Page 51 of Fully Loaded

“If you hurt her—” Helplessness clogged his throat. The caller wanted the formula that would kill millions of people when they released it. If he and Dani survived the exchange, one or both of them would end up dead anyway from the virus. So would Serena and Milo, too, if it wasn’t contained in time.

But what could he do? If he didn’t give them the information, they’d kill her for certain. The image of Anna Bella cradled in her mother’s arms on the sidewalk slammed into his mind. He dropped to the bed and shoved his fingers into the hair at his scalp.

After this, he’d have a hand in all the deaths the disease wiped out. He’d be a murderer.

“Threats are unnecessary. Your friend is of no value to me. Bring the drive to me in one hour and I’ll release her.” He rattled off a location.

Brock grabbed the hotel pen and pad of paper, jotted down the information, and disconnected. He reached into his pocket and took out the drive, turning the tiny device over and over in his fingers. How could something so small be so deadly?

He curled his palm around it and pulled back his shoulders. He couldn’t let them kill half the planet, couldn’t let them hurt innocent people like Anna Bella and Serena and Milo’s baby.

He had to stop them and keep Dani alive.

There was always the possibility Ubrigg had hired the shooter. If he had, he might only be interested in retrieving the formula and killing those involved in stealing it—Dani and him. If that was the case, humanity might be safe long enough for Rhett and the authorities to confiscate the formula. Surely government agencies wouldn’t want Ubrigg storing something so dangerous in his lab, where it could be copied or sold.

Either way, he didn’t have much choice. He had to meet Ubrigg and he didn’t have a single person to rely on for backup. God, he wished Rhett would get back to him. He needed advice and he couldn’t risk calling Milo and alerting Serena to their dire circumstances.

Rather than giving Brock a landmark to meet at, Ubrigg had given him coordinates. Brock typed them into his phone and waited for the satellite to zoom in on the location. A random road on the outskirts of Paris.

He shoved his feet in his shoes, grabbed his phone and the room key—though it wasn’t as if there were a chance he’d return tonight—and stepped into the hall.

His phone vibrated in his pocket and he opened the screen. Seeing the Facebook notification, he was about to shove the device back in his pocket, but the name and profile picture beside the friend request made his heart skid to a stop.

Ubrigg Lichti.

Dani waited several beats, until she was certain Romy or Ubrigg wouldn’t return to the room. If she got caught, she’d have no way to tip off Brock. She stared at the closed door, stretched her legs in front of her, and dug her bare feet against the tile. Pulling the chair forward, she inched her way toward the desk.

Creeeak

She halted. The piercing squeak of the chair’s wheels made her hair stand on end. She closed her eyes and listened hard, but the rapid pumping of her heart blocked out any other sounds. The door didn’t move.

She swallowed and zeroed in on the desktop. She didn’t have much time. Rolling past the overturned stool, she swiveled the chair so her side lined up with the keyboard. Raising her butt as high as possible from the seat, she stretched her arms. Her elbows caught on the material at the back of the chair, preventing her from getting her forearms over. Her muscles screamed. She thrust her hips forward, standing as much as her shoulders would allow, and finally dragged her sleeping limbs over the chair.

Blood tingled through her skin, chasing away the numbness. She sat down, wiggled her fingers, and rolled her shoulders forward and then backward, reciting the password in her mind. PSNMA . . .

Shifting in the chair, she leaned forward so she could reach the keyboard behind her back, making it impossible to see what she was doing. Using the hand with the most mobility, she nudged the mouse and dragged her fingertips over the keys.

She mapped out the keyboard in her mind and felt the most obvious keys to gage her finger’s location. Space bar, alt, caps lock . . . Nope, other way. She glided her middle finger to the opposite end of the board. Enter, backspace . . .

P.

Scurrying back in the direction of the Caps Lock button, she hit S. Feeling for the space bar, she imagined the bottom row of letters and hit what she hoped was N, then M, then A.

She moved her tongue along her dry cheek. A clock ticked on the wall, but the buzz of blood against her eardrums stifled the sound.

Now the hard part.

She pictured Ubrigg at his desk and replayed the dancing of his fingers. His left index finger had definitely hit the keyboard somewhere between numbers one and three. He hadn’t gone farther than that on the number row. But had he hit shift? The exclamation mark was a common choice for a symbol used in passwords, but Ubrigg wasn’t common.

She snapped open her eyes. Passwords were typically six to eight characters, and numbers and symbols were encouraged. He’d have done five letters and a number and symbol. She hit the number two and the @ symbol.

She turned around in her chair.

Incorrect password.

Shit! Her confidence deflated. She turned back around and deleted the last two characters. After hitting the number two again, she held down the Shift button and stretched her pinky for the three, then peeked over her shoulder.

Incorrect password.