Jury Town (26 page)

So far she loved everything about Jury Town. And then there was that four million dollars at the end of the rainbow. That would be the best thing of all.

Her smile widened as she headed for the bureau. She loved playing pool. She kept her arrogance controlled in front of others. But, deep down, she thrived on the attention she won for putting ball after ball into those pockets.

She laughed softly. She was going to start taking a dive tonight—a big one—to let Wilson win a chain of games and make him think he was better than he was, and that she wasn’t nearly as good as she’d played the other night. She wanted to walk out of Jury Town in two years with more than four million dollars.

And Hal Wilson was the mark.

He was quiet, but intensely competitive beneath his unassuming surface. He thought men were naturally superior to women, though he would never say so, of course. And he believed himself a much better pool player than he really was.

He wasn’t the type to ever have shown up at her door to be dominated, just the opposite, in fact—which made him the perfect kind of man to take money from on the pool table. She’d play this out for two years, but in the end work Wilson for at least ten grand.

She was about to pull the flashy top she’d chosen out of the drawer when she noticed what looked like the corner of a piece of paper sticking out from beneath her pillow.

She moved slowly to the bed, slid the paper out from its hiding place, and read. Halfway through it she eased onto the bed as the words on the page blurred before her.

Suddenly she hated Jury Town.

DARIEN, CONNECTICUT

Rockwell glanced away from the computer monitor in his Connecticut study to his phone when it rang shrilly. “Hello.”

“Hello, Mr. Rockwell.”

“Jesus,”
he hissed, “why are you using names?”

“What’s the problem?” the Gray asked calmly. “Are you worried someone might be trying to find you?”

That sounded strange, Rockwell thought. Maybe it was because he’d been hard at work on the Internet again, trying to find the fourth Gray, when the call had interrupted him.

“No.”

“Don’t worry,” the man said confidently. “For the next ninety seconds, we’re on a secure line.”

“Oh,” Rockwell muttered, relieved. Of course, it made sense given that this man was so senior at NSA. Still, the remark had unnerved him.

“Is the intruder ready?” the Gray asked.

“Yes.”

“Everything prepared?”

“Yes.”

“Then she may fire at will.”

As Rockwell hung up, he heard a shuffling sound in the hallway outside his study—strange because he was the only one here.

He stood up quickly, grabbed his pistol from a credenza drawer, and hurried for the door. He hesitated a moment, then burst into the hallway, swinging the gun quickly in both directions.

“Good Lord,” he whispered as he lowered the gun, and his shoulders sagged when he spotted his black Lab. “I thought you were outside, Drexel.”

JURY TOWN

Racine remained in the hallway after Sofia unlocked the door to her room and moved inside. He’d enjoyed her company so much at dinner, he wasn’t looking forward to being alone again, but he didn’t want to push this. “It was great seeing you,” he called.

“Are you leaving?” she asked, disappointed. She tossed her keys on the desk and turned back to face him.

“I guess.”

“You don’t have to be anywhere until nine o’clock tomorrow morning. Why are you leaving me?”

“Well, I—”

“Don’t be rude. Come in.”

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” he offered, sitting in the desk chair.

“You’re funny, too. I like that.”

“Funny?”

“It’s a refurbished prison cell,” she said, sitting on the bed after closing the door. “There’s only so much a girl can do with it.”

“Well, it looks a lot better than mine.”

“So . . . I’m sorry I dodged your question while we were eating.”

He wanted to ask Sofia what she meant by funny,
too
, but held back. “Which question?”

“How I got here.”

“I didn’t mean to pry.”

She took a deep breath, then put a hand on her chest, emotion catching up. “Sorry.”

“Are you okay?”

She took several seconds to answer. “My husband was murdered. That’s why I’m here.”

“My God,” Racine murmured.

“Raul was head of security for the Virginia Supreme Court.”

“I read about that, about him. It happened close to where I live. That was
your
husband?”

She nodded. “Chief Justice Eldridge felt very guilty about it. He arranged for me to come here so I could . . .”

“Earn the money,” Racine finished. “I get it.”

“It’s a lot of money, but now I won’t see my kids for two years.”

“I get that, too,” he said quietly. “I’m in the same boat with my daughter. I put her on a plane to Los Angeles earlier today. I don’t even know if she got there safely.”

“Los Angeles?”

“Her mother and I are separated. Tess moved to Los Angeles, so Claire will live with her.”

“How old is Claire?”

“Fourteen. How old are your children?” he asked.

“Daniel is ten and . . . Maria, my baby, is eight.” Sofia shook her head hard. “This conversation’s too real. Let’s talk about something else, okay?”

Racine nodded. “Sure.”

“What should we—”

“What’s the name of the woman who’s on the Commonwealth trial? The woman with the vendetta you pointed out earlier.”

PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA

The young woman had been probing the company’s firewall all night from her laptop, testing spots that would be easy to penetrate. And, equally important, spots that would leave no trace of her crime after she’d dropped her bomb on the network, no electronic footprints that would be discernible.

A smug smile creased her face when she finally located what she’d been searching for. In a few seconds, she’d be into the network, able to travel around—and leave—like a ghost through an old castle. With no one ever knowing she’d been there.

This castle was Gaynor Construction, Inc.

Her eyes narrowed as she finished her work. Leaving
zero
footprints was impossible. But, like tracks in old snow covered by a fresh blizzard, the electronic trail she’d just created was all but invisible. Only a handful of people in the world were skilled enough to detect her work at this point.

The woman who’d just been hacked would have no idea who those people were—nor would the lawyers she was about to need.