Her fingers flew as soon as she laid them on the keyboard.A tiny concentration line appeared between her brows as she worked, her attention focused on thescreen.
Once I had my own cup of coffee in hand, I walked around the table to watch.Lines of gibberish appeared on a black screen as her hands worked some kind of magic spell I would neverunderstand.
Until ...Idid.
The police department’s internal search screen popped up in awindow.
“Wait a minute.You just hacked into the system in less than fiveminutes?”
A huff escaped her lips.“Less than two.Five would be sad.It didn’t even take me that long thefirsttime.”
I blinked twice, and my gaze darted between her still-flying fingers and the screen.When she said she was good, she was telling thetruth.
“Shouldn’t it be harder?Do they have any idea that people can do that?It seemswrong.”
Ari shrugged.“What’swrongis the fact that the government won’t spend the money to secure its own sites, even though it knows about the vulnerabilities.A baby hacker could get in, although they might not be as good at covering their tracks asIam.”
The implications of what she was doing settled like lead in my gut.“You’re sure no one can trace this backtoyou?”
“It all leads back to an IP address in Bangladesh this time.I never use the same one twice,” she replied absently as she scanned thescreen.
Her body was sexy.Her face was beautiful.But her brain blewmeaway.
“You’reincredible.”
She shrugged off the compliment.“We’ll see.I haven’t found anything useful yet.”She returned her attention to the keyboard.“ButIwill.”
Within moments, she had a police report on the screen that was filed in the early hours of the morning by the detective in charge of her father’s case, and I read over hershoulder.
“Your father reported that there were two assailants.Hispanic.In their twenties.Both speaking Spanish.Distinctive tattoos that have surfaced as being associated with a certain Mexican drug cartel in the last several years.”They’d also stolen his Saint Michael medallion, and I remembered Ari saying he’d never taken it off for as long as she remembered.Her mom had given it to him the day he’d graduated from theacademy.
I could tell when she got to that part of the report by the tensing of her body.Silence hung between us as we both processed thedetails.
“I don’t get it.Was it random?Or are they trying to say there’s a connection to apriorcase?”
I reread it.The report was incomplete, which wasn’t surprising given the time it was filed.“He was homicide and retired before the cartel became the issue it istoday.”
“So it was random,” sheconcluded.
“Itcould’vebeen.”
I didn’t tell her the rest of what I was thinking because I didn’t understand how all the pieces fit together yet, but my gut said this wasn’t random.These guys didn’t just go around beating up retired cops.They might have been arrogant, but they weren’tstupid.
My brother was killed in a cartel drug raid gone wrong, and my dad died while the cops were on their way to arrest him for being on the cartel payroll.This connection hit way too close to home, even if it didn’t makesenseyet.
I read through the description Mr.Sampson had given again and committed everything tomemory.
Ari finally lifted her hands from the keyboard.“This doesn’t make any sense, does it?Maybe they were just out and saw him as an easytarget?”
“Maybe.”
Again, the answer didn’t sit right in my gut.Heath was IA, and his department was investigating my father’s cartel connection.He’d taken himself off the case, but maybe they thought he was involved and getting tooclose?
Ari turned to look at me, her eyes narrowed.“What aren’t youtellingme?”
“I don’t know anything for sure, but something here isn’t makingsense.”
She crossed her arms.“Tell me.We’re a team in this, right?”Her eyebrow rose, and I had a feeling this wasatest.