Lindy had been in her room for hours, thinking hard.
By talking to Derek and Hamish she had found answers to questions she had long been pondering, and more still.
But that was what had her feeling so uneasy. Besides the fact that Hamish was taking Sara away to Europe—for good according to him, it was how much they had told her.
They had told her too much.
And when two sociopaths like them said too much, it was because they felt like they had no need to filter what they said. The only logical reason for that would be because they knew she wouldn't be around much longer to pass on the information to someone who could truly do something about it.
They were going to kill her.
Lindy was certain. She was as sure of that as she was in her and Sara being sisters.
She couldn't help but replay Hamish's words, along with their accompanying look, just before she had been dragged out of the room. "If that's what it takes, then so be it." His look had been cold. Assured.
If she could at least help Sara escape, to foil their plans somehow, before they decided that her time had come, then she would die satisfied.
Tommy's face suddenly appeared in her mind so vividly that she felt like she could reach out and touch him. She sucked in a deep breath, blinking the vision away. No. She was not going to die. She was going to get out of here with her sister. She didn't know how, but she would. She would.
The door to her room swung open, startling her, revealing Derek. She hadn't expected to see him so soon.
"How are you doing, Lindy?" came Derek's dry voice. He didn't sound like he particularly cared whether she was fine or not. She decided to take a jab at him.
She sighed overdramatically. "I'd be better if I could get out of here and get some decent food."
A guard had come in a while ago and brought her a sandwich and a bottle of water. She'd been reluctant to eat anything they gave her, but in the end her hunger had won out. She knew she needed to keep her strength up if she was going to be able to get out of here.
Derek made a noncommittal sound and sat down on the plastic chair he had set out earlier.
Lindy immediately stiffened at his close proximity. Derek, noticing this, smirked. "Don't be alarmed, Lindy. I told you I wasn't going to hurt you and I'll keep my word."
Funny. She didn't believe him.
Derek saw the look of distrust cross her face because he continued. "I told you that if you helped me take down the nation's power grid no harm would come to you."
She realized then that she wasn't going to be killed and Sara wouldn't be taken…yet. At least not until she completed her part of the job. The job that she had thought would ruin her could actually save her—at least temporarily.
"But you're using my sister against me." Lindy said through grit teeth. "Regardless, you're going to send her to Europe with Hamish, the man who made her life a living hell. The man who forced her into hiding and is the reason I didn't know where she was for almost four years."
"She won't go to Europe."
The words were so surprising that Lindy actually froze. She stared at him incredulously. "I don't believe you."
Derek sighed impatiently, as if she were being childish. "You have my word that she won't go to Europe."
"Your word means nothing to me."
"My job with Hamish is over," Derek explained. "My job was to find your sister for him. I've already done that. I asked to have her held here in the meantime while he made his preparations for Europe, to, as you said earlier, hold her over your head, while you help me fulfill my plans. But those plans have nothing to do with what Hamish wants, which is to disappear with Sara somewhere in the Netherlands with a new identity for them."
Lindy breathed in sharply. If Hamish took Sara, there'd be no way to ever find them. Hamish would make sure of that or he would enlist Derek's help to ensure it.
Derek regarded her calmly. "You wouldn't want that to happen, would you?"
"No," she said softly.
Derek leaned in closer to her. "Then do your job for me. If you do it right and don't double cross me, Sara will be free to go with you." He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "It wouldn't be my fault if Sara were to be broken out of her room by her stubborn older sister while the guard steps away for a moment."
Lindy leaned against the wall behind her in disbelief. "You're saying that you'll just let Sara go with me and you'll cover our tracks?" It sounded way too good to be true.
Derek nodded. "But if you don't do your job or you do double cross me, I will make sure that within the hour Sara is headed to the awaiting Netherlands. And as for you…" He held her gaze. "You may end up in the East River."
"And Tommy?"
Derek's face hardened. "What about him?"
"You said you were going to kill him. You're saying you'll let me and Sara go if I do my job, but I want you to forget about Tommy too."
Derek shook his head, looking down to hide the smile that had spread across his face. "There's nothing you can do about your boyfriend, Lindy. We've discussed this. Tommy is completely separate to me from you, Sara, and Hamish's plans. I will avenge Melanie's death. I've waited a long time for this. No amount of negotiating on your part is going to win anything for Calligan. He deserves nothing."
Lindy pressed her mouth into a thin hard line to keep from saying anything that could potentially ruin the deal Derek was miraculously offering to her. She would have to find another way to save Tommy.
"I have no interest in Hamish's plans," he told her, seeing her hesitation. "I only care about seeing my plans through. I already completed what I needed to do for him, and now I need you to help me with what I need to do. If giving you your sister back will aid with that, then so be it, but Calligan won't be a part of the deal."
"You would be willing to double cross, Hamish?" she questioned, still confused by it all. They hadn't seemed friendly when she'd heard the start of their conversation before they caught her listening. They seemed more like associates, but still.
Derek sighed. "We may have been working together for years, but we've never trusted each other. You trust no one in this line of business. That is something I learned the hard way." Lindy knew he was referring to Amanda. "We've always had a knife against each other's backs, ready to plunge it in as soon as the other one so much as slips up, but that's not something you need to worry yourself with."
It actually did seem like something she needed to concern herself with if it involved her and Sara's life.
Yet, despite everything that he was telling her and how much he seemed to be trying to convince her, she didn't believe him for a second. She still knew too much. She was a liability to them. She still fully believed that Derek would kill her to get revenge on Tommy, even if she did her job. If kidnapping her was supposed to drive Tommy insane with guilt and worry, then what would Derek killing her do to Tommy? She didn't want to think about it.
She needed Derek to think that she believed him. She needed to have access to the control room. She needed to get a message to Tommy and George. To do that, she had to make some headway in taking down the grid. Derek needed to see progress if he was going to continue to let her hands go anywhere near a computer. She would just make sure that she never completed his plans.
She was positive that he was still going to let Hamish take Sara and he was going to kill her as soon as she took the grid down to get to Tommy. She could feel it in her bones.
She still wasn't sure what his whole plan was, but she felt that he and even Hamish, were luring her into a false sense of security so that she would continue to work voluntarily and get the job done. If he gave her the chance at freedom with her estranged sister, he figured she would take it, even if it meant losing Tommy.
He didn't realize how wrong he was. He couldn't possibly know what love was if he honestly thought she would just let him kill Tommy to keep Sara safe. What he thought was love was actually control. He couldn't have loved Melanie. He had loved being in control of her, and he believed that Tommy had broken his control.
"So, what do you say, Lindy? Behave yourself and finish your job and you get to walk away free with your sister unscathed."
Lindy took a deep breath. If she accepted too quickly, he would know something was up. He would know that she would double cross him at the first opportunity.
"How do I know I can trust you?"
A small smile played on Derek's lips. He thought she was on her way to accepting his proposal. "You won't. You'll just have to trust me on this. Will you do it?"
Lindy bit her tongue to keep from bursting into laughter. She would never trust him, but she nodded anyway. "Yes, I'll do it." It was the same answer she had given him when she'd first agreed to work for him, back when she was just a pawn in Operation Magnifly. "But I want to see Sara whenever I want," she added, her gaze on him unwavering. She would not back down from this request.
Something flashed in his eyes, but it was quickly gone. If he didn't want her to suspect that his deal was false, he would have to comply with her wish. "That can be done," he responded a little tightly. "I knew you'd do what was in your best interest."
"Good." Lindy allowed herself to smile. "I want to see her now. It's in my best interest."
X
"Lindy!" Sara exclaimed when the door shut and locked behind Lindy.
Lindy smiled and hugged her sister close. When she pulled away, she looked Sara over, making sure she was okay. "How are you doing?" she finally asked her.
Sara shrugged. "I've definitely been better."
"That I can agree with." She sat down on Sara's cot and took her hand. She leaned close to Sara's ear so that her sister's hair hid her lips. "I have a plan to get us out of here," Lindy informed her, barely inaudible, so that they wouldn't be overheard by the audio equipment she was sure had hidden around the room.
Sara pretended to look bored, but she saw her body lean in with interest. "How?" she whispered back.
When Derek had been dragging her out of his office, she had barely managed to glimpse a view of the outside, between the drapes of an office window she hadn't noticed before.
She had elbowed Derek in the stomach to slow him down and buy her a bit of time, however brief, to decipher what she was seeing. She had just managed to see an abandoned looking building, its dark blue paint peeling with age, and the edge of a sign that read "Henry's." She wasn't sure what Henry had sold. The rest of the sign would have probably told her, but then Derek had punched her in the ribs, gotten a better grip on her, and shut the door behind them.
She also knew that she was somewhere along the waterfront because of the view she'd had out of the control room window, but she could be in a number of places within the city. It wasn't much, but at least they provided a few landmarks that George could work with once she was able to send him an encrypted e-mail with the details.
She'd used the coded system they had long ago created once before when she'd tipped George off on where she and Jake were headed. It had given him and the Cyber Crimes Unit time to set up an ambush at the train station, so she knew their system worked.
"I can't say," she told Sara now, darting her eyes around the room so Sara would know that she felt they were being heard.
"Okay." Sara whispered back. "Do what you have to do. I trust you." A sudden rush of emotion overwhelmed Lindy. Sara trusted her. She had come to believe that she didn't after she'd seen that video of Sara, and how long she'd stayed away, but now she knew.
"Thank you," Lindy murmured, brushing a piece of her hair back, trying not to show how much of an effect Sara's words had on her.
Sara's gaze went to Lindy's wrist, her eyes growing wide.
"Is that…?" Her eyes were glued longingly to the bracelet Lindy was wearing. She reached out, gently taking Lindy's wrist and turning the bracelet around and around. "It is. How did you find my bracelet?" Sara's voice was just above a whisper.
Dammit.
Another lost connection to Sara was restored. All thanks to Jake. Now didn't seem like the time to tell her sister about her crazed ex-stalker. She would do that later when they got out of this whole mess and things had calmed down. For now, all she said was, "It kind of found its way to me." Which was partly true. She actually had no idea how Jake had gotten ahold of the birthday bracelet Lindy had given her sister long ago.
"I accidently left it behind at a client's house." Sara averted her eyes. "I doubt it was Hamish or he would have kept it for himself and there'd be no way that you would have it."
A thought occurred to Lindy. "Your client," the word sounded vile on her lips, "maybe sold it on Babylon."
Sara nodded slowly. "All sorts of stuff are sold on there. A prostitute's keepsakes may be one of them."
Meaning that Jake may have recognized the bracelet from the picture of her and Sara on her desktop, bought, and sent it to her, to try to prove that he would do anything for her. Maybe even to make it appear as though he had a connection to Sara that she hadn't. Bastard.
When she had received the bracelet, it'd made her feel connected to Sara in a way that she hadn't felt in years. Then, when she'd used it to get the speaker system on the ship to work to save Tommy and that boy Max, it had felt like Sara was right there helping her. It had always been them against the world and now, it would be them against the forces that had torn them apart.
Sara couldn't take her eyes off the bracelet.
"Here." Lindy said sliding it off. "It's yours. You're the rightful owner. It should be on your wrist."
Sara hesitated. "I don't feel like I deserve it. You've taken far better care of it than I ever did. I lost it within only a few days…" she bit her lip, "and you were so mad at me."
Lindy took Sara's hands into her own. "I'm sorry about that. I really am. I don't know why I got so angry. I regretted everything as soon as it happened, and things never did feel quite the same between us after that."
"It's just… that fight made me realize how much I couldn't tell you. And I knew right then that I needed to leave."
Sara didn't realize she was crying until she felt Lindy's fingers brush away her tears.
Her body wracked with sobs. Lindy could only hold her until she managed to calm down. "I am so sorry, Lindy. I thought I was doing the right thing by leaving, by keeping you in the dark. I'd be keeping you safe and you would finally be free of me."
Lindy felt the words cut into her. "Sara," she choked out. "I didn't want to be free of you. You and me? We were supposed to stick together no matter how bad it got. No matter what you had done, I would have found a way to help you, because you're my sister." Her voice was thick with tears. "It's always been us against the world. When you left I was so lost. I felt like a part of me had gone away with you, but I never gave up hope in finding you. I just don't want to lose you again. How about I keep this bracelet and once we're out of here I'll give it back to you?"
Sara nodded and Lindy enveloped her sister in a hug, not saying anything. She just let Sara know that she was here for her.
After a while Sara managed to control her sobs. She laughed mirthlessly, roughly wiping away her tears with the heel of her hand. "I need to be able to talk to you without breaking out into sobs. I told you it was hard for me. As hard as I try, I can't forget everything. It was easier when I was miles away from where I screwed everything up, but once in a while something slipped through the cracks and I'd remember. I thought about you every single day. I just wanted to pick up the phone and call you. Or even send you a note telling you I was okay, but I couldn't as much as I wanted to without giving away where I was."
Lindy nodded her understanding. "I forgive you, Sara."
Sara stared at her, wide eyed, unable to believe what she'd heard. "You do?"
"Yes, I do."
Sara gave her a watery smile and wiped her eyes again. "Damn it. I need to stop crying," she said, before hugging Lindy tightly. "Thank you." Sara slackened against her as if a great weight had been lifted off of her shoulders. And maybe it had.
X
Lindy worked on the same computer as before, her frustration mounting. Things hadn't been going according to plan. She had assumed that after the deal Derek had offered her, he would let her work in peace.
She had been wrong.
He was clearly still on edge, having a guard come into the control room every fifteen minutes to look over her shoulder at what she was working on. Maybe she hadn't convinced him as well as she had thought.
Clearly, they were keeping an eye on her, which was hindering her plan. She needed more than fifteen minutes to worm her way through Bubonic's system. And more time to word her encrypted e-mail and send it. She was worried that she would be caught any minute, whether by the guard that kept checking up on her or by tripping an alarm within the system. It was complicated to say the least.
She desperately wished that George was here to help her or at the very least, that she had her USB necklace. It would make it all so much easier since some of her codes were already preloaded on there. George had made sure of that.
A shadow fell over her. Lindy ignored it, knowing it was the guard. They never said anything, they only looked at her work to make sure she was doing it and then left. She assumed they knew what to look for because they never questioned her.
She tapped out a series of keystrokes and another of the government's firewalls appeared to protect their precious information. Lindy sighed. She worked to try to bring it down, but this one was trickier than the others.
The guard left again and Lindy breathed a sigh of relief. She hated having someone breathing down her neck.
Her fingers flews over the keyboard and a series of codes appeared in a small window in the corner of her computer, which she did her best to block with her body from any prying eyes. She immediately recognized them as Bubonic's. Lindy smiled to herself, but it disappeared as soon as it had come. This was only the beginning. She had to do this fast. She wanted to turn around to make sure that no one was watching her, but she forced herself not to. She was supposed to be in the zone, completely oblivious to the world around her and turning around would prove that she wasn't.
Lindy started out with a few codes, making sure her work was untraceable so far. With a system like Bubonic's she had to make sure she left absolutely no trail behind. Her confidence grew as she was able to sidestep the several triggers Bubonic had put in place to alert him to the very thing she was doing. It wasn't until she was deep in his network that things got very difficult. Lindy patted her pocket to check the time on her phone and then remembered that hers had been taken away. Lindy grit her teeth together. It had to be almost fifteen minutes.
After making sure that the page she was using to hack into Bubonic's server couldn't be seen, she went back to the page she had been working on earlier. Just as she had started typing in more codes to break down the government's firewall, she felt a presence come up behind her. She ignored the guard and kept working as she normally did, even though she was dying to turn around and see if the guard's face revealed any knowledge of her treachery.
Soon enough, she heard him walk away again. When his footsteps grew fainter Lindy chanced a glance behind her. Seeing no one pay her any heed, she went back to the smaller page, and continued to hack into Bubonic's network.
This went on several more times until finally Lindy managed to crack the encryption and access the page to her secret reinforced e-mail account. Just as she was about to start typing in her log-in information, she heard footsteps rounding the corner that sounded faster and less paced out than her guard's normally did. Lindy swore internally and swiftly went back to her main page, making sure the other one wasn't visible. She almost deleted it completely, but it had taken her what she figured were over two hours to crack into Bubonic's network and she wasn't about to let all of her work go to waste and risk leaving a trail through a rapid exit. The protection on his network almost put the government's to shame.
Her fingers worked rapidly and she had just managed to take down the government's tricky firewall, which she had also been stuck on, as a hand fell heavily on her shoulder. Lindy glanced behind her into Derek's eyes, making herself appear slightly dazed, as if he had interrupted a non-stop hacking session, which he nearly had.
"What?" she snapped.
Derek quirked an eyebrow at her, looking quizzical. "You seem to be hard at work," he stated, his voice giving nothing away. Had she not been careful enough? Had she left a trail or activated a trigger? Had the guard or the security cameras seen something? There were so many things that could have gone wrong.
Lindy held her breath, waiting for the gavel to strike, but what he said next surprised her.
"You're doing a good job." Lindy stared at him, suppressing her surprise. "Some of these hackers," he swept his hand to the other side of the room where other hackers were working. She had nearly forgotten they were there, having grown used to the background noise their constant clatter of keyboards made. No one talked to one another. She wasn't sure if they were ordered not to or if they were as immersed in their work as she was. "They're ahead of you," Derek continued, "but you've almost caught up to them in the three days you've been working with us. You're quite talented."
Lindy wasn't sure what to say. Derek wasn't the kind of guy who went around praising people. Clearly, he was trying to disarm her so that she wouldn't suspect his true intentions to kill her and send Sara off with Hamish anyways.
Lindy narrowed her eyes at him. "Thanks," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "It means the world to me that you approve of my talent in hacking into the government's servers to satisfy your twisted revenge scheme."
Derek sighed, as if she were purposely being difficult. Which she was. "I would have you work for me permanently if it were under different circumstances."
Lindy turned her back on him. "But these are the circumstances," she responded, her voice laced with anger. She almost didn't recognize her own voice. "And if you don't mind, I have to get back to work so that I can free my sister and I from the confines of this hell."
"Remember who you're talking to, Lindy," Derek said his voice suddenly at her ear. "I can change my mind." Lindy stiffened, but said nothing. She could practically feel the smugness rolling off him as he took her silence for submission. She heard him chuckle softly to himself as he walked away.
She waited until she could no longer hear him and peeked quickly over her shoulder for any sign of him. There was none. She took a deep breath and glanced at the other hackers, but none paid her any mind, completely immersed. It was as if they hadn't even heard Bubonic come into the room, and maybe they hadn't. Lindy shuddered internally. It was like they were robots.
She clicked onto her secret page and typed out her log-in information. Her fingers almost blurred over the keyboard as she hastily wrote to George what she knew. She hurried just in case Derek decided to pay her another surprise visit or the guard came to check up on her again.
She read over what she wrote once. Feeling satisfied, she pressed send.