ANOMALY.MIL (The Conspiracy Series Book One): A Romantic Suspence Novel (5 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

"A porn star!" Seneca scoffed, shoving Ansel off of her the second the door to their hotel room closed.

The man grinned, totally amused.

"Well, I don't know if a porn 'star' would be shooting in a place like this," he observed. "I'd say you're more like a porn 'actress.’"

"Jackass," Seneca mumbled, dropping her purse on the worn wooden table next to Dave's camera bag. And then she remembered, "And was it really necessary to rip my only shirt?"

She held it closed, suddenly remembering his kiss and the way her knees began to buckle. Seneca could feel herself starting to blush and Ansel saw it, chuckling. It made her so mad. And the angrier she got, the harder he laughed. So she punched him in the arm.

"Ow," he said, as if she could possibly hurt him. "It's just a shirt."

"For God's sake!" Dave stood up from the bed he was sitting on. "Could we concentrate on finding Catherine? Please."

Contrite, Seneca glanced at Ansel. "You're not gonna find Cat," he said, as if it were fact.

"The hell I'm not!" Dave growled. "I'll never stop looking for her."

"I know." Ansel walked over to stand in front of his brother-in-law. "All I meant was that you're going to track her and tell me where to go." His voice was so kind, so gentle that it surprised her. "I have a friend, a hacker with all the computers you will need to do the job. All his stuff is encrypted, and he's very good at remaining undetected. Took me forever to find him," he added, more to himself than them.

"Once I track her down, what are you going to do to get her back?" Dave asked.

Ansel didn't answer, just unzipped his duffel bag and dumped the contents all over the bed. There were so many stacks of cash that it looked like he had robbed a bank. And cell phones, there were phones everywhere. 

"These are prepaid phones." Ansel handed five of them to Dave, who was struggling to hold on to them. "We’ll talk using these, and only when necessary. Use a phone only once," he explained, holding one up. "Tell me the number of the next phone before tossing this one, but wipe off your fingerprints before you do toss it. Same routine with the next call. Are we clear?"

"Yes." Dave nodded, and then Ansel turned his attention on Seneca.

"Yeah, I got it," she nodded, and when Ansel was satisfied that she did, he continued.

"If you run out of phones and need to buy one, don't use it in the same place where you bought it. Travel a good distance before calling me. We don't want them tracking you via store surveillance systems. Any information they gather helps them find you.
Any
information," he emphasized and Seneca wondered what Ansel was remembering, what he had done.

"Seneca, do you have any friends that aren't on social media, email? I mean nothing."

"Who doesn't have email?"
Nobody
. "And I live in Seattle, the most tech-driven city in the world. So, no, of course I don't have friend that aren't online," she said, then thought, "I do have a grandma who lives in the middle of nowhere, if that helps?"

"No, it doesn't." He shook his head. "Once they identify you with the satellite images from the house, they will have hacked into your phone and will be speaking to all your family and friends."

Seneca sucked in a breath, feeling violated. "Are you serious?"

"Very." His eyes were so intense, it was unnerving. "Not only that, they will know everything about you by now. How you prefer your Starbucks coffee, and how often you go to drink it. Your favorite restaurants. Your favorite lipstick. Your current relationship."

"I don't have one." She felt defensive.

"Past relationships," Ansel said, and she stared at him, appalled. "All of your financial accounts will be frozen until you speak with them, which I do not recommend until I figure out what's going on. I don't think they’ll kill you."
Kill me!
"But trust me, it will not be a pleasant experience if they find you."

There must have been a power surge, because the lights in the room began to dim and her legs began to shake. But then, Seneca felt a large hand grabbing her around her waist, guiding her to the edge of the queen size bed.

"It's only been…" Her throat started to close, and she felt Ansel's hand around the back of her neck, pushing her head down between her knees so she wouldn't hyperventilate. "Five hours…since they took Cat," she said, from under a sheet of hair.

"They're very good at their jobs."

"But so are you. Right?" she prayed to the carpet with pressure building in her inverted head. 

"What are we going to do now?" Dave asked.

"I’m gotta find some satellite footage of the black SUV Cat left in so we can get the plate number." Ansel sounded frustrated. "But I can't exactly call Gunner and ask him to give me access to—"

"I have an idea!" Seneca was so excited that she lifted her head up too fast, and…

The next thing she knew; she was lying on the bed with Ansel over her. He was so good-looking, and the muscles in his defined chest were straining to hold up his considerable body weight.

Her hands were itching to touch him, but she knew she shouldn't. The position she was in was so enjoyable that Seneca felt like smiling, but his masculine face looked worried and then she remembered.

"I have an idea," she whispered, and his dark brows furrowed.

"Really?" 

That made her mad.

"Yes, really," she said, hitting him in the arm just hard enough that he fell to one side, while she rolled off the other. "I know how we can track her."

"How?" Ansel was propping himself up on his elbow.

"Yeah, how?" Dave asked, and she chose to turn away from the large man on the bed, and toward her best friend's husband.

"By not tracking
her."

"What?" Dave asked, but both men looked at her like they were totally confused.

"You have two phones, don't you?" she asked Ansel. He sat up as if his considerable body weight were nothing. "One encrypted phone for missions and other army stuff. And another—"

"Unencrypted phone for personal use," Ansel nodded, and it was so nice to be understood.

"I don't understand." Dave was shaking his head. "How does the fact that Ansel has a personal cell phone help us track Catherine?"

"Because," she smiled, pointing at Ansel. "If he has a personal phone, then so does Gunner."

"But Gunner doesn't have Catherine," Dave reminded her.

"But he is following her," Ansel helped to explain. "With the help of all those government satellites and support teams."

"So, we just track Gunner, to find Catherine," Seneca finished, her eyes wide with excitement.

"Smart," Dave conceded. "But how in the world do we track him?" he asked, finally catching on.

"There's no way I can use army resources to track Gunner’s team." Ansel raised his palms in defeat. "And even if I could, it would alert him to our position."

"You don't need army resources," Seneca said, pleased with herself. "I have a good friend at Google who used to work with me in my department."

"Will this friend help you track a phone?" Dave asked. "Is that even legal?"

"It's legal. Not very ethical," she added, "but totally legal. He can just log the trace as a beta test for the newest version of their software. They do it all the time."

"Why would this guy help you?" Ansel asked, suspicious.

"Because," Seneca shrugged. "He's in love with me."

CHAPTER EIGHT

"Seneca." Ben's heart skipped a beat.

He had not talked to Seneca Reed in three weeks. She had been so busy dabbling in photography that they had not had a chance to get together.
Photography.
What a waste of her programming skills.

She was so smart, and so damn beautiful.

"How's it going?” he asked, stroking his beard. “I haven't seen you in a while."

"I know. I'm so sorry
."
She sounded like she was, and that made him smile. He pushed his stylish glasses up his nose, then leaned back in his chair. "I've been really busy lately with—"

"With photography?" he chuckled, doubtful.

"Hey, it's a lot harder to get a great picture than you would think," she said, defending herself with such passion that he had to laugh.

"Duly noted," he said, resting his hand behind his head. "Photography is much harder than computer programming. Got it."

"Well, I didn't say that."

He could almost see her smiling. Her big brown eyes sparkling, her perfect little nose crinkling, and those beautiful lips. Heat spread through him and he bit down on the outside of his lip, quelling his desire as he built up the courage to finally ask her out.

"I—"

"I…Oh, sorry. You go ahead," she said, so politely that he smiled.

"No, no, no," he muttered. "What were you going to say?"

"Oh, I was wondering if you could…" She paused, and his brows pulled together. "Do me a huge favor?"

"Sure."
Anything.

"Could you track a phone for me?"
Wow.
It was an odd request. But he knew if Seneca was making it, there had to be a good reason. Still, he could get in a lot of trouble for running an unauthorized trace. "Please," she added, and his heart skipped a beat.

"Why?" Ben asked, needing to know.

"A friend of mine…Well, he's in law enforcement."
He?
A flash of jealousy stabbed him in the gut, and Ben was having a difficult time listening to anything else she said. "He needs to track a phone used at the scene of a crime that took place at about noon today."

"How do you know this friend?" Ben was not sure what he would do it if she told him they were dating.

"His sister is my boss at the magazine." Ben breathed a sigh of relief that defused his anger towards this guy. "I just met him this morning when…when he told me that his sister had been kidnapped."             

"Oh my God!" Ben sat straight up, feeling like an asshole. "That's awful."

"Yeah, we're all out of our minds with worry." She sounded so upset.

"How do you know she was kidnapped?" This was the craziest thing he had ever heard, but he knew Seneca would never lie. Especially to him. "Did someone witness it?"

"No, they have security cameras at her house, and we saw the video." It was so like Seneca to get involved.
God, he wanted her.
"But because it's his sister, they won't allow him to investigate, and he needs to work on the case. I mean, it's the guy's job to investigate this type of thing, and they're not allowing him to use his skills to find his own sister."

"God, that's terrible. Sure. Whatever, I can do to help, Seneca. I'm all yours." He liked coming to her rescue, and just wished he could do it permanently. He grabbed a pen and some paper. "What's the number of the phone you want tracked?" Ben asked, not wanting to upset her further by continuing to talk about her friend.

She gave him the number, and he started the trace immediately. But when he did, a huge red flag came up next to the name, Gunner Holstad.

"Seneca, this guy has a really high security clearance?"

"I know. The guy is so scary. He's in the military, and he's been stalking my boss for almost a year now. Gunner even told her that if he wanted to take her, no one could stop him. And he finally did it."
Seneca sounded like she was going to cry, and Ben wanted nothing more than to hold her. "You know how these stalking cases can end. If we can just get his last GPS location, we might be able to find her in time."

Ben could not imagine anything like this happening to Seneca. What a nightmare for this woman's family.

"I can do better than that," Ben said, happy to help them. "Gunner Holstad is running the latest version of our software."

"What does the new version do?" Seneca asked, sounding like the curious programmer he had fallen in love with.

"I can remotely turn on his phone's GPS, microphone, and camera without him knowing it." Ben was typing away on his keyboard to do just that. "I can send the live feed to your computer, but that’s all I can do. I'm sorry. I’m on deadline."

"Oh, Ben. Thank you so much. You've done plenty," she added, and he grinned, loving the sound of his name on her lips. "I owe you dinner."

He would like more.
A lot more
.  

"I want a sit-down dinner at one of those places you write about," he negotiated, smiling. "No crappy burger joint."

A nice, long dinner so he could spend more time with her.

"It's a date," she promised, and he felt a surge of exhilaration. "Whenever you want to go."

  "Well, like I said, I'm on deadline." He wished he could keep talking to her, but he couldn’t. "So, let me know if you have problems with the feed. And Seneca, I really hope you find your friend." Ben would not mention the brother, especially if he was in law enforcement with six-pack abs and that hero thing working in his favor. "Please, let me know when you find her."

If you find her.

"I will. And Ben…" The way she said his name, caused him to stop breathing. "Thank you."

"Anything for you, Seneca." And he meant it, but then he was afraid she would know and sense the depth of his feelings. So he said, "Bye," before hanging up on her.