Seasons of Love (19 page)

Riley gasped. “But, Zane, you can count on Him.”

“That’s what your brother told me.” He turned into the entrance of the farm and continued toward the house.

“What did you say?”

Zane glanced at Riley, and the look of wonderment on her face took him by surprise.

“Your brother told me that I can count on God and His Son. John was there for me during that difficult time in my life and has been my closest friend since. That is, until he died.”

“Zane, I know what you must think. That whether John was killed in an accident or murdered, how can you count on God? But we don’t see the larger picture around us. He was there for me on the Ferris wheel with Eric. I know it.”

John was a Christian!

Zane’s words thrilled Riley, and she wanted to weep for joy, but she’d cried enough for one day.

As Zane pulled around the circular drive to park near the house, Millie and her granddaughter stepped through the door. Riley got out of the car.

Millie came over to hug her, a large handbag hooked in her elbow. “Riley, dear, I just put Chad down. Your grandfather was a bit nervous. Afraid he wouldn’t be able to get the poor child to sleep, so Elsie and I stayed to keep him company.”

“Oh, thank you. I’m sorry I’m so late. Did Chad do all right, then?”

Millie waved her hand to throw off any doubt. “He was a complete angel. Exhausted, but an angel. We were just leaving, but come inside, and I’ll show you what I’ve done. I prayed for you this evening, dear. Don’t know why but just felt I needed to do it. Is everything all right?”

Warmth filled Riley at Millie’s words. “Everything is fine. Thank you for your prayers. I felt them.”

Riley noticed Zane removing his briefcase and his purchase from the car as she followed Millie into the house.

Once in the kitchen, the older woman pointed out a large plate of chocolate chip cookies. “I made grilled cheese sandwiches, too, thinking you might be hungry when you got in. They’re wrapped in foil on the counter, probably still warm.”

Riley looked around the sparkling kitchen. Millie had left no evidence of her culinary endeavors but the food to be enjoyed. “Thank you, but you really didn’t have to do all of this.”

“Nonsense. We’ve got to get home, so I’ll leave you in your grandfather’s good hands.” Millie’s face brightened when she mentioned Grandpa.

Zane entered the kitchen just then, and he and Millie exchanged farewells.

Grandpa escorted Millie to her car then returned to the kitchen. “Thought you’d never get here, but now that you are, I’m exhausted. You wouldn’t think me rude if I went to bed, would you?”

“Grandpa, this is your house. Don’t be ridiculous.” Riley pecked him on the cheek.

“Night, all.” He disappeared up the stairs.

Zane slung his soft leather briefcase onto the table and began pulling out his laptop. A manila folder slid out onto the floor.

Riley leaned over to retrieve the file. A picture fell out. She picked it up and examined it. A woman who resembled Riley was wearing a locket and holding a cell phone to her ear. “This is the picture you told me about. I’ve seen this before.”

Zane plugged in the computer and booted it. “Probably saw it in a magazine: That’s where it came from. For some reason, John created a photo-quality picture from the magazine image to grab my attention in all of this.” He frowned.

After attaching the card reader to the USB port, Zane placed the memory card inside and waited for the data to display. He groaned and thrust his head into his hands, grabbing hair with his fingers.

“What is it?”

“We need the key. Why can’t I figure this out? It shouldn’t be this complicated.”

“Maybe I can help. But honestly, I don’t understand how it all works. Maybe if you could explain it to me, it would remind me of something important that John said to me. Why don’t you tell me exactly what you mean when you say ‘key,’ for starters?”

“As you know, John was working to build a new standard for encryption. All that means is changing data into a secret code through a mathematical algorithm—one that no one could get into. The problem is that no one
can
get into it.” He released a nervous, frustrated laugh. “The only way to read it is to have the key. John’s key is a short program, an algorithm like the encryption code itself.”

“Then let’s go over what we have.”

“Nothing. We have nothing.” Zane slid away from the table and moved to the counter. He stretched out his arms and pressed his hands against the edge, supporting his body.

Riley persisted. “There has to be something you’ve overlooked or you’re not telling me. We have the disk, and we found the locket—only it was used to give us the disk.” Riley closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. “And we have that picture, the first clue.”

The picture.
A memory flashed across her mind, and she grappled with it, trying to capture the thought. “The picture. There’s more to the picture.” She took it out of the folder again. “She looks like me, she’s wearing a locket… and she is talking on a cell phone.”

Adrenaline rushed through her. “Zane, I know where I’ve seen that picture before.”

Zane turned to face her. “In a magazine—I told you already.”

“No, it’s on my camera phone.”

His eyes widened. “Give it to me.”

Riley pulled the cell from her purse. “He sent me the phone a couple of weeks before he died. I had mentioned I’d like to have a camera phone. I confess I’ve never learned how to use it to take pictures.”

“I need the connections that came with this. Do you still have them?”

Riley retrieved the accessories from her room. “What does it all mean? What’s so important about the picture?”

He spoke as he connected the phone to the laptop. “If I’m right, the key is in the picture. If John embedded a data stream into this digital picture on your phone, all I have to do is download the picture, and when I open it on the laptop, the code should self-extract. It would then act similar to a virus. In this case, the virus is an algorithm used to open the data.”

Riley exhaled, amazed that she’d carried the key with her the entire time.

Riley leaned over Zane’s shoulder to watch as file names appeared on the monitor. It was difficult to comprehend that John had stored the only key on her phone to open whatever valuable secrets were contained on the disk, and she’d unknowingly kept it for him.

This near to Zane, she felt herself breathe in the scent of his cologne. A sudden, unpleasant thought confronted her. Once he finished solving the puzzle, he would be finished with Sanderford Farms because he’d found the key. It had been at the farm, with Riley, the entire time. The fact that she would no longer see him every day, if at all, disturbed her. She believed he would want to spend time with Chad, but it wouldn’t be the same.

Riley put her hand over her heart and took a step back from where Zane sat staring at the computer screen. He struggled with his relationship with God. She knew that, yet she’d allowed herself to fall in love with him. She’d been so caught up in the suspense of solving John’s mystery that she wasn’t sure when it had happened.

“No.” The word escaped without her permission. Though she’d thought it was inaudible, Zane glanced back at her.

“No, what? This is exactly what we wanted. This is it. It worked, Riley.”

Zane slid away from the computer and stood. “Come here.” He pulled her into his arms and held her. “I couldn’t have done this without you. You know that, right?”

Though her emotions were in conflict with her judgment, Riley allowed herself to savor his embrace. “That’s only because John sent me the key. He could just as easily have put it into your phone.”

“True enough. But he wanted the key to be far away from here. And maybe he knew we’d be good for each other.” He squeezed her.

A thrill rushed through Riley, and she wondered if Zane felt the same way about her that she did about him. A small comment window appeared in the center of the monitor. Zane had his back to it, so he couldn’t see.

Riley freed herself from his embrace. “I think it’s finished.”

Zane sat in the chair to face the laptop again. He scrolled down the list of file names; then he selected and opened one of them. Riley wasn’t certain why he’d singled it out. Copies of e-mails were pasted into a document along with other information.

“What does it all mean?” she asked.

“I’m not exactly sure, but it doesn’t look good.”

A twinge of panic rippled across her skin.

“It appears to be incriminating information linked to a government official.” Zane rubbed his chin. “I don’t want to read anything more, nor do I want to hold on to this. It needs to be turned over to the authorities.”

“So you think that they used John to hack into the system to retrieve this information?”

“That’s exactly what I think. They could have threatened his life or his family. I’m not sure. But he did the work. I believe he gave us the clues to ensure his life once he was finished. If something happened to him, then the criminals would be exposed, though they had no way of knowing how. That’s where I’m confused, because it didn’t work, and because of his death, we now hold volatile information in our hands.”

Zane shut down the computer then snapped it closed. Frowning, he stood and looked at Riley. She knew her expression mirrored his.

“John’s plan backfired, and he was killed.” She wasn’t certain she believed that aspect of Zane’s theory. Still, the authorities would have to iron out all that had happened and why. “What if, and this is a big ‘if,’ John’s death really was an accident?” Her mind began to wrap around the idea. “What if the bad guys, whoever they are, didn’t kill him? He just simply died before they got what they wanted?”

Zane walked down the corridor of Cyphorensic Technologies to make sure the entire premises had been vacated. Though his lease did not expire for another two months, he’d sold the office furniture. There was no reason for him to remain. After all that had transpired over the last several months, Zane could not bring himself to go forward with his company when it had played a role in John’s predicament.

His partner and friend had made sure that Zane had the encryption software he’d created. It was on the disk. Though it was only in the alpha phase, Zane was able to sell the code. He put the money into a trust fund for Chad.

Even with all the information that Zane had supplied the investigators, no other conclusion could be reached but that John had been killed in an accident, not murdered, before he had been able to deliver the decryption code to the criminals. Eric’s clients. They’d had a need, and he’d supplied the name—John’s name. Eric had no knowledge of their dealings with John until they pressured him to help obtain the key. After the police questioned Eric, two men were arrested in connection with attempting to gain unauthorized access into a government computer system.

Zane hoped that Riley found consolation in the fact that John did not seem to have participated in the hacking job by choice. But he was threatened, and in the end, it appeared that he’d had no intention of delivering.

Zane stood in the center of the reception area and turned slowly. His gaze rested on the spot where Chelsea’s desk had been. He hoped she loved her new job.

“I’ll pray for you.”
He reflected on her words then whispered, “Thank you, Chelsea.”

His heart told him that her prayers had been answered. After the tragedy with his brother and his parents’ divorce, he thought that God didn’t care about the details of his life. Didn’t care about him. So Zane wanted no part of God. His life, to this point, had been built on creating an empire for himself. But it meant nothing.

As he looked at the vacated offices of his venture, the cold, stark truth wrapped around him. He could do anything he wanted, including start a new company, but nothing he did would matter without a relationship with God and His Son.

He reflected on the last few months spent at Sanderford Cranberry Farms. Without a doubt, he knew that God did care about him. He could see it all around him, as well as through the subtle ways God had whispered to his heart.