Page 79 of Their Stormy Reunion

Fallon stepped forward, placing a hand on top of the tower like she was sizing it up. “Depends. If he wiped it the lazy way, maybe. If he used a secure erase program with multiple overwrites, it’s gonna be a lot harder.”

I clapped my hands together. “Great. Now, in terms I can understand?”

Fallon smirked. “If he just hit delete, I can recover stuff. If he did it right, we might be out of luck.”

Simon rubbed his chin. “You said you had government contracts before, right?”

Fallon nodded. “Yeah. And some of those included recovering wiped drives.”

Simon let out a low whistle. “Now that’s promising.”

I watched as Fallon pulled her laptop from her bag and hooked it up to the computer tower with a few cables. She moved with quiet confidence, her fingers flying across the keyboard as she powered it up.

“Let’s see what Sid tried to hide,” she murmured.

We all watched as the screen flickered to life, the cursor blinking like it held all the secrets we needed.

Roan leaned against my kitchen counter, arms crossed. “Anyone else feel like they’re in one of those heist movies where the hacker works their magic while the team stands around looking pretty?”

I smirked. “Speak for yourself, Thatcher. Some of us are just naturally pretty.”

Fallon looked up at me and gave me a secret smile. Then she turned her attention back to the computer and was soon biting her lip in concentration, eyes flicking across the screen as she worked.

Then she stilled.

“Well?” I asked.

She exhaled. “It’s wiped, but…” She pointed at something on the screen. “There are fragments. If I can reconstruct them, I might be able to see what he was working on before he cleared the system.”

Simon grinned. “And how long will that take, Ms. Digital Locksmith?”

Fallon’s lips curled into a smirk. “Buy me dinner, and I might have it done by dessert.”

I chuckled. “Fair enough. But first? Let’s make sure Sid doesn’t have any more surprises waiting for us.”

Because something told me this was only the beginning.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Okay, it was taking a hell of a lot longer than I had anticipated, and the boys were long gone. No big surprise there. They had taken off separately. Michael had been the last to leave, but eventually he did. Over the last weeks, he had told me about his time as an Army Ranger and I realized just how active he really was. No wonder he was a firefighter.

The fact that his biological father was on the run was driving him insane. And he was wrecked that Sid had tried to kill me twice. I pointed out that it could have been anyone who could have gone into the shed that day—including him. It was just the luck of the draw it was me, but it didn’t seem to matter to him.

Simon had found a lead that Sid might be in Nashville, but Michael was thinking he would stay closer to Jasper Creek, so he was focusing on Pigeon Forge. Michael was using his fireman buddies network to see where someone might hide out in Pigeon Forge, and the consensus was some homeless shelters, so that’s where Michael went to look.

That left me here with the alarm system and Harley.

I was getting close to reconstructing the system. There was one file I was teasing out. But I needed a snack. A big snack. I threw a microwave pizza into the oven and scored when I found a roll of cookie dough in Michael’s refrigerator. I had hit a hacker food extravaganza.

My shoulders were killing me, and I felt a tension headache coming on, so I needed a break. While I was waiting for the pizza to cook, I took a third of the cookie dough and put it into a bowl, took it to the couch, and called Maddie.

“I was wondering when you would remember me,” Maddie teased. “There you are, going out to lunch with my sister, and ignoring me.”

“Whaaa, whaaa. I want you to know I am going to buy and play the world’s smallest violin to go along with your whining.”

Maddie laughed.

“What’s been going on?”