Midnight Kiss (Men of Midnight #7) - Lisa Marie Rice Page 0,9
its roots back five hundred years, uninterruptedly. He said he couldn’t fathom not knowing where he came from. So I sent him another DNA sample from me and he said he’d get back to me in a couple of days. I spent those days scouring the web and pacing in my apartment.”
“And?”
She looked at that handsome, exhausted face and sighed sadly. “Yesterday, Kyle called me up, really excited and — and worked up at the same time. He said he’d got some astonishing results, results that could change everything. That he was on his way over.”
Luke’s jaw muscles clenched. “That’s what he said? He found that your possible parentage could ‘change everything’?”
“His exact words. I saved his call to a cloud server. It ends very badly. Can I open my laptop?”
“Sure.” A wave of uneasiness crossed his face. “But —”
“Don’t worry. I have a very strong proxy IP. No one can find me.” She pulled out her laptop and felt better just touching it. It was a piece of hardware, yes. But it was also her life and it had never let her down. Unlike people. “So, when I turn on the audio file, you’ll hear a loud background noise. It’ll be his car.” She glanced at Luke. They’d driven here from the airport in a car so soundproofed there hadn’t been a whisper of noise from the engine. “He doesn’t know anything about car mechanics or maintenance and his car probably has the equivalent of three or four serious diseases.”
Luke was bent forward, elbows on knees, big hands clasped between them. His face was intent and she knew that he would pay very close attention.
“Okay, here we go.” She clicked on the file and the room was filled with a loud hum and then Kyle’s breathy, high-pitched voice, vibrating with excitement. “Hey Hope! Got some … some amazing results from the DNA analysis and matchup. I didn’t want to email them to you because … because, well, you’ll see. It’s like you’re related to Bigfoot, only not so nice. So I’m on my way to your place. At first I shot blanks more or less everywhere, and I thought maybe the DNA wasn’t on file. It took me some time to cycle through a bunch of databases and I wasn’t getting anything. But you know a specific set of DNA files became classified years ago.”
She shot Luke a questioning look and he nodded. There had been a massive scrubbing of DNA files of top officials of Homeland Security, the CIA, the FBI and the Secret Service.
“So, technically, some big shot DNA has been removed from the data banks. But whoever scrubbed the files wasn’t very good because they left a … space, I guess you could call it. Sort of like a missing brick in a wall and footprints leading away from it. I called in our good friend and hacker extraordinaire, Dragondude95, who lives for puzzles like this and he found our missing DNA. He said it was in a super secret file behind firewalls and fire-breathing dragons and the name was actually redacted, so he had to climb over some more firewalls. And shit, Hope, you won’t believe who you are related to! I mean, closely related to! Your grandfather, in fact. This is serious shit and given what’s going on at the moment, it could change everything. Absolutely everything. I’m talking history-altering, game-changing shit. Can’t wait to see your face when you realize who it is because —”
The loud screeching of torn metal, shattering glass, a scream. Hope looked down at her knees, because she knew she was listening to the sound of a friend’s death. Murder. Each time she heard the recording, it felt like the accident went on and on and on. This time, too, the crashing noises went on forever. But finally the noise stopped and there was the sound of groaning, then screaming.
A crunching sound. She’d listened to the recording three times before realizing what it was. The sound of shoes walking over shattered glass. She was expecting it, but she still jumped at the sound of a gunshot. The screaming stopped abruptly. On the recording was a moment of shocking silence, then the crunching sound again, fading. The killer walking away.
Luke’s face had tightened, the skin over his cheekbones taut, the brackets around his mouth deep. He’d gotten it immediately.
“He was killed,” Hope said numbly. The words were hardly out of her mouth when she realized she’d said a no shit,