sort of blows the theory about security. But then you Yanks have your own issues with secure servers.”

She stared at him as he followed Innis. He stopped at the door to the office.

“Are you just going to stand there? You'll miss the show. This should be interesting.”

Innis closed the door and then sat down at the computer at the desk. “I set this up for her last year.” He made several key strokes, scrolled through a screen of codes, then entered more key strokes.

“She wanted it for personal information, banking, the usual sort of thing.”

“What about the book she was working on?” Kris asked.

“Aye, that too.” He entered more information, scrolled through again, then entered additional information.

Watching him work, Kris was reminded about the old saying—anything someone could build or encrypt, someone else could hack into.

He found what he was looking for, entered more information, hesitated, then hit two final keys on the keyboard. The screen lit up with rows of data.

“We're in,” he announced.

Kris rounded the desk and leaned over his shoulder, scanning through the files that came up. There were the usual—banking, bills, tax information, copies of media releases, files for topics she had been researching, along with files of sources, interviews over the years, articles that had appeared in newspapers, and taped interviews throughout her career, separate files for each of her previous books, and then a file name that Kris recognized, the working title of Cate's next book.

“Open that one.”

She spent the next three hours going through the file, reading through chapter after chapter, then searching through other files. A sandwich Innis had brought in earlier was untouched as she sat back at the workstation.

“Did you find it?” James asked.

He'd left earlier to take the motorcycle back to his friend Will, who was doing work on James' car. He'd spent the last hour exploring the café. She shook her head.

“Just an earlier draft that I saw several months ago. We discussed changes and I know Cate was working on them. But they're not here.” The latest back-up that she'd saved was almost two months earlier.

She thought of the damaged computer. Was it possible Cate simply hadn't backed up more recent work? Had she gone off on a brief getaway to clear her head after working on the book for the past year? Some time off to connect with old friends? Writer's block?

It happened to the most successful writers. Or was it something else? She looked up as Innis came back into the office.

“You were doing some other work for Cate for a gallery showing of her father's photographs in London.” She recalled what Cate had mentioned months earlier. And she had connected with a gallery in London for the showing.

Paul Bennett's work was known world-wide, iconic pictures that had documented world events and appeared in magazines for over fifty years. It was said that his photographs often showed a side of those events that might never otherwise have been seen—the human side. Cate had been more excited about the gallery showing than the release of her next book.

“I didn't find any photographs on the server.”

“What about the store room,” James suggested.

Innis looked at both of them. “I was going to get to that.” He gave James a narrow look, then stepped past them both.

“I usually keep it locked.” And with a look at James. “I never know who’s going to come snooping about.” He pushed the door open, reached a hand along the inside wall, and flipped a switch to a bank of overhead lights.

The room was long and narrow, and spanned the width of the café at the back. It was lined with the usual steel racks and shelves on one side, and a work counter with a sink along the opposite wall. Several trays sat side-by-side on the counter. A wire line had been strung over the counter. He'd obviously been working recently. Several photographs hung from the wire. The wall behind it was lined with photographs that had been enlarged and displayed under special lighting. There must have been at least fifty of them, black-and-white images from another time and place. Paul Bennett's photographs.