Free The Sixth Idea by P. J. Tracy

you and Grace can spare the time.”
    â€œOh goody. Is it illegal?”
    â€œNot the first part, but what you find might change things.”
    â€œSounds promising. Fire away.”
    Magozzi gave Gino a thumbs-up. “Any chance you can get into a website that doesn’t seem to exist anymore?”
    â€œYou got a name to go with that website?”
    â€œCharles Spencer, Woodland Hills, California. The site name is The Sixth Idea dot net.”
    Harley hummed. Nothing musical, more like a chant, something he often did while he was thinking. “Is that the guy who bought it in the alley last night?”
    â€œIt is. We’ve still got a lid on his name.”
    â€œGotcha. Anything else?”
    â€œHow about calling up about an hour of security camera footage that mysteriously disappeared from the Chatham Hotel’s server?”
    â€œThis is sounding better and better. Send the pertinents, we’ll get right on it.”
    â€œIs Grace there?”
    â€œOn her way as we speak.”

FIFTEEN

    G race MacBride was getting better. She hadn’t thrown caution to the wind just yet, but sometimes it seemed that she was positioning herself for the windup.
    She no longer believed—as she had for most of her life—that every single person on the planet was out to kill her, but you had to be an absolute idiot not to realize that probably half of them were. By her count, she’d been up close and personal with at least six people who had actually taken a crack at it.
    It wasn’t the life of your average computer geek, but Grace wasn’t average, and she was no idiot. This world was a dangerous place. The trick was identifying the good guys from the bad guys, and she’d been learning how to do that.
    Not that Grace had totally lost her mind. She still wore her English riding boots most of the time, just in case there was some new maniac out there who wanted to slash her Achilles tendons; shestill carried her Sig Sauer 9mm wherever she went, still maintained the elaborate security system on her property. She eyed the mailman with deep suspicion, and paid careful attention to all the signs of potential danger that most people were foolish enough to ignore. If she ever missed one, Charlie had her back.
    Currently, Wonder Dog was sitting up straight and alert in the passenger seat of her Range Rover, tongue lolling out of his mouth in anticipation as she made the short drive to Harley’s Summit Avenue mansion. The Monkeewrench offices were there, but Charlie’s interest wasn’t in their work with computers, it was in Harley’s generosity with breakfast sausages. “You’re spoiled, you know that, Charlie?”
    Charlie looked at her, wagged the stub of his tail and whined, as if to disabuse her of such a foolish notion. And Grace had to agree with him—he deserved to be spoiled, and he was always gracious when he accepted the many perks of his new life. When she’d found him freezing, cowering, and half-dead from starvation in an alley, she couldn’t imagine anything in the world a human could do to make things right for him again. And yet he’d come around, just as she had. There were miracles in this life, like gaining the trust of a lost soul. She’d been one herself. And maybe she still was.
    She pulled through the evergreen-draped gate into Harley’s driveway, parked under the red stone portico that had once sheltered horses and carriages, and let Charlie out. He tore hell-bent for leather around the snowy yard, investigated the elaborate Christmas arrangements that adorned his front walk and steps, then revisited the yard to decorate a few tree trunks in yellow, contributing in his own way to Harley’s seasonal décor, even though it didn’t complement the color scheme.
    Harley pushed open the big double front doors and stepped out into winter wonderland to greet them—he was a big, scary Father Christmas wearing