REBECCA #3
Alessio folds his arms. "We would've destroyed everything."
She nods in agreement.
"I'll make you a deal." Alessio offers—that gets her to look up. "If you get that thing open without damaging whatever's inside..." he points at the safe, "it's yours."
She blinks. "The safe?"
"The safe."
Her eyes widen just a fraction. "Seriously?"
"It's just a box."
She gasps softly, genuinely offended. "It's not just a box."
She immediately places a protective hand on it. "It's a masterpiece."
I bite the inside of my cheek. She's adopted it already. Alessio chuckles. "Then consider it your bonus."
She looks back at the safe. Then at him. Then back at the safe. "I was going to open it anyway." She sniffles theatrically. "Now I'm emotionally invested."
She cracks her knuckles. "Nobody talk to me." Her fingers fly back to the keyboard. "I have a safe to seduce."
I snort. "You really need more friends."
"I have friends." She points at the safe. "It just doesn't know it yet."
Alessio leans toward me. "I think she's serious."
"Oh, she absolutely is."
Without looking up, Valentina smiles. "I heard that."
"Of course you did." Alessio needles.
"Your heartbeat changed."
I stare at her. "That's creepy."
"It is." She shrugs. "I like creepy."
Then she's gone again, disappearing into pages of code as though the rest of us have ceased to exist.
She grunts. "This isn't consumer encryption."
"No?"
"No. It's custom."
That gets Alessio's attention. "Meaning?"
"Meaning..." She enlarges several lines of code. "Someone paid a frightening amount of money for this."
"How much?"
She shrugs. "At a guess? Half a million."
I nearly choke. "For a safe?"
She gives me a pitying look. "No. For the software."
"Oh."
"Cheap hardware." She pats the safe affectionately. "Beautiful software."
"How long has she been working on it?" I ask.
Alessio looks at his watch. "Thirty-seven minutes."
Valentina's head pops up. "I've successfully confirmed that the person who designed this encryption is an arrogant narcissist."
Alessio raises an eyebrow. "You can tell that?"
"Oh, absolutely."
She highlights another line. "They left comments in the code."
I frown. "Comments?"
She turns the monitor slightly toward us. Buried between lines of encrypted instructions is a single sentence. IF YOU'RE READING THIS, YOU ALREADY LOST.
I snort. "That's... actually kind of funny."
"No." Valentina smiles. "It's adorable."
Another line appears. TRY AGAIN.
She laughs. "I like him."
"You've never met him."
"I know."
"I still like him."
Alessio steps closer. "Can you open it?"
The smile fades. "I can."
Something tugs at the back of my mind. "Wait..." Both of them look at me. "Didn't you tell me..." I look at Valentina. "Whoever marked Rachel as dead in the trafficking database wasn't some random hacker?"
Valentina slowly turns. "I did."
"You said they were..." I snap my fingers, trying to remember. "Really good. The kind of good you don't stumble into."
She nods once. "I believe my exact words were highly proficient."
I point at the safe. "And whoever programmed this..."
Valentina's gaze drifts back to the scrolling code. "...is also highly proficient."
For a moment, the only sound is a concert of different hums, which is actually kind of lulling. I watch her eyes move across the screen, faster now. Thinking. Connecting. A slow smile spreads across her face.
"Your girlfriend..." she looks at Alessio, "might actually be onto something."
Alessio's eyebrows rise. "You think it's the same person?"
"I don't know." Her fingers are dancing across the keyboard. "Yet. But programmers are creatures of habit."
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"They leave fingerprints."
I frown.
"They don't mean to."
She highlights a block of code. "The way they name variables. The shortcuts they take. The order they solve problems. The comments they leave." She glances up, excitement replacing her usual calm. "It's like handwriting. No two are exactly alike."
She opens another encrypted file on one of her monitors. "I still have a copy of the trafficking database." Her fingers blur over the keys. "I'm going to compare their coding signatures."
Alessio looks at me. "I have absolutely no idea what she just said."
Valentina smiles without looking away from the screen. "It means..." her eyes light up, "if the same person built both..." she taps another key, "we've just found ourselves another ghost."
I glance at Alessio. He gives me a small smile. Maybe... just maybe... Rachel isn't the only mystery that's about to be unlocked.
"I could..." Valentina stops. "But..." she stops again, sidetracked by something she's staring at, "not today."
Alessio's expression doesn't change. "How long?"
She leans back, studying the safe like it's personally insulted her. "If I'm lucky... twenty-four hours. If I'm unlucky... three days."
I groan. "Seriously?"
She nods. "Seriously."
Then she grins wider. "But honestly? I kind of hope it's three days."
Alessio sighs. "I was afraid you were going to say that."
She pats the safe again. "This is the most interesting thing that's happened to me all month."