Chloe T Barlow [Gateway to Lo Three Rivers (epub)

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.Her mind might need some time but her heart and body had clearly made their decision.She needed space from him — and their powerful connection — if she was ever going to figure out what she was going to do next.For the second time, Althea deserted him to a lonely hotel room.At least this time he was awake when it happened."Dammit," Griffen shouted, pounding his fist against the shut door in frustration.He turned and leaned back against it as he replayed the conversation over in his head.His cell phone rang and he crossed the room to see Trey's name.Great, just what I want to think about."Trey.What's up?""Don't sound so thrilled to hear from me.""Sorry, Trey.It's been a shitty morning.""Well, I wanted to tell you I made it to the last encrypted piece of the flash drive.Jack downloaded it the afternoon before he died.I've got just one more level to go through but I can't crack it for the life of me.The password requires the use of a WAV file.""A what?""Basically the file won't open without the use of the correct audio WAV file as a password, you know, an MP3.It's a neat trick.""Fuckin' Jack, always had to be so goddamn clever.""Can you think of any song that Jack may have used?"Griffen thought for a moment and quickly said, "Althea, by the Grateful Dead." Jack had always loved the Dead.Griffen would tease him about it mercilessly, no one would've ever guessed that Oakland Catholic High School's golden boy was a closet hippie.More so than that, Jack was sentimental as hell.He probably found every book, song, and crossword in the world that invoked the name of the woman he loved."Can you get that song off the internet?""Already downloaded it, dude.Let me give it a try.Holy shit, that did it! It was the opening guitar riff — sweet, I need to do that sometime.""Focus, Trey!""Okay, Christ.All right, so it's more notes in Jack's handwriting — but it looks like it's just his thoughts.No specs or anything.It says he's tracked the accessing of the military files to David, but he needs to get on his physical computer to confirm before he can do anything with the information.""What the — did you say 'David?'""Yeah, do you know him?"Griffen gulped."Jack was his research assistant.""They would've shared a phone number, dude!""Yeah, and he's the one who Jack said got him that bonus.""You mean the one that traces back to China? Holy shit, if he'd found Jack on his computer.it sure doesn’t look like Jack's death was an accident.""Not now it sure doesn’t.Which means David's capable of anything.Fuck! And he's at Althea's house right now.I gotta go.Pull everything together, look at it all again from the view of trying to figure out exactly what David was up to and go ahead and report this to DOD.I know they aren't your favorite people, but.""No worries man, I got this.Go do your thing.I actually have an old friend in there and she'll be very happy to get my call."Griffen figured he didn't want to know why, all he knew for sure was he had to get in touch with Althea — as soon as possible.CHAPTER TWENTYAlthea pulled away from the hotel entrance and immediately called Jenna through the Bluetooth in her car.She needed some of Jenna’s trademark sensibility to help her get her head back on straight."Hello?""Jenna? It's Tea.You got a minute?""Sure girly.I don't have to be on rounds until tonight, so I'm just puttering around the apartment and fixin' to clean up after Aubrey's latest arts and craft disaster with Johnny."They always let their southern accents come through when it was just the two of them talking and it was helping to soothe Althea's nerves."Oh lordy, I don't wanna know," Althea chuckled, grateful for the humorous image to distract her harried mind."How'd it go with Griffen?" Jenna asked, bringing Althea back to her worries."Well, the night was great, but when I woke up he threw this bomb on me."As she took her shortcut home, avoiding Liberty Bridge construction traffic, Althea relayed the whole story, preparing herself for an honest second opinion."And where are you now?" Jenna prodded after a moment of silence.Althea sighed, "Headed home.I wasn't thinking clearly and didn't want to keep saying things I couldn't take back.""So you ran and pushed him away?""I guess I know whose side you're on.""There aren't sides Tea, honey.What he did was totally messed up.He should've been honest with you the whole time, but at least he was eventually? And don't you think he's right — would you have really wanted to know he was doing this?""He could've just not done it at all.Or asked for my help.""Seriously, Tea? You would never be receptive to any bad words about Jack.You would've flipped no matter when he told you.""Dammit, don't you ever get sick of being right, Jenna?" she grumbled."Argh, that's Griffen calling again." She groaned.He'd been calling her throughout her conversation with Jenna, but she wasn't ready to talk to him quite yet."Are you just going to ignore him?""No.""Tea.""I know he and I should talk more, I just need to sort through it is all.It's a lot to take in and you know how secrecy from men really upsets me.""Well, he just tried to call me now.What do you want me to do?""You can call him back.I'm almost home anyway.I need to see what David wants, then I promise I'll talk to Griffen.Thanks honey.""Sure."Griffen's head was spinning as he raced around his suite and prepared to run after Althea.He'd been so caught up in thinking Jack was guilty, he may have exposed Althea to real harm by snooping around CMU the day before.Why else would David be messing around at Althea's house without her knowledge? On this of all days?Of course David could've heard Griffen was there asking about his star assistant.He wasn't sure why David would be at Althea's house, rather than coming straight to him, but he didn't have time to wonder about that.All he could do was whatever it took to keep her safe.After calling to request the valet bring his car around, Griffen quickly dialed 911, giving them Althea's address and informing them an attempted murder was possibly in progress.He couldn't rely on the police to come in time, he needed to be ready to handle this himself.It'd been years since he'd put himself directly in harm's way, but that didn't mean he didn't know how to face down a badass or two.David may be desperate, but so was Griffen and he'd fought worse men and won [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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