Kill Code Read Online Free PDF Page B

had some serious shouting sessions in this
office—the result of two creative people hashing out ideas and
plans. But it had all worked out.
    She walked around the end of the desk, but couldn't
find it in herself to sit in Nathan's battered rolling chair.
Instead, moving his chair out from behind it, Jackie pushed her old
chair behind it.
    Settling in behind his desk, she realized she didn't
know where to start. Nathan obviously didn't believe in a neat and
tidy work area, yet the man could have laid his hand on any
particular item without searching. But move a computer printout one
inch to the left and he would have to spend days searching for
it.
    “It's my system and I know where everything is.
Besides, a neat and tidy workplace is the sure sign of a
disorganized mind,” Nathan would say. God she missed him so.
    Just for a point to start, she began opening desk
drawers. The center one was full of pens and electronic junk. The
rightmost drawers contained files on past projects and
proposals.
    The left bottom drawer was locked. This was
strange—Nathan never locked anything. She had locked Nathan's
office after his death and the key had barely worked, probably from
disuse. 
    She'd save the locked drawer for later. She spent
the next three hours searching the office and found nothing of
interest. Piles of stuff that should be thrown out, but nothing
much that could answer any of her questions.
    It would all have to be dealt with, but Jackie
couldn't find it in herself to deal with it right now.
    The computer revealed nothing. All of Nathan's
working files were stored on the central server and the computer
hard drive had been wiped just like the DVD had been.
    “Nathan, what are you hiding?” she asked the empty
air.
    She returned her attention to the locked drawer,
which she knew she could open, but the challenge was what she
liked—the hacker ethos—if it was locked, unlock it, be it software,
an electronic device or even a locked drawer.
    She went back to her office and got her lock pick
set. She made her first set at the tender age of fourteen, but this
one was top of the line with the particular tools she favored, each
in several sizes. Most women bought themselves jewelry, a
fashionable purse, shoes or a new outfit when they came into money.
Jackie had bought herself a customized set of lock picks with pink
mother of pearl handles.
    Moving Nathan's work table lamp around so she could
see, she got down on her knees and started working. It was a lock
type that she hadn't seen before and she couldn't crack the damn
thing—the pick kept slipping off the pins. Several attempts only
lead to more frustration.
    Settling back, she said, “What was so important for
you to lock up, Nathan?”
    Taking a deep breath, letting part of it out, she
tried again and finally the last tumbler clicked into place. She
pushed on the tension bar and the lock popped open. Pulling the
drawer open, she couldn't believe what she saw.
    ###
    Matthew Tudor specialized in killing with fire. He'd
been doing it for twenty-plus years and was very good at making
flames do his bidding. Gasoline and other such petroleum-based
accelerants were for amateurs. Matthew had developed virtually
undetectable methods of starting fires that also made them appear
to be caused by something else entirely. It helped that he had a
PhD in chemistry. Neither industry nor academia paid what he earned
in doing one or two 'jobs' a year, and it gave him time to play
with his love and fascination, chemistry. He owned quite a chunk of
property in middle Texas and had a lab rivaling that of any
university. 
    Matthew was also a member of The Black Hand, an
organization of killers which specialized in a particular method of
murder. After his twentieth job, he had been invited to join the
group, which included a variety of specialists in poisons,
explosives, faking accidents and a sniper. Originally, there had
been ten members, now there were five—the nature of the