Page 33 of Hacking His Code

Arinessa’s intelligence has far exceeded my expectation, and if I’m being honest, I’ve never been more turned on by a woman.

But she hasn’t had any sleep, and the exhaustion is beginning to show on her face.

“Dammit,” she mutters under her breath.

“What’s up?”

She rubs her eyes, then stretches her arms upward. “I never did change out of the slut dress.”

“I’m not complaining,” I say, then instantly regret my words when I see her scowl.

“My apologies. I didn’t mean to make you feel self-conscious, but you do look lovely. And…well…that dress covers up more than the skimpy tank top and shorts you came in with.”

She throws up her hands in frustration. “That’s what I sleep in! It’s not my fault your hired thugs didn’t let me change.”

“I am sorry about that. Why don’t you go change into something while I check out your progress?”

“I’m going to take you up on that offer.”

Arinessa disappears into the bathroom, and I bring the laptop into bed with me. A lure she won’t be able to resist.

When she emerges, it takes her a moment to locate me on the bed. Her face registers confusion, then anxiety.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I’m not a morning person and was feeling a bit groggy,” I say innocuously.

She walks over slowly, an uneasy look on her face. She’s wearing a pair of oversized sweats that the girls must have ordered her, every hair on her head is out of place. Even bedraggled, she’s stunning.

I sit with my back against the headboard and fluff a pillow beside me. “Climb on in. I promise I won’t try anything.”

“Your bed is like ten feet high,” she says. “There’s no way I’ll make it up. I’m a computer nerd, not a pole vaulter.”

“Well, use the nightstand to climb up.”

Grumbling, she hops up on the bed, sitting to the side, far away from me.

“So, you’ve eliminated personal trainer number two as a suspect. What about personal trainer number one, the one I wanted to look into?”

“Elton Hartwick, as you said, has disappeared. Took a little bit of digging, but I found him.”

“How?”

“I looked into what he used to order from Amazon before he disappeared, and I was able to find a bunch of very specific items that renewed automatically. Then I hacked a bunch of shit and found the client lists for those companies, eventually finding someone that had several of the same orders.”

“Wow—just wow.” My eyes grow round with surprise and admiration. “You really are a genius. I would have never thought of that.”

“He is living with a much older woman. I suspect he’s after her fortune.”

“Anything implicating him in my aunt’s disappearance?”

“No. I was able to find forums he frequents along with his daily web traffic, and I haven’t seen him looking up your aunt at all, and usually when someone’s guilty of kidnapping, they look up the person constantly.”

“Agreed.”

“That’s really all I’ve found so far.”

“You’ve done great, but I’d like to be able to look at how you constructed the files and the corkboard a little more. You did a much better job of it than myself. Do you care to show me?”

Her eyes go to the pillow beside me. I can tell she’s nervous, but she doesn’t look suspicious.