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“Fine. Boring appointments.” He shrugged one shoulder and massaged his scarred hand.
She waited for him to say more, but whatever tedium he suffered in New York, he elected not to elaborate. “After Cedarcliff, I imagine seeing familiar faces would offer comfort.”
“No, just physical therapist appointments for my hand, not much else.” Mark took a seat next to the small couch.
Watching his response, she debated whether he omitted anything critical, or if he spoke the truth and wasn’t hiding any salacious activities. Unable to read his expression, she deliberated over his vague word choice.
“How’s London?” He leaned forward with his hands on his knees.
“Pretty terrible.” Since reading Kyle’s letter, she’d tried to beat back her fear and grief with little success and couldn’t stop her lower lip from wavering. “Kingsley Tech is under imminent attack, and I’ve been ousted on medical leave. I’m chasing a lead Kyle left behind and tracking down a hacker.” Tired from recounting the details, she dropped her shoulders and exhaled.
Listening intently, Mark sloped his head to one side and fixed his gaze in her direction. “Did something else happen?”
She swiped away a few tears and straightened her back. “The worst news is Kyle’s death was no accident. Crimson Hammer killed him. I met with Inspector Willis at the Metropolitan Police to reopen the investigation of his death.”
“I’m so sorry, Tess.” He sat beside her on the couch and wound his arm around her shoulders. Stroking the back of her head, he smoothed her hair and gave her a tight squeeze. “That’s a whole different kind of grief.”
“They killed Kyle and Riku, and they almost got us, too. They’re planning an attack on Kingsley Tech, and I don’t know if we can stop it.” With her lips clamped tight, she trembled and thought the mountain of obstacles would overwhelm her.
“You can’t fight them tonight.”
Mark’s warm baritone soothed her, but she bounced between renewed grief over Kyle and uncertainty about Mark’s intentions. Flummoxed by conflicting emotions and torn between the past and the future, she flailed against the uncertain present. “Grieving Kyle is complicated given you and I are involved, or whatever we are.”
“Life’s messy, min kjære. We control very few things in life, and grief isn’t one of them. I’ll help see you through this.” He wiped a tear from her cheek and squeezed her hand. After mining his jacket pocket, he extracted a white envelope. “Someone delivered this letter when I was checking in, so I offered to hand-deliver it.”
Holding the envelope at arm’s length, Tess recoiled in case it held radioactive waste or something equally toxic.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” Brow furrowed, he waited.
“The last time I opened an envelope, I got my heart broken.” Pursing her lips, she picked up her pocketknife and sliced the envelope open to find a plain white note card.
57.4764525, -4.1002073.
MacTavish
Tomorrow, 15:00
Mark peeked over her shoulder at the card and whistled. “Random numbers. What do they mean?”
Excited to have a tangible clue to pursue, she kicked into high gear. “It’s a meeting invitation and a puzzle to solve.”
“Everything’s a puzzle for you techies. Why can’t you meet at a coffee shop like normal people?”
Mark’s tease coaxed out a smile, and she fetched her laptop from the coffee table. “Because that would be boring. The numbers aren’t random—they could be passwords, passcodes, or two-factor authentication. No, not those. A location. A street or landmark. Coordinates.”
Under Mark’s watchful eye, she flew her fingers over the keyboard, clacking away to test different combinations. “Got it. These are GPS coordinates using digital degrees. The first is latitude, and the second is longitude.”
“Great, but where is it?” He pulled up a chair and sat.
“A GPS converter will tell us.” After selecting an app, she entered the digital coordinates into a box on the screen and hit the search button. Tapping her foot, she waited as the image downloaded on her laptop.
“A big empty field. Strange.” Mark’s eyebrows rose in a high arch.
“Coordinates can be any place on earth; we’re lucky it’s not in the ocean.”
“Ja, but we could be on the Titanic now, enjoying a water view.”
“Sure, if you enjoy midnight iceberg swimming.” Despite the dire situation, Tess laughed before returning to the map. “Double-checking. Still an empty field. Enlarging. Oh, my.” Fixated on the screen, she dropped her hands from the keyboard.
