by Reiss, CD
Our boats were lashed together, swaying on the endless sea. We were dots, specks, insignificant blinks under the weight of infinity.
I was not afraid.
Epilogue
She wanted to get there early, which meant I had to fly back from Virginia early to bring her. I was relieved, actually. I wanted to see how Deepak was doing with the monitor display production line before Keaton came in to see the protos.
“You could have met me there,” she said with a wheeled crate banging down the stairs behind her.
“What’s the fun in that?”
“Okay, well, fine then.” She slid the crate next to luggage, boxes, and storage containers. Her eyes lit on each one as if she were counting.
I tucked a length of hair behind her ear. “I had your classes checked. Your stats professor—”
“What kind of checked?”
“Asked around town.” I held up my hands in innocence. She’d made me promise not to have her professors hacked to collect old tests and data on grading. “She’s looking for tenure. So if you need to make trouble—”
“Taylor!”
“It was totally aboveboard.”
“Don’t check on people for me!” She hit my chest to make her point.
She meant it—for the moment. But I was going to keep asking around for her until she was on her feet. And probably afterward.
A car crunched and rumbled down the driveway.
“Don’t eat at the campus café.” I picked up a box. “They failed a health inspection this summer and passed just a week ago. That’s not about a person, so you can’t get mad.”
“I’m going to eat at your place.” She grabbed the handle on a wheelie suitcase. “Did you send the factory car?”
“Yes. What’s in here?” The things in my box shuffled when I moved.
“Nothing. I thought the factory car was a Mercedes?”
The top flaps of the box bent. I could see inside. “You’re taking a box of cables?”
“I always need cables.”
I dropped the box and bent to see inside one of the containers. “This is full of circuit boards and…” I popped the top off it. “Coding manuals? Harper.”
“What?” Her arms were crossed. I’d agreed to not interfere, but she was making it hard.
“Did you bring a toothbrush?”
She pointed at the smallest bag, which was tucked under a foyer table.
In the month since her birthday, a lot had happened with Catherine. She had enough money to buy furniture for her beloved house.
“My clothes and stuff are in there,” Harper said.
“All your clothes are in that tiny thing?”
“Can you stop? Please?”
“Goose—”
“Don’t ‘goose’ me. Just…” She stepped back and put her hands out. Her face scrunched. “I’m scared, okay?” I shut up while she took a deep breath. Then another. “I’m scared no one’s going to like me and I’m too old, and I’m scared I’m not smart enough.”
“Seriously? You’re smarter than every last one of them.”
I peered past the front curtains at the Range Rover sitting at the end of the drive with the engine running. I couldn’t see past its tinted windows. Ahmed, who we’d hired as the factory driver, should have gotten out by now.
An ugly feeling brewed in my gut. Something was wrong with this picture.
“What’s with Ahmed? Is he sick in there or something?”
Harper was still on the same train of thought. “I’m afraid I won’t fit in. I’m afraid they’ll find out about us and think I’m coasting.”
“You’re going to coast because of your brain. Not because of me.” The Range Rover was still idling. “Maybe we should take the Caddy,” I said, referring to the car I’d bought her to replace the shimmymobile.
Harper came to the window with me and bent back the curtain.
“Maybe someone’s looking for the factory and got lost? Used to happen all the time.”
“Stay here,” I said, opening the front door.
The porch creaked under my weight. Something wasn’t right with this car, and I needed to get between it and Harper.
The car locks clacked. Harper was right behind me as if I hadn’t told her to stay inside. She was going to be a real pain in the ass to take care of.
The driver’s door opened, and a woman stepped out. My age or a few years older in a black suit and stilettos. Red lipstick. Black hair two inches above the tits. She didn’t carry a bag but a leather folder in her manicured fingers.
A guy who looked like a Ken doll got out of the passenger side and buttoned his jacket.
If Harper sensed what I sensed, she didn’t show it. My goose stepped in front of me as if it was her house, which it was, and as if she was perfectly capable of greeting newcomers, which remained to be seen.
I put my hand on her waist to stop her. It didn’t work.
“Hello?” Harper said.
“Hello.” The woman had a deep, throaty voice and an air of entitlement I recognized from dealing with empowered people.
“Afternoon,” the Ken doll replied.
“Can I help you?” Harper crossed her arms.
“Are you Catherine Barrington?” The woman asked.
“I’m Harper, her sister.”
“Harper.” She smiled wide and almost… almost genuinely. The guy just stood next to her. He seemed wildly competent in his silence. I just didn’t know what he was competent at yet.
“If you’re looking for the factory—” I said.
“No.” She cut me off, eyes landing on me as if I was what she was looking for. “You must be Taylor Harden.”
“Who’s asking?” Harper folded her arms as if she was ready to stand between me and an army of Range Rovers.
The woman smiled again and walked to the edge of the steps. She took a flat wallet out of her breast pocket.
“I’m Agent Cassie Grinstead. FBI.” She flipped it open with her fingers and held it up so we could see the ID card and badge.
“Agent Ken Romig.” He held up his own little wallet and I had to check to make sure his name was really Ken. It was.
“What do you want?” Harper sounded as if she was about to tell the agents to get the hell off her property.
The agents flipped their wallets closed and put them away in perfect synchronicity before answering. I realized it was because they knew they might need their hands free.
I got in front of Harper. I didn’t think they’d start shooting, but she was on her way to Stanford to start the life she always deserved and nothing, not these people and not the federal government…were getting in her way.
“Well?” I asked. “What can we do for you?”
Cassie answered.
“We’re looking for Keaton Bridge.”
* * *
Prince Charming
Chapter 1
CASSIE
I trust men I’m attracted to about as far as I can throw them, which is surprisingly far if I have good leverage and mobility in my lower body, but not far enough to give them the time of day or half a chicken sandwich.
You don’t have to like it, but I’m not going to argue with at least four generations of family history. Once I feel that little buzz in the sexual part of my brain, it’s a four-alarm fire in there. Klaxons. Red flags. Lines in the sand. The guy can be a crown prince anointed by the good Lord himself and there’s nothing he can do to get more than a few months out of me. It’s not his fault. It’s mine, and I’m all right with that. It’s gotten me pretty far.
Then this morning happened.
We intercepted Keaton Bridge at a factory he’s opening in the next town over and took him in for questioning. When he looked me in the eye, I went to DEFCON One. Code Red. My body began staging a bloodless coup while my mind lost its flank support.
He has the body and the eyes of a predator, silken movements and a churning, twisting mind that calculates ten
steps ahead. I can feel it working, and it turns me on.
I don’t know him. Nobody does. Trust isn’t on the table, but I’m drawn in his direction as if the earth suddenly tilted and all the water of my attention is flowing downhill, toward him.
He’s seen things, but no one’s ever proven he’s done anything.
He knows things, but we don’t know exactly what.
He’s immune to bluffing apparently. We’ve had him in interrogation for two hours and he hasn’t even asked for a lawyer.
Most black hat hackers have confidence deficits they cover in layers of bling and swagger. They compensate for social awkwardness with tough-sounding names and facility with numbers. Some have a talent for the long con until they have to look someone in the eye. Some are straight up sociopaths.
When we picked up Keaton Bridge—a.k.a. Alpha Wolf, though no one’s proven it—I’d profiled him as the latter. He and his partner, Taylor Harden, are opening the first quantum-chip manufacturer in the world. The risk is enormous. Either his guts are made of stainless steel or he doesn’t have a sliver of human emotion.
Then I met him. My name had barely passed my lips before I knew he wasn’t a sociopath. He had emotions, tons of them, and they were complex, real, and intense.
I watch Ken interview him through the mirror. Both men are in profile.
Bridge waits two full seconds before answering any question. His hands rest flat on the table in front of him, and he’s perfectly still. It’s as if he knows any movement can be a tell, so he makes none at all.
Those emotions I sensed? He has control over them. His self-awareness is frightening and exhilarating. His voice has a British lilt that’s masculine, confident, educated without being snotty.
The dimples in his cheeks are a trick. The smile lines are a hoax. His voice, his looks, the leathery scent that filled the car on the way in; all of it is a long con game.
“I haven’t a clue,” he says over the speakers in the dark observation room.
“But you are Alpha Wolf?” Ken replies, referring to one of the three most powerful figures on the dark web.
One-Mississippi.
Google can’t find the dark web. The only browser that will take you there hides your activity in so many layers of encryption, you can peel them like an onion and never find the center.
Criminals trade credit card data, guns, drugs, people.
The FBI has a presence there. We use it to speak to informants and assets. Journalists use it to contact anonymous whistleblowers.
Two-Mississippi.
“It’s quite funny, that.”
“That what?” Ken asks.
One-Mississippi.
There’s no official or provable connection between Keaton Bridge and Alpha Wolf. But that’s the thing about covered tracks. Cleanliness has its own stink.
Two-Mississippi.
“That stupid fucking assumption.”
Between Ken and Keaton Bridge, one of them is a federal agent. One of them has the power in the relationship. And one of them is making stupid fucking assumptions.
“Are you the same Alpha Wolf who maintains a relationship with Keyser Kaos?”
One-Mississippi. Two-Mississippi.
“You’re a very insistent chap.”
Ken opens a folder. It looks like a complete dossier, but in fact, it contains cherry-picked items from a two-terabyte hard drive on Alpha Wolf and Kaos. “Is this you?”
One-Mississippi.
Bridge glances over the paper Ken hands him. It’s not a photo of a person. It’s a screenshot of a post on a dark web onion thread.
Two-Mississippi.
The screenshot Bridge looks over is a normal Keyser Kaos /Alpha Wolf chat about how much they’d charge to dox a female gamer. This is the least of their infractions, and he knows it.
It’s proof of nothing, and he knows it.
Bridge puts the page down, then leans back. He and Ken share a moment in profile.
Three-Mississippi.
I’m in the observation room because I asked Ken for a change in strategy. I wasn’t convinced I wouldn’t be railroaded by my body’s reaction to Bridge or that my mind’s alarm bells wouldn’t distract me. Now I’m not sure I did the right thing.
Four-Mississippi.
Though Keaton was intimidating at first sight, with his perfect suit, open collar, broad shoulders, and chiseled jaw, he wasn’t cold. He saw me before he saw my badge, as if he’d whipped away my cloak of invisibility.
I hadn’t felt naked. I’d felt noticed.
Then Keaton had glanced to my right, where Taylor Harden stood. Without saying a word, he apologized to his partner.
Fascinating. He was fascinating.
Five-Mississippi.
Through the mirror, Bridge turns and looks straight at me. His eyes are the color of the seven o’clock sky and they can’t see me, but they do. He sees everything. He sees how I tap my fingers to count the seconds. He sees the lint on my jacket.
I can’t move. I am sealed in my rigid skin. Joints locked. Muscles frozen. He sees the spit dry on my tongue, the callouses on my hands, the tightening of my jaw. He sees the nights I was up with firearm fist, and the mornings Mom counted my night’s haul.
He hears the cacophony in my head.
Six-Mississippi.
He sees so deep into my loneliness that a huh escapes my throat, then he speaks.
“Won’t you join us, Agent Grinstead?”
Chapter 2
KEATON
Agent Rotter won’t let it go. He thinks I spent sixteen years covering my tracks to be intimidated in a little room by a little fucking prat.
“You’re a very insistent chap.”
Rotter opens a folder and flips through the pages. It’s all for show. I don’t look at what he’s flipping through because he has fuck-all on me.
He spins the folder to face me and taps the page he’s found. “Is this you?”
I will not be rushed.
I will not be coerced.
I will not be strong-armed into risking QI4.
I don’t care about the company itself. Don’t give a flying fuck about quantum mechanics or changing the world blah blah blah. I don’t even give a shit about money anymore. They can have it, the whole rotten lot of them.
I push away the folder. This entire drama’s put me off my lunch. Agent Rotter’s bloody smirk is going to get him a mouthful of fist one of these days.
But not today.
I promised Taylor I’d be there today, and I will be.
Taylor could have turned over on me a hundred times. But he didn’t. And when I told him I was looking to go straight, he partnered with me, knowing I was a risk. He could have gotten plenty of investors.
I’m not going to be late thanks to the rotter here. But for the bird?
Where is Agent Bird?
Someone’s on the other side of the mirror on my left, and if I’m any judge, the woman who helped drive me here from Barrington is watching five feet away, on the other side. She’s distractingly beautiful and gloriously proud. As soon as I saw her, I had a vision of her atop a mountain, ruling the world, and a second vision quickly followed. Her under me, begging, with my name on her lips, over and over, pride shattered.
I feel her watching from the other side of the mirror. It’s not an unpleasant feeling. It is, however, inadequate. I want to see her again. I want to see if I saw something that wasn’t there. I want to regain control of the situation.
Turning to the mirror, I make my request. “Won’t you join us, Agent Grinstead?”
Agent Rotter clears his throat. On the other side of the mirror, we hear a door open, then close.
Taylor’s going to get on my arse for bringing the FBI calling. I’m going to have to convince him they were jagging off into their little files, trying to get me to turn on Keyser Kaos. They brought me all the way to Doverton to see if I have a death wish.
When the door opens and she comes into the interrogation room
, I smell her perfume. It’s lavender, calming, and I know the scent isn’t to calm her but to lull me.
I’m not lulled. I’m physically aroused in a way I have no control over.
“Mr. Bridge.” She stands astride the FBI action doll of a man.
No, I was right. She’s proud, but not arrogant. Her accent’s American. They could have flown her in from anywhere.
Thirty-ish. Five-eight.
Freckles on her nose the makeup doesn’t cover.
Grew up outdoors.
A few grey hairs at the root.
Fingernails trimmed, clean, unpolished.
A bare left ring finger.
Does she have a lover?
That releases a flood of mental imagery I have no time for.
“Why hide behind a mirror, Agent Grinstead?”
She looks me in the eye without shame or fear. It’s a frontal attack I’m not ready for. Her hair is the black of silk sheets, and her eyes are the grey of London’s early morning fog.
“We were giving you a little space.”
She’s blindsiding you.
It’s true, but I’m not turning away. She can come at me all she wants.
I can tell there’s no love lost between her and Agent Rotter. As soon as she’s in the room, I know she cares a bloody ton more about this case than the Boy Scout.
Which is good. I can use that.
“That answer’s beneath you.”
“If you have someplace else to be,” she says, tilting her chin toward the dossier, “you know the quickest way out of here.”
I lean forward. My answer should shake her a little, but not too much. I think about her response two seconds and formulate my own. “We’re in the middle of a promotional event. The mayor’s there. The press. The Lord himself is looking down on the Barrington factory, and you expect me to believe you want to give me space.”
“If you want less space, that can be arranged.” Her voice is so crisp, it’s seductive.
