I walked her to the door and gave her another hug. “Have a good time at the barbecue. Ike’s family and friends will love you.”

“If this goes well, I’ll bring him to meet you.”

When she was gone, I called Glenn.

He never answers his phone, so I left my number and explained what I needed to know. While I waited, I got out the ingredients for chicken chili and prepared it for the slow cooker, which I recognized from my childhood as another hand-me-down from my mother.

The phone rang, and I answered as I dumped a can of corn into the cooker.

“What’s up, Ryan?”

Glenn has a great voice, deep, mysterious and sexy. We’d featured him in one of our episodes last season, and afterward I got multiple requests for his photo. In real life Glenn looks more like Georgie Porgie than George Clooney, but the voice makes up for a lot.

We chatted, and then I got down to business and explained what I needed, minus the part about Wendy running from the law.

He told me to wait and went to his computer. “Okay, you say you can get all the way to the security code when you punch in the number?”

“Right.”

“Is your sister very techy?”

I hadn’t thought so until the burner phone had arrived via a remailing service. “I really don’t know.”

“Does she mostly use her cell?”

“It went missing.”

He made a noise low in his throat to show he didn’t believe me. “The easiest thing to try? Some companies use 111111 as their default voice mail code. She’s supposed to change it once she logs in the first time. But not everybody bothers. Try that first.”

I listened as he followed that advice with a list of other possible numbers to try—123456. Password—too many letters, but I was to try the first six and then try it backward. Significant family dates, names of pet—a no go in this case. The list went on.

He told me to call back if nothing worked. Before we hung up I reminded him I was still interested in producing a podcast on spy technology with him as host. Every time I called him I plugged the idea, but it would never happen. Glenn wasn’t interested in sharing his secrets.

I don’t take luck for granted, so when 111111 immediately unlocked Wendy’s voice mail, I lifted my eyes to heaven in thanks.

I punched in the number to retrieve new messages and listened carefully. There were two. One was a perky young woman who asked me if I knew how easy it would be to upgrade all my credit cards. I deleted Miss Perky before she finished. The second was the younger Mrs. English asking Wendy to schedule a conference. Her impatience with my sister rang in her voice. I could relate.

I hung up, disappointed. Since both calls had come in within the past twenty-four hours, I wondered if Wendy was accessing her voice mail from afar and deleting it. As I added chicken breasts to the slow cooker, that raised an entirely new set of questions. Uppermost in my mind? I might not have the number of my sister’s burner phone, but if she was calling regularly to access her voice mail, could I leave her a message by calling the home number here and telling her to call me?