Ctrl Z
Authors: Danika Stone
Contents
Chapter 2: Finding the Cache Files
.
Chapter 3: Secrets Hidden in Plain
Sight
Chapter 4: Scuffed Up Surfaces
.
Chapter 5: Tyrone “King” Fischer
Chapter 6: Things I Haven’t Told You
.
Chapter 7: View from the Fifteenth
Floor
Chapter 12: The Long Road Home
.
Chapter 14: Questions and Answers
.
Chapter 15: The File of Francesca
Williams
.
Chapter 16: Money’s not an Issue
.
Chapter 17: The Other Side of the
Window
..
Chapter 18: The Rest of the Story
.
Chapter 19: The Word on the Street
Chapter 21: Last Second Plans
.
Copyright, Legal Notice and Disclaimer:
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the
inclusion of brief quotations in a review. This publication is protected under
the US Copyright Act of 1976 and all other applicable international, federal, state
and local laws, and all rights are reserved, including resale
rights.
*NOTE: The characters, situations and artists portrayed
in
Ctrl Z
are all fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons,
living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any commentary on public figures,
government, or political systems, is purely fictional and has no basis in
fact.
Stone, D. (2013).
Ctrl Z.
North Charleston, NC:
Create Space Books.
©www.danikastone.com
Published by Dancing Dog Productions
Cover Illustration Design by K. Goble
Also by Danika Stone:
Intaglio: The Snake and the Coins
Intaglio: Dragons All The Way Down
Tathagata
Jude was standing up at the bar with the rest of the Tech
Department when she walked through the foggy glass doors of O’Reilly’s. He’d
remember that afterward. How Marq Lopez was right beside him - Charlie and
Kimbra and the new guy, whose name Jude could never pronounce, a little way
down - and how the entire group of them had turned as one to stare at the woman
who had just stumbled in off the street. It was the horrible half-season
between winter and spring. Outside the bar’s doors, a sheet of water poured
over the edge of the building’s overhang like a faucet. She was soaked to the
skin, like she’d stepped right out of the shower, a puddle of water spreading
beneath her feet.
“Fuuuuuck,” Marq groaned. Even then, he was never the
brightest one of the lot.
Pretty was too drab of a word to describe her. Jude stood, slack-jawed,
as she leaned to the side, rolling a swath of rain-darkened hair into a loop
like a sodden dishcloth and wringing it unceremoniously onto the floor. She
swung back up, brushing the hair back from wide eyes. Long strands of it were
plastered to her cheeks, one lock crossing her petulant lips like a gash.
That,
Jude would think later, should have destroyed the illusion. It didn’t. She was
beautiful in a strong, unhindered way. If anything, the negligent physicality
of her made every other woman in the bar look overdone. She glared out into the
crowd, seeking something or someone.
For a moment, she caught Jude’s eyes, and he stopped
breathing. His body reacted with a rush of attraction, focused on an invisible
charge that arced across the room, linking his gaze to hers. The second
lingered just slightly longer than he expected, her sooty lashes narrowing.
And then she moved on.
In a flicker of long limbs and damp flesh, she was absorbed
in the teeming crowd. Around them, the music pulsed like a heart, vibrating the
glasses that lined the rack above the dimly-lit bar. All eyes - Marq and
Charlie, Kimbra and Abhishek, and Jude too - lingered on the spot where she’d
disappeared into the press of bodies.
“Who
was
that?” Charlie breathed.
Jude smiled, the second when she’d looked right at him
leaving him drunk on possibilities.
“I don’t know,” he said, “but I’m going to find out.”
: : :
: : : : : :
Indigo was in a sullen mood to begin with, and drinking
wasn’t helping. Five shots down and she was only starting to buzz, melancholy
dampening her mood like a wet coat. Around her, friends drank and danced.
Shireese was off somewhere with Tanis, celebrating the success of tonight’s
gig, but Indigo couldn’t join in. Tonight she wanted to forget about the mess
of her life. Say ‘fuck you’ to all the broken promises the last year had
wrought. She knew she
should
tell Shireese what had happened earlier
that evening, but she couldn’t bear the “I told you so” that would certainly
follow.
Not yet.
Fighting angry tears, she lifted her last shot glass,
swallowing liquid fire and revelling in the heat drawing a line from throat to
stomach. When she slammed the glass down on the table, someone stood across
from her. Recognition flickered. She’d noticed him when she’d first walked into
the bar tonight. She had the same thought now that she’d had then: the guy was
completely out of place. He wore clothes two grades above this dump, his dark
prep-school hair neatly combed, button-down shirt rolled up to the elbows, and
jeans still creased down the center of his knees.
His expression kept her from looking away. He looked soft,
where the rest of the men in the bar looked hard. He’d get rolled tonight if he
wasn’t careful, Indigo thought. She’d done it herself a time or two and
O’Reilly’s was full of grifters. She smirked, and the man – whoever he was –
smiled back.
“I’m Jude,” he said, his voice lifted over the din of the
bar.
Indigo nodded, but didn’t answer. This wasn’t the first guy
who’d tried to pick her up tonight, and the truth was, she wasn’t interested.
She didn’t turn him away though, not yet. He stuck out just enough to make him
intriguing. He had a bright smile and straight teeth, but more telling than
that was a faint Brooklyn accent that had been smoothed away under the file of
good schools and money. In the darkness, she couldn’t tell what colour his eyes
were, but she liked their shape. They looked kind.
“I’m here in the city with friends,” the man added.
“Hmmph.”
His smile faded. He had to be in his late twenties, Indigo
decided, but with the uncertainty of his expression, he seemed younger. He
glanced over his shoulder, and then back to her.
“Well, um… sorry for bothering you,” he said, taking a
single step back.
Indigo spun into motion, her hand snaking out and flattening
against the table with a slap, eyes narrowed and glittering. She knew she
looked like shit, the rain had seen to that, but she still wanted to forget.
Someone like this, a frat boy who was looking for some fun, someone who was out
of place and completely out of her league was
exactly
the kind of guy
she wanted. If some part of her knew that this was what’d gotten her into the
mess in the first place, she pushed the thought away.
“That’s a shitty pick up line,” she snarled. “You want to
get somewhere with me, then you’ve got to do better than that.” She smiled just
enough to take the barb out of her words.
He laughed nervously.
“C’mon then,” she growled, tipping her head to the side.
“I’m waiting.”
His brows pulled together like he was taking an exam. A
second passed, then two.
“You’re gorgeous,” he said earnestly. “You could be a model
or something.”
She laughed aloud, her head tilting back, exposing her neck,
as if that was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. Guys loved that, she knew.
Made them feel powerful.
“You’re a bad liar,” she said. “I look like a drowned cat.”
His face fell and she felt a twinge of guilt. “But you can still stay, honey.”
She winked. “‘A’ for effort and all that.”
He chuckled, and moved closer. This time when Indigo smiled,
it was real. The man’s eyes were green, she saw, with a navy ring around the
iris.
Not brown like his.
And that was all she needed tonight.
“Well, if you’re giving out points for effort,” he said, dropping
his chin. “I might do alright after all.”
Indigo gave him a slow smile, her eyes moving down his body,
measuring the hint of musculature under crisp cotton.
“Mm-hmm,” she murmured, “yes, Jude, I think you might.”
: : :
: : : : : : :
It’d been Marq’s idea to come out to O’Reilly’s tonight.
“Slumming it” was what he called it, but the night had proven more than Jude
could have hoped. He sat in the booth, his arms wrapped around the most
beautiful woman he’d ever met, never mind touched. He could have written
everything he knew about her on a single cocktail napkin:
Her name was
Indigo, and she was here to see the band.
Full stop. Nothing else.
When he’d asked for her number, she’d kissed him instead of
answering.
If he thought there’d been a connection in those numerous
small movements while they talked...
his thumb on the inside of her arm, his
hand against her shoulder, her lips brushing his ear
... he was completely
unprepared for the sudden explosion of fire beneath his lips when she kissed
him. A burning match dropped into an open tank of gasoline, exploding into a
flash-fire of need. Jude wasn’t sure how she’d ended up on his lap, but she
had. They were making out like teenagers, his hands moving brazenly below the
edge of the table. Indigo’s hand moved up his thigh, tongue pushing into his
mouth. She tasted like whiskey and cigarettes, but she smelled like rain.
Someone shoved into the booth from the other side, jostling
the two of them apart, and Jude pulled back. Indigo’s lips were damp and slightly
parted, dark blue eyes half-hidden by a fringe of lashes. She smirked, her
fingers on his thigh rising higher. With a strangled gasp, he caught hold of
her hand, keeping her from reaching the button of his pants. He needed to slow
down a bit, and if not that, then find a place where things could continue.
The man beside them laughed, bumping into them again, and
Indigo slid off his lap, her wrist still trapped by his fingers.
“You want to get out of here?” Jude panted.
She chewed her lower lip, turning to glance out at the
bustling bar. Jude’s eyes lingered on her profile, catching details he’d
missed: the tiny mole near her hairline, the curved bow of her lips, the darker
tone of her eyebrows as they drew together. But whatever Indigo saw changed things.
Her expression sharpened. Without warning, she jerked her hand away, crossing
her arms, inexplicably angry.
“Not yet,” she grumbled. “Not drunk enough yet.”
He turned to see who she was glaring at. A twenty-something
woman with ebony skin and corn-rowed hair stood a few feet away. She grinned as
Jude caught her eye, then turned her back on both of them. Indigo slumped down
in the booth, her eyes on the empty shot glasses that cluttered the table, the
mood between them inexplicably souring.
“You want another drink?” Jude suggested.
She smiled, and his heart jumped to double time. Gorgeous
didn’t even cover it. When she looked at him, he
felt
things.
She leaned in, mouth brushing against his cheek.
“That’d be great,” she murmured. “Whiskey shots first…” Her
hand dropped back to his thigh, squeezing in promise. “Then we can leave.”
He nodded, desperate to comply. He had no idea where they’d
go, or how long it’d take to get there. His apartment was on the far side of
the city, in the suburb that surrounded the university, but he’d figure that
all out later. For now, he just wanted to touch her again.