Page 66 of Hacking the Holidays
“You told me you went to MIT,” I said, turning back to her, more confused than ever. “Just like Eleanor.”
“It’s true. I went to MIT, but I did my graduate studies at B.U.”
And just like that, my thoughts spiraled right back to my suspicions, right back to wondering if she was who she claimed to be.
MIT and Boston University. Two different schools, both conveniently in the same city, but thousands of miles from Seattle and Leavenworth. It would be easy to blur the lines, to mix up the details if you were building a cover story. Or maybe it was actually true. Maybe she really had gone to both. The problem was I didn’t know what to believe anymore. And that was the part that pained me the most. Not that she might be lying—but that I’d let myself care enough for the lies to matter.
I needed answers. Real ones. Not the carefully curated responses Rose kept feeding me.
I could confront her directly, but that would only make her even more defensive, more guarded. She’d already proven she was an expert at deflection. I could follow her, see where she went, who she talked to—but that felt tooinvasive, too much like becoming the very thing I was trying to protect myself from.
No, I needed something concrete.
Something Rose couldn’t spin or explain away.
Luckily, an idea formed in my head. I knew exactly what I was going to do to get to the bottom of everything.
“Well, let’s forget about this for now. I’m exhausted and just want to go home and relax,” I said. “Thanks again for your help.”
“Anytime,” she said.
“I assume you’ll be coming into the library tomorrow.”
Rose nodded. “Of course. I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Good. Because I’ve actually got a new project for you,” I said. “Something I want to tackle.”
“Great!” Relief flickered across her face since I had changed the subject. “What kind of project?”
“We don’t need to get into it now, but I’m sure you’re going to like it,” I said, keeping my tone casual. “I need to reroute some infrastructure and upgrade the security on the library computers tomorrow, so I’ll be working from my laptop most of the day. I was hoping you brought a laptop with you on vacation, so you could do the same.”
“Yup—I always travel with my laptop,” Rose said.
Of course, she did. The same woman who carried a professional-grade flash drive and had the perfect explanation for it, even though hardly anyone used them anymore.
“Please bring it with you to the library tomorrow, if you don’t mind,” I said. “We can still access files in the cloud, so you can work on a task while I handle my network andother things. I’ll set us up in the conference room, so we can work without interruptions. I can even order lunch for us. Lots to do, but I could really use your help.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she said.
“I appreciate it,” I said, even though my conflicted feelings were messing with my head.
I was standing next to someone I genuinely enjoyed—someone intelligent, beautiful, unpredictable, charming, and real in ways that kept catching me off guard. But I was also standing in front of someone who was hiding something big. The evidence pointed in multiple directions, and I couldn’t tell which interpretation was correct. I had let my feelings blur my intellect, and that was dangerous.
I would find out the truth soon enough, though.
Tomorrow, while Rose worked on my project in the conference room, I was going to hack into her laptop. Finally, I would know the authentic version of the person I had feelings for. I just hoped and prayed that I was wrong about her. And when I found out who she was, I hoped she would forgive me.
Because when I cracked open her digital life, I’d either find proof Rose was everything I feared—or I’d find something that explained all of this in a way that let me keep her in my life.
Either way, I’d have to live with what I discovered.
Chapter Sixteen
SAM
The conference room felt like a gladiator arena without spectators, but instead of a sword and a shield, I would utilize my laptop and a Wi-Fi signal.
I’d spent most of the night preparing my digital arsenal, writing custom scripts that would let me slip into Rose’s laptop the moment she connected to the library Wi-Fi. The beauty of controlling the IT infrastructure was that I could make her think she was safely connected while actually routing all her traffic through my machine first.
