No Test for the Wicked: A Lexi Carmichael Mystery Book Five Read online

  No Test for the Wicked

  By Julie Moffett

  A Geek’s Worst Nightmare: Going Back to High School

  Returning to high school is not something I ever wanted to do over—it was awful the first time around. So why do I have to go back as part of a new undercover assignment? Because the universe loves playing jokes on me, obviously.

  I’ve been ordered to go all 21 Jump Street and track down the students who are breaking into the computer system, changing grades, and causing all kinds of havoc. Although I’m not thrilled about my new gig, at least it gives me something to do other than worry over the fact that I now have a boyfriend. And no freaking idea what to get him for Christmas.

  Or it did give me something else to worry about, until I stumbled across a more sinister threat. I was shocked to find distinct traces of a group of international hackers inside the network. Why would dangerous cyber mercenaries be interested in a high school in the middle of Washington, D.C.? What exactly have I gotten myself into?

  Don’t miss Lexi’s first case in No One Lives Twice!

  81,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to the December 2014 releases and happy summer! Okay, so some of you are going “what??” but these letters are often so seasonally directed that I think it’s only fair that our friends in the New Zealand and Australian parts of the world get one fit for them. Plus, I really miss summer so I’d rather talk about that than winter. Also, I’d much rather prefer to imagine I’m on a warm, sunny beach somewhere than in the cold. But whether you’re looking for a beach read or for a book to heat things up, our December releases can fit the bill.

  Michele Mannon wraps up her Worth the Fight trilogy with Out for the Count. Beautiful, all-American kick ass fighter Huntley Wittaker knows in order to win an MMA championship, she must perfect her punch. But when a ball-busting brute of a biker—undercover narcotics detective Bracken Kelly—answers her ad for a trainer, she finds them both drawn into a battle far greater than she’d imagined. Though all three books in the trilogy stand alone, go ahead and pick up the first two, Knock Out and Tap Out.

  Historical romance fans will be pleased to see Caroline Kimberly return with another standout historical romance. Love hurts...especially for Ethan Ashford, who’s been charged with making sure his beloved nemesis, the high-spirited Lady Kyra Deverill, makes it to the altar—to marry someone else—in An Inconvenient Wife. Don’t miss Caroline’s first book, An Inconvenient Kiss, described as Regency meets Romancing the Stone, which has gotten fantastic reviews.

  If you love the reunited lovers trope, Amylynn Bright’s contemporary romance is perfect for you. In Finish What We Started, no matter how many adorable animals he brings into her clinic, Dr. Candace Claesson doesn’t plan on forgiving her ex-boyfriend for the way he ended their relationship five years ago. But when Lee to proves to her that the passion between them is still there, Candace has to decide if she’s willing to trust him with her heart one more time.

  Geek girl Lexi Carmichael is back with another action adventure—and more romance. Now Lexi has to face her worst nightmare—going back to high school in order catch a group of exceptionally talented student hackers. Don’t miss No Test for the Wicked, or go back to the beginning of Julie Moffett’s entertaining series with No One Lives Twice.

  If you’ve been hoping for something different in the new adult category—no college, no contemporary, something that stands out, take a look at Anne Tibbets’ futuristic dystopian duology The Line: Carrier and The Line: Walled. Naya may be former sex slave but no one will stop her as she fights to conquer both the wall around her city and the one around her heart.

  Danube Adele also offers a unique look at the new adult market with her paranormal romance, Dreams of a Wild Heart. Kidnapped from Earth and taken to a planet millions of light-years away by a seemingly cold-hearted warrior with steamy aquamarine eyes, Dr. Cecilia Bradford desperately tries to find a way back to Earth before she loses her heart to the precious people in need and to a man who claims to need no one, but who won’t let her go.

  With A Grave Inheritance, Keri Edgren continues her foray into the new adult historical paranormal market. Gifted healer Selah has chosen love over duty and followed her husband to London, but can she keep her dangerous secret in her new home?

  Urban fantasy Firewall by Sonya Clark brings the Magic Born trilogy to a thrilling conclusion when reunited lovers risk everything to change the world. Check out the first two books in the trilogy, Trancehack and Witchlight (at least take a look at the gorgeous covers!).

  In the spirit of the holiday season, don’t forget to check out some of our backlist titles including our collections of contemporary holiday romance and male/male holiday romance. All of our seasonal titles can be found here: http://bit.ly/CPHolidays. We have a wonderful collection of holiday novellas to keep you company while you wait in those long shopping lines!

  Coming in January 2015: Marie Force’s romantic suspense Fatal Scandal, and Lisa Marie Rice is back with another Midnight installment. Releases in mystery, historical romance, paranormal romance, steampunk and more!

  Here’s wishing you a wonderful month of books you love, remember and recommend.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  Dedication

  “A mother understands what a child doesn’t say.”

  ~Old Proverb

  To my mother, Donna B. Moffett, because she always understands me.

  I love you, Mom!

  Acknowledgments

  A book is never a singular effort, so I would like to acknowledge the excellent assistance of my wonderful, insightful, (insert your favorite spectacular modifier here) editor, Alissa Davis, as well as my terrific beta readers, Sandy Parks (a fantastic author in her own right), Bill Moffett and Donna Moffett. I also owe a big gratitude of debt to my brother, Brad Moffett, for his excellent brainstorming sessions on the plotline for the story, and my niece, Katy Moffett, for her great suggestions. I also want to thank security experts John McBrien and Kevin Hodges for their helpful insights on SWAT teams, police procedure, and other security issues. Finally, much thanks is due to my super-smart techie nephew Kyle and his lovely fiancé, Julia, for their important assistance and patience with my numerous technical questions. However, any imaginative use or outright mistakes of any of the technology in the story is on me alone.

  I would also like to thank the many fans and friends who entered my Facebook contest to help me decide on a title for this book. It was great fun and I saved several of them for potential future use. However, it was high school pal Alicia Stepp-Starnes’s son Brandon who came up with the title No Test for the Wicked. As a result, he won having a character in the book named after him. Congratulations, Brandon! I hope you enjoy your namesake.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapt
er Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  How is it possible that even though I graduated with a double degree in mathematics and computer science from Georgetown University, saved the Vatican millions of euros, and caught a reality television–obsessed hacker while posing as a dating contestant in Hollywood, I still can’t figure out how to tell my mother I have a boyfriend?

  I can visualize it now. I’ll blurt out the news, she’ll hug me and shriek in my ear for a while, and then the analysis will commence. My mother will ask me if he’s rich, if he comes from a good family, and if he has a respectable job.

  I don’t know the details of his bank account and, in terms of his family, I’ve only met his grandmother. But regarding the job... Would a super-secret hacker spy who may (or may not) work for the Vatican, but is definitely working for the National Security Agency, qualify as respectable? I’m afraid that would be iffy.

  Then my mom would want me to tell her all the gory details of how we met, whether or not he’s a foreigner (he is, so that may not go over well), and if he has some weird religion. Maybe I shouldn’t tell her he’s on a first-name basis with the Pope.

  After I’ve been forced to give her specifics about my boyfriend’s career, ethnicity and religion, she will take my hand and tell me that a June wedding would be just lovely. Besides, if we held it at the ultra-expensive Willard Hotel in Washington D.C., we could invite up to several hundred guests. By that point, I’d be so panicky and nauseated I’d upchuck on her three-hundred-dollar Manolo Blahnik leather pumps.

  That’s my life. My name is Lexi Carmichael and I’m a twenty-five-year-old hacker, gamer and fangirl who isn’t planning on getting within spitting distance of a white dress anytime soon. Normal relationships are murky waters to navigate even if one is emotionally astute and socially capable. For those of us with less than stellar skills on these fronts, entering into a romantic relationship can be exhausting, not to mention terrifying, especially if my mother is involved.

  It’s hard enough for me to manage the few relationships I have outside of my boyfriend. I can count the number of close friends I have on one hand. Add in the work relationships I have to navigate, and things really get complicated. Now that I’m the Director of Information Security at X-Corp—a cyberintelligence firm right outside of Washington, D.C.—I have employees to manage and staff to keep busy. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say it’s all a bit overwhelming.

  It didn’t used to be that way. I once lived a relatively quiet life working as a tech head for the NSA. Not too long ago, the agency operated in relative obscurity with less than five percent of the American population even knowing that we existed. That anonymity was blown out of the water by the Edward Snowden scandal—he’s the guy that filched an enormous amount of top-secret cyber information from the NSA, implicating the agency in questionable privacy actions. Now everyone in the world knows about the NSA. Although I’ll be the first to admit my life has been anything except quiet since I joined X-Corp, at least I got out of the NSA before the scandal broke. Still, I know a few decent people who continue to work at the agency in one capacity or the other, including my new boyfriend. Slash is a master hacker, one of the best I’ve ever met, and he also supports the NSA in other intelligence efforts, including terrorism and cyberterrorism. He is a man of many, many talents.

  My office phone rang and I picked it up.

  “Carmichael.”

  “Buon giorno, cara.”

  His voice was so sexy it almost made me forget how much I hated talking on the phone.

  It weirded me out that my stomach felt all tingly. “Hey, Slash. Si deframmenta la mia vita.”

  There was silence and then a soft laugh. “You are studying Italian now?”

  “Isn’t that a practical thing to do when one has an Italian boyfriend?”

  “Not necessarily, but I’m pleased. Did you mean to say that I defragment your life?”

  “Yes. Is that inappropriate?”

  “No. It’s perfect.”

  “Okay. Good. I know I have to work on the accent. I’d like to be able to say at least a few words to your grandmother in Italian the next time we meet.”

  “She’d love that. That reminds me, I owe you another trip to Italy, this time for pleasure. Perhaps you can meet some more of my family.”

  He said it casually, but my stomach flipped. He wanted me to meet more of his family.

  Intellectually I knew this was part of the boyfriend-girlfriend dynamic, but it scared the heck out of me. I mean, Slash had a mother. He’d mentioned her when we were in Rome. What would I say to her? What if she couldn’t speak English? And how could I look her in the eye after having engaged in sexual intercourse with her son? Oh jeez, who knew what would come out of my mouth!

  Even worse, it was logical to extrapolate that if I met Slash’s family, it meant he would have to meet my family. And that brought me back to the fact that I hadn’t even told my family I was dating anyone. The mere thought of it made me so unnerved that I had to recite the first three lines of Fermat’s Last Theorem in order to calm down. My mother had been planning my wedding since the day I was born. If I brought Slash home for dinner, there was a statistically significant chance she’d have him measured for his tuxedo before we finished the first course. Or worse, she’d pull me aside at dessert and give me the dreaded sex talk.

  I started to hyperventilate. “Um, sure, Slash. That would be great someday.”

  He chuckled. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Why do you think I’m scared?”

  “You paused for a bit too long and then your voice quavered. Don’t worry, I’m teasing you again.”

  “I knew that.”

  But I hadn’t really. Slash was a geek, but he was able to read people in ways I never could. He was pretty clever and talented, that boyfriend of mine.

  I heard an electronic beeping sound in the background over the phone. Where was he? Before I could ask, he spoke.

  “I just called to say good morning and that I miss you. I’m not sure how my day will shape up, but I’m going to figure out a way to make sure it ends with you. Are you available?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  “Slash?”

  “Si?”

  “I think I like being your girl.”

  “Ah, that makes me very happy.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “See you soon.”

  “Okay. Bye.”

  I hung up the phone and stared at it. I’d just made casual plans with my boyfriend. This was going to take some getting used to. I’d never had a boyfriend before. Not even in high school. In fact, I’d never even had a date in high school. Slash has been my significant other for just a few days. A couple of wow-I-can’t believe-he-can-do-that days, mind you, but I still haven’t adjusted to our relationship y
et. It may take me some time to get used to it. Maybe forever. That’s hard to calculate in real-time terms.

  While our relationship is still new, I couldn’t spend all day thinking about it. Especially since I was on the clock. So, I took one more sip of my coffee, straightened the glasses on my nose and hunched over my keyboard, hoping today would be a quiet day in the office so that I could catch up on paperwork. A glance out the window confirmed the December weather in the nation’s capital remained crappy—snow, ice and freezing rain. Most of the area schools had closed and more than a few X-Corp employees had called in. But hackers don’t take snow days, so neither do I. Somehow I skidded and slid my red Miata all the way to Crystal City, Virginia, about a forty-five-minute drive from my apartment in Jessup, Maryland, to show up for work. I was a bit disappointed to see the continued snowfall because I had hoped the weather would ease up a bit so I could go for a late-morning donut and coffee run. Unfortunately, it would have to wait.

  It was nearly noon and my stomach had started to growl when the phone rang. Internal number.

  I picked up the phone and jammed it between my shoulder and ear while I continued to type. “Carmichael.”

  “Lexi, we have a client here. Can you meet me in conference room two?”

  I stopped typing. It was Finn, my boss and onetime romantic interest. I liked Finn a lot and he liked me, but the possibility of a romantic liaison had come to a screeching halt because I couldn’t handle the boss/employee aspect of our relationship. Luckily for me, Finn had been taking it well, although I wasn’t sure what he’d think about me and Slash. Not that I intended to tell him about it any time soon.

  “Sure, Finn. Be right there.”

  I logged out, then snatched my laptop in one hand and my coffee mug in the other. I swung by the kitchen, poured exactly three-fourths of a cup of coffee, added exactly two teaspoons of creamer and one-and-a-half teaspoons of sugar in the mug and stirred it four times counterclockwise. Then I snatched a couple of Christmas cookies off a tray. Stuffing the cookies in my mouth, I walked toward the conference room.