Page 66 of Guarding Truth

Where was she? The room was pitch black, and she couldn’t see a thing.

Ivy stretched her legs and hit what appeared to be a chair. She sucked back a sob, but tears leaked down her face, wetting the carpet. How would Uncle Caleb and Juliette find her?

And what was in store for her?

A door opened, and light blinded her.

“Morning, sunshine.”

She squinted and tried to focus on any identifying features of the man, but he was covered head to toe in black, including the dumb ski mask.

Wasn’t it a good sign that he didn’t show his face? On TV, that meant they might let the person go. So maybe this was a good sign. But the light glinted off the knife in the man’s hands, and Ivy shuddered.

She had to convince these hackers that she was on their side. Just like the school play she was in during second grade. If they believed that she could help them, they wouldn’t kill her. Right?

“What…what do you want?” Her throat burned, and the words came out all gravelly. Her eyes adjusted to the light, and she saw a desk with a computer and several monitors. The room had no windows and only the one door that the man had shut behind him.

He picked her up and dropped her in the chair. He used the knife to slice whatever was around her wrists. She wanted to rub them but was afraid to move.

Her hair hung in her eyes, the strands trembling right along with the rest of her body. The man spun the office chair around and wheeled her into position in front of the three monitors. The wooden desk was bare except for the computer equipment.

The guy bumped the mouse, and the monitors sparked to life. She recognized it instantly—the malware program. Designed to freeze all of the bank accounts and let the hackers take control of the bank.

“We know you can finish the coding.” The man’s voice was deep, as if he was trying to disguise it. It sounded vaguely familiar, but even with her eidetic memory, voices didn’t always stick with her. And she might have never run into this person before.

The man took something out of his pocket. Some sort of remote control. He clicked it and a clock on the wall lit up. 60:00.

“You have one hour and no internet access. Don’t try anything. We will know. If you don’t finish in the hour, we will kill your uncle and then you.”

“I can’t finish this in an hour. It will take me days?—”

The man turned and left the room. Ivy heard the lock click, and she let out a deep breath. She would rather be alone than with a masked knife-wielding stranger, but how was she supposed to concentrate on coding with Uncle Caleb’s and her lives on the line?

Her fingers shook over the keyboard. Bile rose in her throat. If she complied, would it actually keep her uncle safe? These men couldn’t be trusted. The clock flickered and changed to 59:00.

She’d better get started. Maybe she could make them think she’d completed the program but keep a flaw in it so they couldn’t do any damage with the program. Or better yet, she could sabotage the malware to attack the hackers’ system.

Ivy poked around in the computer, well aware of the camera with the blinking red dot above her shoulder. They’d know in a second if she got online. But if she could…

“Ah, man.” The bad guys had jammed all signals. There wasn’t a thing she could do about getting online. Where were they keeping her?

A beeping sound came from outside her door. It sounded like a truck.

The only source of light came from the monitors and the countdown clock. Ivy turned away from the screen and blinked a few times. Better. Now she could make out the layout of her prison. A bed was shoved up against the back wall, across from the door. Besides the desk, there wasn’t any other furniture.

But sounds were definitely coming from outside her prison. She spotted an air vent at the top of the wall, above the bed.

She pulled up the program the men wanted her to work on and started making some keystrokes, in case they were monitoring her activity. But the air vent might be her ticket out of here.

Voices filtered through the room. She strained to listen. The vent must lead to a hallway or another room. She stood and acted like she was stretching. If she got on the bed, she’d be under the camera pointing at the desk. Maybe she could hear something useful that might help her get out.

She stood on the bed, under the vent, and waited.

Two people. A man and a woman were having a conversation on the other side of the wall. How long would it take for them to notice that she wasn’t at the desk working?

The man’s voice rumbled. “He’ll come. He’ll do anything to rescue his precious niece.”

The woman responded. “We’ll draw him out. Set a trap with Ivy as bait.”

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