Page 48 of Insidious Threats

“That’s right,” August confirmed. “How’d you know that?”

“I don’t know? Because I’m sentient?”

“That’s enough out of you. Here goes.”

She pressed the icon. Nothing happened. They let out the collective breath that they’d been holding.

“Well, shoot,” Maisy huffed.

“That was Josh’s birthday, right?” Jordana asked.

“That’s right.” She turned and explained to Leo, “Our tech genius reused the same password for sixteen years—the date his son was born.”

August groaned and pulled his hands through his hair. “Don’t tell me that,” he moaned dramatically. “It’ll give me nightmares.”

“I’m sorry, Leo. It opened his laptop right up. And his cell phone, too.”

August emitted another pained grunt.

Jordana shushed him before Leo had to. “Quiet. Maisy, didn’t Landon’s ex-wife say he knew the password was easily guessed, but he didn’t really care if anything on either device was secure?”

“She did.”

“But hedidcare about protecting whatever the heck’s on this drive. Otherwise, he could have put it on any old drive he had lying around. Not this encrypted-self-destructing-super-spy thing.”

“True,” Maisy mused, slowly. “He’d want to make it harder to guess, but nottoohard. It could be …” She reached for the keypad, then hesitated. “I don’t know if I should. What if I’m wrong again?”

“Two failed attempts isn’t going to lock us out. Do it,” August urged.

She met Leo’s eyes. He nodded.

“Okay. One-zero-one-three-zero-seven.”

Leo wrinkled his forehead. He recognized that series of numbers. But why?

She pressed the icon. For a millisecond, nothing happened.

Leo heard the disappointed sigh rising in his throat. But then, the button lit up and flashed green. She gasped. August and Jordana spontaneously clapped their hands.

“I can’t believe you did it. How’d you know the PIN?” Leo asked.

“Funny thing is you had the PIN. At least until December, when you gave it back to me.”

He dropped his head back against the wall. “Ten-oh three-oh seven. It was engraved on the letter opener. The date of Josh’s murder.” In retrospect, it seemed obvious.

Maisy bounced on her seat and turned toward August. “So, can you look at it now?”

“I can. But if it’s encrypted and password-protected, this might take a while,” he cautioned.

Leo shook his head. “No. He wouldn’t do that. He wanted me to be able to use this program or whatever it is. Sure, he locked the drive. That’s a basic precaution. But my gut says that’s all he did.”

August shrugged. “Let me grab a laptop that’s not connected to the network, and we’ll find out.”

* * *

Sasha pushed openthe door to the storage room to find her husband peering over August’s shoulder at a computer screen. Maisy and Jordana hovered behind him.

“What are you kids up to?”