was asleep, he would consider everything that had happened. “I think I’d like to head to bed. If you’re hungry, let’s get some snacks and lock ourselves away for the night.”
“I think that’s going to have to wait.” Kyle crossed his arms over his chest. “We need to talk about what happened. I have a couple of thoughts.”
Hutch was about to argue, to beg Kyle to wait for the morning to debrief because he was horny and he’d spent days sleeping on a way too short for him couch.
But he stopped because there was a red light on the bottom edge of her TV screen. A light that should have been off because he’d made sure that smart TV wasn’t so smart. It shone in the low light from the living room, proof that something had gone terribly wrong. That light was on because in the last thirty minutes someone had turned on the monitoring capabilities of the TV. He’d studied up on the model and that indicator light stayed on for thirty minutes after the monitoring function was engaged. He watched as it blinked off, but that didn’t mean they were safe. It merely meant that they’d been lucky enough to get that important clue. If they’d been a few minutes later, whoever was watching would have gotten away with it. He wouldn’t have checked again because he’d turned the sucker off. Someone had accessed Noelle’s system.
Someone was watching them.
His night had gone straight to hell.
* * * *
Noelle glanced around the three-bedroom ranch house and wondered why Hutch hadn’t bothered to decorate. He’d explained that he’d recently bought the home from a friend of his who’d moved to Colorado, but he didn’t have much in the way of furniture.
In the spacious living room there were a couple of lounger chairs and a big screen TV that apparently didn’t scare Hutch the way hers had.
“Yeah, we’re at my place,” Hutch was saying into his cell phone. “Kyle is paranoid as fuck and he’s doing a sweep. I think we’ll be okay here for the night.” He paused. “I thought about getting her out of there. I know. Ian, I know. No, I didn’t panic, but she’s not a damn spy. She wouldn’t be able to monitor what she was saying the way the rest of us would, and it’s not fair to ask her. Of course I gave myself some cover. I faked a call from my cousin who told me my mother was in an accident. We packed up quickly and stopped to let security know we were going to be gone for a while. It should buy us a couple of days.”
Kyle strode into the living room from the back of the house. There was no way to miss the big gun in his hand. Kyle had been tense since the moment Hutch had pointed to that red light on her television. She’d tried to tell him it was normal. She’d seen it before. He’d shushed her and then he’d faked his phone call and she’d realized he thought someone was listening to them. Or watching them. He’d been careful to put a wall between himself and the TV.
It sent a chill down her spine. She’d thought he was paranoid before when he’d explained he’d turned off all the monitoring functions of her home hub. She knew in the back of her mind that the virtual assistant “listened” and learned. It was how it knew her voice commands and anticipated certain needs. One of the reasons she’d selected her apartment building was how high tech it was, and it offered a wide range of innovations in smart home technology.
Now she wondered who’d been watching her before. How long had she had eyes on her? How long had the mysterious “they” listened in on her conversations?
“Yes, I’m sure,” Hutch continued. “I’m sure because I’m the one who went in and turned them all off. I turned off the monitoring functions on every smart appliance she had. They were connected like a smart house should be. It’s how her hub system can control everything from the lights to her streaming services to filling out a grocery order for her. No, yours is not the same. I hooked up yours myself and I built in a code that lets me know if anyone fucks with it. I swear, Ian, it’s fine. I’m not coming over to do something that I already did. Yes, if someone has hacked your hub, you