Obession by Design (2 page)

“Because
one of the people who helped me build this site was my late husband, and if he
still has family alive somewhere, I never want them to find out this website is
still accessible.”

Chapter
Two

The
news that
Liane
had a dead husband wasn’t a surprise
to Emmett. He’d thoroughly researched her background. A man in his position
would do nothing less, but the chain of events surrounding her short marriage
and her move underground had holes in it. He didn’t like that. He preferred
everything lined up nice and neatly, too, and he had every intention of filling
in the blanks this morning. He had a very special project in mind for
Liane
, but first he had to know he could trust her.

He
nodded slowly. “You kept your married name after his death.”

“Yes.
My maiden name was McNeil.” She nodded toward the tablet. “No doubt you saw
that name in the transcripts as well.”

“I
did, but it’s what I didn’t find in your background that troubles me.” His gaze
drifted to her left hand. “You kept his name, but you no longer wear your
wedding ring.”

“I
lost it shortly after the storm that destroyed the town I lived in.”

She
watched him with trepidation now, as well as pain. He hadn’t missed her
reaction to the website or to talking about her past. If she wanted to work for
him, she’d need to realize that he did not tolerate secrets among his
employees. “I never found a marriage license.”

Her
face colored, and she clasped her hands tightly in her lap once more. “We were
married when I discovered I was pregnant with Molly. We were both still in
school,
and it was a quick thing in a tiny town that’s …
that’s gone now.”

Her
voice trailed off, and Emmett’s heart gave a little lurch. These were painful
memories for her, but he needed to know what was missing from the online data.
“Most of them are,” he said gently, “but why were there no electronic records?”

“They
were slow in uploading them. It wasn’t unusual for them to take six months to a
year to record events like that. Oh, you could get a paper copy, but they
didn’t update their database very often. Like I said, it was a tiny town, and
no one really worried about such things.”

He
knew where she was from, of course, and he knew what had happened to the town.
“When the courthouse was destroyed, the paper records went with it.”

She
nodded several times. “Yes. That’s right.
Blown away.
All of it.
My daughter’s birth certificate isn’t in
electronic form either.
Nor is Keith’s death certificate.”

Her
voice had dropped to a whisper, and Emmett felt like a giant shit. He hadn’t
meant to cause her pain by forcing her to relive this. The urge to touch her
arm in a gesture of comfort was strong, but he held back. Instead he told her
he’d never take the information she gave him today beyond this room. “No one
will know the truth about this website. I promise you that.”

A
look of relief crossed her pretty face. He’d never seen hair the color of hers.
It reminded him of sunsets—
real
sunsets. The kind he remembered above ground.
All gold and
red at the same time.
And her eyes were as brilliant as the rarest
emeralds. The moment he’d seen her face online, he’d wanted her. Not only on
one of his special teams, but in his bed.

But
first he had to get past this. He had to know she wasn’t also a threat to him.
Because the skills necessary to build this website and then upload it onto the
university’s servers, and keep it running undetected for over six months,
didn’t grow on trees. You couldn’t teach skills like that in a classroom or
from an online textbook. You were born with them. They were part of your DNA
makeup. He needed this woman for that reason, as much as he needed her for
those eyes, all that hair, and that lush, curvy body hiding underneath a very
pretty and expensive suit.

“Keith
and I were in most of the same classes together, and we were friends before we
started dating. The people who helped us build this were our friends, and we
were simply sitting around one Saturday night, watching old movies, and came
across one called
War Games
. Have you
seen it?”

He
shook his head.

“It
was made in 1983, if you can imagine. It was so outdated, of course, but we
enjoyed the concept. A teen
whom
we’re led to believe
is a computer whiz accidentally connects into a top secret super-computer which
has complete control over the U.S. nuclear arsenal. It challenges him to a game
between America and Russia, and he innocently starts the countdown to a world
war. The idea is that he has to convince the computer it’s only a game and not
real. It reminded us of the nuclear war scare of 2072, and that led us to a
discussion of the first time hackers tried to access The Madeline Project.”

He
nodded. “I remember that. It hadn’t even had a real time test yet.”

“That’s
right.
Only a lab test.
As we discussed the attempt,
we began to toss out reasons why someone would want to break into it.”

“What
did you come up with?”

She
hugged herself. “A surprisingly accurate scenario of what actually did happen.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You
know,
a lot of people I’ve
spoken to believe that was an inside job.”

A
shiver ran down his spine. Dominic Greco, another close friend of his and
Ace’s, had always believed the same thing.

“I
mean think about it. Not only were these people able to break into one of the
most secure networks on the planet at the time, but they knew things only those
working for NSSL would have known.”

Emmett
had heard these same theories for years, but it wasn’t until Harper Mathews,
working on Ace’s hacker team, had recently discovered the identity of one of
the possible hackers that the men had realized Dominic wasn’t too far off. The
man’s name was Rob Marin, and up until several weeks ago, he had worked for
Ace. “We’ve considered that, but the information they knew about NSSL was also
obtained by hacking into those servers.”

The
public didn’t know that, of course, and he was taking a chance on telling her,
but the confusion and surprise on her face assured him she’d had no idea
either. “I’ve never heard that.”

He
smiled. “There are a lot of things with respect to Tommy Twister that Ace,
myself, and the others keep to
ourselves
for obvious
reasons.” The “inside job” that Dominic, and now the rest of them believed
might be part of this referred to people working for those trying to take back
The Madeline Project, not to former NSSL employees. But he wasn’t going to
share that with
Liane
yet, either.

“So
why have you told me that little tidbit?” she asked. “That the NSSL servers
were hacked into?”

He
leaned forward and caught a whiff of her perfume, delicate and flowery. It
suited her. “I want to hear the rest of the story surrounding this website.” Up
close, her eyes were stunning. His dick was rock hard as he watched her face
for subtle clues to what was on her mind.

“All right.
As I said, we started tossing
out reasons why someone would want to hack into the program and of course came
up with the obvious one. Control the weather, and you control the planet. That
led to a discussion of other websites or programs that we’d like to control,
and what we would do with them if we could. We were freshmen in college, away
from home for the first time.”

Emmett
could see she was uncomfortable now, but he had to know the truth. He said
nothing. Instead he studied the expression in her eyes as she talked.

“It
was a juvenile thing to do.”

 
A smile played at the corners of his mouth,
and he watched annoyance cross her face. He liked the fire in this girl. Was
she that passionate in bed? He intended to find out.

“Breaking
into the university’s website and changing grades or something was too easy.
Too mundane.
We wanted to do something that would leave a
lasting impression.” Her gaze cut to the tablet. She was clearly embarrassed
now, but he didn’t stop her. It was important he find out where her head was at
the time, and whether she’d ever done anything like that since. He needed to
know she understood the difference now between breaking into a site for shits
and giggles, and doing so for the greater good.

“So
we built the site. At first it was just for fun. Practice on what we were
learning in class, but of course we couldn’t use something like this for an
assigned project.”

“Who
retrieved the footage from the security cameras inside the professor’s home?”

“Billy
Herschel. He simply took frames from each one and made the videos into whatever
he wanted them to be.”

“What
was Keith’s part in it, other than helping you build the site?”

“He
and I both hacked into the university’s system and uploaded the site to their
servers.”

Emmett
chuckled. “Impressive. Who masked it for that long?”

A
slow blush crept up her neck and face. “That would be me.”

Perfect
. “You’re all lucky you weren’t
expelled.”

“I
know.”

“The
only reason you weren’t is because of your parents.” Her parents had been
professors themselves, and had donated money and equipment to the biochemical
warfare research program. Otherwise she’d never have earned her degree, and who
knows where she’d be right now?

“I
know that, too.”

He
leaned closer, and this time he touched the sleeve of her jacket. When she
didn’t flinch or react in a negative manner, he had a sudden urge to pump his
fist in the air. He closed his hand around her forearm. “I’m not trying to
dredge up painful memories for you,
Liane
. I can read
what happened for
myself
in the transcripts, but I do
need to know why you did this. What was your motivation? Was it merely to see
if it could be done, or did you have something else in mind?”

“We
only wanted to see if it could be done.”

She
was lying. He saw it in her eyes and heard it in her voice, but what was she
lying about?
“Why the footage from this particular
professor’s home?”
Professor Manny Alvarez was a psychology professor
who had been tenured at the university at the time. Surely they must have known
how dangerous it was. So why had they done it? Was it personal?

Liane
averted her gaze and snatched
her arm from his hand. The entire set of her body changed, just like that. “We
had our reasons.”

“I
need to know what they were.” He kept his voice quiet, but judging by the quickness
with which she looked into his eyes again, he knew she’d caught the undertone.
He wasn’t used to playing games, and he couldn’t afford to do so with this
issue.

“He
was a scumbag. He raped one of our friends, but no one believed her. Even after
she told them he had footage of it from the security cameras all over his
house, they did nothing.”

He
hadn’t been expecting that. “I’m sorry. So this was revenge.”

“You’re
damn right it was. We wanted to nail that bastard. If we couldn’t do that, we
wanted to embarrass him.”

Embarrass
him they certainly had.
Liane
and her friends had put
together montages from Manny’s security tapes that showed him as a comedic old
fart, and unable to get it up even when he filmed himself masturbating to porn.
But it was still wrong.

“Our
friend left school over the rape.”

“So
did the professor.”

“Good.
That way he couldn’t do that to anyone else.”

Not
at that university, at least.

“So
what happens now?” she
asked,
her voice small and
slightly shaky.

There
was no point in dragging this out any longer. “Ace and I belong to a group of
business owners who have made it our life’s mission to find the people
responsible for hacking into The Madeline Project. We are also trying to find
ways to take back control of the program. Up until a few weeks ago, we each had
a team of people focusing on popular sites where hackers gathered to trade
tips, passwords, and boast about their latest conquests.”

“Have
you had any luck?”

“Yes
and no. Certain sites were set up in the early 2100s to deal with weather
control and early computer programs that tried to do what The Madeline Project
did.”

“That
sounds like a good place to start.”

“We
thought so, too. In six years we’ve isolated hundreds of message boards that
contain clues to what we’re looking for. But our first real break didn’t come
until a few weeks ago. A woman named Harper Mathews discovered similarities
between usernames she came across on the PR message boards and forums at ACE
Communications, and names on the message boards we’ve been finding backdoor
ways into.”

“So
Harper was working on both projects for Ace?”

Emmett
bit back a smile. “Yes.” He didn’t think it was necessary to tell
Liane
why Harper had ended up going from a plush office
where she had been an analyst for Ace’s PR site, to the dingy lower floors of
the building as part of his hacker team. Not yet, anyway. He’d save that story
to illustrate what happens when employees hack into places they don’t belong.