Free Capturing Kate by Alexis Alvarez

right.” He was already pulled back into his computer, typing rapidly. “I’m in. Yeah.” The sound of satisfaction in his voice made her smile.
    “Did you not think you would?”
    He shrugged. “First time I tried this particular technology. It’s very—new, let’s say. It won’t hit the public market for another five years.”
    She drew another heart. “I thought the government was always lagging behind private industry. Isn’t that why Elon Musk is embarrassing NASA with his rocket flights into space? Don’t you all spend, like five hundred dollars for a toilet seat and it takes ten months to get a new pen?”
    He snorted. “Not all government agencies run on the same juice, Kate.”
    “So you have some state-of-the-art comm device, but we’re stuck in this crappy cabin? That’s like a racehorse with, I don’t know, no legs. No offense.”
    “Yes. I have a prototype link, the best team in the world, and the most difficult roommate an FBI agent could ever regret having. No offense. You’re lucky you have one nice leg.” His gaze raked her and she felt her cheeks redden.
    “None taken.” She sniffed, but smiled. “But you can handle me, even with my horrible gaping wound?”
    “I think we can downgrade it to merely unappealing. Tomorrow, maybe moderately attractive.”
    “If you’re lucky, I might upgrade you to moderately attractive. Right now you’re sitting at misogynistic grunt.”
    He laughed. “Good thing even us Neanderthals learned basic medic work, though, you have to admit.”
    Sparring with him was fun, and it made her feel energized, because it pushed back the anxiety that lurked. She liked the teasing warmth in his eyes when they joked together, and the heat behind it, the power that threatened to burst forth. She didn’t know why she wanted to push him and make that strength roar out, overtake her. Maybe, she wondered, his strength would fill in the gaps in her soul, the ragged edges that were leaking out her emotions, and hold her together.
    She wrote ‘Soul Glue’ in her notebook and added some swirls.
    Ella’s note tugged at her mind. What were those numbers?
    She bit her lip. Sloan had a secure connection. If she shared the information with him, he could search. Maybe together they could figure it out. His team could help the work go faster.
    But another gem of an idea took root in her head. Mancini’s men knew Ella knew something, or had something that she was going to give to Kate. What if Kate could let them know she was alive and had the ‘thing,’ whatever it was, and that she’d only give it back if they let Ella live? Then, of course, she wouldn’t hand anything over. Instead, people (Sloan and his team?) would arrest/kill/mutilate/etc. him. If she thought it out carefully, could she convince Sloan that this was a really good idea?
    Was Ella still alive? Pictures, stills from CSI detective shows on TV rushed her mind and she felt goosebumps on her arms. What in the living hell should she do?
    “ Follow your heart. ” Well, fuck . Talk about every pop sugar rock song and Internet meme for the past ten years. Talk about every shitty motivational poster with a picture of a new sapling or a baby animal. It was too generic. “ Don’t pawn your emotions. ” It meant nothing. Nothing!
    “I’m going to the bathroom,” she announced, and sauntered down the hall. She took the note from her pile of dirty clothes, memorized the numbers, then ripped up the paper and flushed it.
    Back at her notebook she wrote the numbers down, glanced up to see if Sloan had sensed her deception like a heat-seeking missile, saw that he had not, and breathed out.
    Time to think.
    1945 2 23.
    Could 1945 be the year Ella was born, and maybe 2/23 was February twenty-third? But Ella was only in her early sixties.
    Did she have a calendar in her house and something was written or hidden on the date for 2/23? Could it be the license plate of a car, and something was hidden in the trunk or