“Whoa.” Mike raises his hands. “I just build websites.”

“That’s it? Nothing else? Nothing the FBI would be interested in?”

Mike narrows his eyes and tries to figure out the man’s point. And where he was going with the veiled threat. “I build websites. And write code. I’m a developer.”

“Again, anything the FBI would care about?”

“What’s your point?”

“That answers my question.”

“Good, then you can leave.” Brave words that don’t match the quick thud of his heart as he watches the blade flip through the man’s hands. Open. Closed. Open. Closed. “I build websites,” he repeats, his record set on repeat. “Sorry that I can’t help you more.”

“And I just need to know about hers. Give me her name and address, and I’ll walk out of here and leave you to your next game of Halo.”

He chuckles in response, cursing Deanna’s beautiful face as dread crawls up his uncooperative spine, his mind moving rapidly as he studies the stranger before him and tries to place his connection to her. A client? Has to be. The list of possibilities a hundred names long.

“Sexy jess dot com. That’s the site.”

Mike works his mouth, cultivating a blank look as his mind searches desperately for a plan. “Doesn’t ring a bell. I coulda built it years ago. Chances are, any information I do have is old. I can tell you this. I haven’t heard of the URL or a Jess Reilly. And I don’t have a girlfriend. I don’t even leave this house.”

Out of the entire statement, only two of the four sentences are true. He doesn’t have a girlfriend, and he hasn’t, with a few rare exceptions, left this house in the last eight years.

CHAPTER 61

AT TEN YEARS of age, any thought of being a physical badass was abandoned. That was the age when Mike Rollins put down a baseball and picked up a keyboard. When his world became smaller and centered on things that required little physical effort. Books on code were read, online chat forums and computer clubs joined. Visions of designing video games or social networking sites became the new fantasy. Hopes focused on becoming the next Internet billionaire, surrounded by women and friends and admiration.

Quick money called, and greedy adolescence listened. Mike pushed aside developmental projects and focused instead on breaking the genetic code that is the Internet. Once you understand it, it’s easy to curtail it. Once you can curtail it, you can start to control it. Build fake trails that will lead your opponents turning in circles until they fall on their ass. Create insurmountable roadblocks that are truly only paper thin. Hide someone so deep that you are the only person who can pull them out.

The truth:

Deanna Madden, aka JessReilly19, is twenty-two years old. She lives on 163 Oakmont Place, Apartment 6E. She has, unfortunately for Mike, a boyfriend, one Jeremy Pacer. She has a net worth of $2.3 million, half of which is hidden away in the Cayman Islands in a place known only to her and Mike. She is an orphan, her parents and younger siblings killed four years ago in a manner one can only describe as brutal.

The appearance:

Jessica Reilly is nineteen years old, a sophomore at the University of Iowa. She lives in an on-campus dorm on a student budget. She is single, widely popular, and, as evidenced by her Facebook wall, hasn’t met a frat party or house party she’ll turn down.

This man will never track her down. It is impossible. The cover was tested recently, just a year ago. After all the groundwork was in place, Mike posted a challenge to Hnet. Offered a thousand of Deanna’s bucks to anyone who could find one hole in her story. A hole that led to something other than a dead end or him. Forty-nine hackers accepted the challenge. Forty-nine who, within three weeks, admitted defeat. This man, with his rudimentary knowledge of the Internet and his Motorola Krzr, doesn’t stand a chance. And his guy in IT either sucks or is on the same side Mike is, which involves keeping this psycho as far from her as possible.

CHAPTER 62

I BANG ON Simon’s door like a madwoman. What if he is not home? What if he locked my door and left? I can’t stay in this hall. I have nowhere else to go.

He opens the door within minutes and I am treated to the sight of Strung Out Simon. It is ugly. In the background is a girl, her body draped across a black leather couch that looks to be a Big Lots special. His jaw works, back and forth, his bloodshot gaze shooting from me to my door, me-to-door, me-to-door, no doubt wondering how in the hell I escaped.

“You were late,” I gasp, my vision blurring, my hands coming up and gripping the door frame. I think I’m crying. How do four sentences with Derek turn me into such a girl?