Protecting Dallas

Thirty-Three

DALLAS

It took Austin only an hour to break into the strange laptop. We spent another three looking over his shoulder, watching as he sifted through its contents, looking at files and photos and search history information.

In the end, there was very little to tie Evan Miller to Connor. Much less the Navy at all.

“It’s a relatively new machine unfortunately,” sighed Austin. “Couple months old.”

“So… nothing?”

“Not yet, anyway.” He rubbed at his temples. It was already past midnight. “Other than a few .gov logins, of which I’ll need to reverse-engineer his password. If I get into the base system with his credentials I can tell you a shit-ton of stuff about what this guy’s been doing. But as for the rest of what’s on here…”

He clicked rapidly a few more times, then suddenly stopped. Austin’s whole expression changed. His eyes narrowed.

“What is it?”

“I…” He cleared his throat. “I thought I saw something, but no.” He went to close the laptop. “It’s nothin—”

My hand shot out so fast he jumped in his chair. I grabbed the machine by one rounded edge. Stopped him from closing it.

“Bullshit.”

“No, really,” he fake yawned. “It’s just that—”

I tried pushing the laptop back open. Austin’s other hand stopped me.

“Let go.”

“Dallas, listen. You need to know something—”

I shifted my hand forward. The others were suddenly wide awake again.

“I said LET IT THE FUCK GO.”

Austin looked to Kane for help, then Maddox. Maddox looked confused.

“What the hell is going on?”

“There’s a… file on there,” Austin said uncomfortably.

Maddox’s brows came together. “What sort of file? Is it something we could—” He sucked in a quick breath and stopped. Whatever it was, he suddenly understood. He tried shifting mid-sentence.

“Oh yeah. O—Okay. Maybe it would be better if—”

“Show her.”

Kane’s voice was low and insistent. It left no room for argument.

“Yeah?” asked Austin. “You really think that’s a good idea?”

“She deserves to see,” Kane said with a shrug. Slowly, his brown eyes tracked over to me. “It’s going to be hard though,” he added. “Tough for you to get through.”

A sinking feeling stole over my whole body. My stomach felt like I’d swallowed something sour.

“W—What is it?”

“It’s a copy of the last thing your brother sent us,” said Maddox gravely. “A message… from Connor.”