"Hi, I got here late. I'm hoping I can see the dolphins still. Do you know if that's possible?" she asked, hearing the familiar mix of politeness and authority in her own voice that she was sure would get her the results she expected.

  But he didn't respond, and there was something about the way he was approaching her, something aggressive in his stance, that was making her nervous.

  "Gail," he said, his voice hoarse. "Gail!"

  "I'm not Gail," she replied, trying for the disdainful topspin in her tone that usually put an end to trouble.

  "Gail," he said again, and began walking even faster toward her.

  Now, the veneer of denial she'd had, with her own self-righteous attitude, shattered.

  This was trouble. It was bad trouble. And suddenly, apart from this man, now half-running toward her, she realized how alone she was here.

  Patti turned and ran up the staircase, her feet clattering on the metal treads. She was going as fast as she could, but he was gaining on her, his footsteps pounding behind her.

  "Gail," he said, his voice hoarse and rough. "Come back! You know you don't have to run away. Is it you, Gail? Is it really you?"

  Something about the way he said it made her feel a rising sense of horror. She shouldn't be here. She shouldn't have sneaked in. And now she was trapped in these deserted premises, with a strange man who sounded as though he was out of breath, but who was also running scarily fast up the stairs behind her.

  She reached the top of the stairs, but there was nowhere to go. Nowhere! She was on a small viewing deck overlooking the pool. It felt like a trap. Her breath was heaving in her chest.

  He advanced on her, looming.

  "No, don't do this, you'll regret it, you mustn't, you can't! Not now, not me! Please!" The words spilled out of her in a terrified babble.

  "Oh, Gail," he hissed. “Oh, no!”

  She felt something hit her head hard, so hard her vision exploded, and she blacked out instantly.

  She never felt herself topple over the edge of the rail, her unconscious form freefalling down, to land with a splash in the dark waters of the pool below.

  From above, the killer watched her sink.

  Breathing hard, he waited, watching the waves turn to ripples, and then to the merest shimmer of dark reflected light, like negative space around the object in the pool, now unmoving and lifeless.

  It was done.

  But he knew, deep inside, that it wasn't over.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Was she going to do it?

  Cami Lark had been agonizing over her decision for most of the night. She'd been sitting in her student digs at MIT, holed up in the tiny bedroom, messaging her friend on the dark web as she tried to build up the resolve, the courage, and the sheer bloody mindedness to do what she longed to do.

  That was to sneak back into the FBI archives and try again to pull the information on her sister Jenna's missing persons file.

  Last time she'd tried, the file had corrupted thanks to malware embedded in the record archive. Worse still, there had been a tracking program tacked onto the file which she hadn’t seen in time, and Cami knew that someone might know who she was. Someone in the FBI might already be aware that she was trying to open this mysteriously corrupted file to find out exactly what had happened to her older sister Jenna, who had disappeared when Cami was just fifteen years old.

  The FBI had investigated, but nothing had ever come of it. Cami had always wondered why. Recently, she’d been co-opted into the FBI to help with cases that required IT expertise, and she’d thought it was her chance to find out. But she knew she was on dangerous ground, especially since the reason she’d been co-opted in the first place was as an alternative to going to prison after the FBI had caught her hacking their main website homepage.

  So, she knew that there was a strong chance this foray could end in disaster. But still, she had to try.

  This time, Cami's friend had shown her some open source coding that she thought might help her get around the problem. Cami had tweaked the coding, and she thought it was a workable solution. All she needed now was the courage.

  "Done it yet?" It was her friend, Amo-1, messaging again.

  "Not yet." Cami drained what must have been her sixth cup of black coffee that night. She turned to the energy drink on the desk, cracked it open, and downed that as well. The faintest chirps of birdsong were filtering in through the still dark windows. The time was four-thirty a.m. Her eyes felt reddened, her body felt tired, but her mind felt sharp, like a knife.

  "What you waiting for?"

  "I don't know."

  Almost of their own volition, Cami watched her fingers move over the keyboard. She'd painted her fingernails black to match the color of her dyed hair, with its daring, partly shaven style, and the color of the dark tattoos on her arms.

  "Won't wait forever. Do it or don't do it. Whatever it is???"

  She hadn't told Amo-1, her anonymous but trusted friend, exactly what her covert mission involved. Cami knew that if anyone found out—anyone other than whoever had inserted the tracking program earlier—she'd be in huge trouble. It could destroy the uneasy relationship she currently had with the FBI. After all, the fact that they’d said they would drop the charges against her if she was willing to help with IT-related cases, didn’t mean they couldn’t reinstate them again. Cami didn’t fully trust the FBI. Even though she now admitted to herself that there were good people working there, there were also people like the one who’d embedded this malware into the case archive.

  Now, biting her lip, she agonized once more over her decision.

  It surely wasn't wrong to go in and see the file. Especially since she'd never been able to work out why the case had been so neglected, almost as if it had been hushed up. Combined with the malware, Cami was wondering if there were criminal forces at work within the FBI itself. This wasn't regular policy, that was for sure. This was highly irregular.

  If she did this—and was able to find out who'd tampered with the file—she might actually be helping the FBI.

  But she'd also be putting herself in danger. She had no illusions about that at all. This was not going to go well for her if whoever had taken all these precautions to hide the information caught up with her.

  "I'm scared," she typed.

  "Fears must be faced," Amo-1 typed.

  "Do or die?" Cami retorted with a skull emoji.

  "If you don't do it now, I got to go."

  "I'm doing it."

  Her fingers were trembling. She could feel her breath coming fast and shallow. Her heart was pounding. But she was not leaving this alone. They were not doing this to her. Whoever this person was, she was not going to let them win.

  Taking a deep breath, her fingers flew over the keys. Speed was of the essence here, and it could save her skin.

  “You are accessing classified information. To continue, please enter your password.”

  That was the same warning she'd gotten last time.

  Cami typed in her password. It wasn't one she had needed to hack. It was a standard access password that she'd used on the first case she'd handled. The archives were not as highly classified as the main FBI database, and it seemed that these passwords weren't changed as often.

  She was ready with a work-around if she needed it, but the password got her in. And then, she delved deeply into the history, looking for the file she needed.

  There it was. Jenna Lark, followed by a number. The same file, with the same malware loaded that had made it unreadable. But this time, she had an ally on her side. A clever program, written by some anonymous hacker with a stratospheric IQ. Shared on open source, it had been found by her friend and then sent to Cami, who had looked at the code and added her own adjustments to the program based on what she knew of the damaged file.

  Now, it was do or die time.

  She watched as the file downloaded.

  It didn't seem to take long. Cami stared at it on her screen, her heart pounding in her chest. There were no warnings now. This was good. This was progress.

  For approximately the thousandth time that night, she wondered if she was doing the right thing. That was a question she couldn't answer. Because she might not know until trouble landed.

  "Well, are you doing it?" Amo-1 messaged impatiently.

  "Yes," Cami said out loud, to herself. "Yes, I'm doing it."

  She felt sick with nerves. Her stomach felt like it was full of lead.

  "Done it?" Amo-1 messaged.

  "I'm busy with it." Cami gritted her teeth. She felt exposed here. She felt as if, somewhere, alarm bells were sounding and unfriendly eyes were turning her way, observing what she was doing, already working to track her presence there.

  She thought if she had been a real spy, it would be a lot easier. It might be exciting, not terrifying. But then, she wasn't a real spy. She wasn't even a real FBI agent. She was a student hacker who'd been roped in when she'd been arrested. It had been a choice between a clean slate, if she accepted the FBI's offer, or to go to prison for twenty years, if she didn’t accept their offer.

  "I really have to get going," Amo-1 typed. "Did it work?"

  Cami's fingers flew, her nerves singing like violin strings. She was aware of how quickly time was passing. Outside her window, it was getting lighter.

  She downloaded the file. It looked identical to the one before.

  "It's accessed," she typed.

  Amo-1 responded with a fist pump and a fingers crossed.

  Her throat was dry as dust. Her heart was pounding. She felt sick.

  But she was almost there. There was no time to check the file because now, she needed to get out and get away before anyone could grasp onto the trace of her presence due to this illicit foray into the records.

  Out and away. It had to be done perfectly. Flawlessly, and cold-mindedly. No room for panic. Every step had to be backtracked and erased, and all the while, she had to keep an eye out for anyone who might be deploying software to track her or leaving a trap.

  Cami didn't think that this was something she should have to worry about when exiting archives. The fact that she had to indicated a malevolent presence. An enemy within the organization.

  But there was no time to think about that. Everything needed to be in place. Erase, repeat, reverse.

  And finally, with a huge sigh, she was out. Her hands were shaking. She felt like she'd just run a hundred-yard dash. But the file was now on her desktop.

  Same file. It looked the same. It had taken less time to download, and she didn't yet know if that was good or bad.

  Now, she had to find out if it worked and if she could access the contents and the information within.

  "Opening it," she typed.

  Holding her breath, Cami double-clicked the folder and waited to see what appeared.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Cami felt breathless. She felt as if she'd been on an actual physical raid into the archives. But where a physical raid would tell her instantly if she'd been seen, she knew that it wouldn't be as easy to tell if she'd gotten away free and clear now.

  Only time would show her that. But in the meantime, she could see what she had.

  The folder opened, and she let out a long, shaky breath.

  It had worked! The program to counter the malware had done its job, and Cami sent a silent thank you and good vibes to the faceless, unknown genius who'd hunched over his or her keyboard, figuring out the coding necessary to counter the program that had—virtually—shredded the file as it had been extracted.

  At times like this, she felt a flare of happiness and pride that she was connected to this weird, intangible network of genius and ideas. People thought of hackers as bad, but there were only a few who used their powers to harm. Many more used them to solve problems, to fix issues, and to progress technology. They were channeled for good, rather than bad.

  "It's not damaged," she messaged to Amo-1.

  "Brilliant!" A flood of happy emojis followed, and then a quick, "Chat later!"

  "Thank you," Cami typed back.

  Amo-1 signed off, and Cami eagerly turned her attention to the copy of the file.

  She was startled to see how meager it was. Having had some limited experience of cases in the FBI so far, she was used to what they contained. And by comparison, this didn't have much.

  "So, what's here?" she muttered to herself.

  There was the missing persons report to say when and where Jenna Lark had last been seen, with a description of her sister and an attached photo. That was correct, even though those stark black and white words bore no relation to the emotions Cami had felt.

  The confusion and heartache had filled her world. This had been her big sister, her rock. Her protector from the harsh authority of her father's rule, where even her mother tiptoed around him, meek and submissive.

  In that household, there hadn't been much love to be found, and a large part of what there had been had come from Jenna. When she'd disappeared, it felt as if Cami's world had shattered. The pain had never gone away, and she felt it now as she looked at the photo in the case file—Jenna, her pale blonde hair short and spiky, that cheeky smile on her face.

  They had done some work, Cami saw. They'd interviewed a few neighbors, trying to find out if Jenna had been seen, or if she'd said anything to give a hint as to where she might have gone. But there was no clue, no lead. No real information in that sparse file, and it made her wonder if something was completely missing from it or had been physically taken out.

  Her heart felt leaden. She had always hoped, all these years, that Jenna was still alive. It was all that had kept her going. The knowledge, however fragile and uncertain, that the sister she'd loved so much was still out there. Living her life, waiting to come home. Or perhaps she was in darker circumstances, kept prisoner, or held by someone and coerced into staying away from her family for some unknown reason. Cami's imagination had always run ahead with scenarios.

  But perhaps she had been deceiving herself all this time. Perhaps Jenna was dead, and she had been clinging to a fake dream. It could be that there was nothing to be found, and she'd have to accept that. People went missing. Runaways got murdered. Accidents happened. Of course, it was the not knowing that was the worst. Hadn’t the FBI cared about that?

  Who had investigated this file, anyway? Cami wondered with a sudden rush of anger. Who'd done such a half-assed job on it?

  She looked for the investigating agent's name. Liam Treverton. That was who had been in charge. Agent Treverton.

  Cami frowned, feeling unsure as she wondered if Treverton had been the one to plant the malware.

  Did he know what she'd done? Where was he, and how was he connected with the FBI? It could be disastrous for her if he was still working in the Boston office. Suddenly curious, and concerned, she turned to her keyboard and looked up his name.

  Now, this was interesting. Her eyes widened as she read it. Just a couple of years ago, Agent Treverton had left the FBI.

  "Why's that?" Cami muttered to herself, picking up her coffee cup yet again in the hope that one more caffeine-rich drop might remain if she tipped it all the way back. "Did he just leave? Or was there a reason?"

  She was not going to give up on this. She went searching deeper. Trawling the buried information, she started looking into why he left. After a few minutes of intensive searching, she found a record online, partially hidden but still accessible to a determined searcher.

  And there was her answer. He'd been fired. For “conduct unbecoming.”

  Fired! Cami hissed in a breath. The agent responsible for her sister's case had since been fired. Who was this guy? Where was he? She felt like she wanted to arrive on his doorstep and demand answers.

  She looked up his address and saw that he still lived in Massachusetts, in a smaller town about an hour’s drive outside of Boston.

  Tapping her fingers on the desk, Cami thought about this. Theoretically, she could arrive on his doorstep. She could demand to know what had happened. Of course, he might not tell her. What would she do then? There might be things she could do.

  Staring at his ID photo with active hatred, Cami thought his face reflected his personality. He had cold blue eyes, a hard jaw, and an uncompromising expression. He had a cruel face, she decided. She wouldn't have wanted him looking into her business.

  But had he been the one to corrupt her sister's file? Did he have any IT knowledge? Or did he have friends who were still within the Bureau who'd done that? And if so, why? Why on earth had such a thing been necessary at all? What were they trying to hide?

  Cami decided that before arriving on his doorstep, she needed to delve deeper into Treverton’s IT credentials and get an idea of whether or not he could have done it.

  But before she could do that, her phone rang. The sudden buzzing caused her to jump because she'd been concentrating so hard.

  It was Special Agent Connor on the line, from the FBI, and Cami felt a flash of guilt as she automatically connected her illicit activities with this call.

  Did he know what she'd been doing? Was he calling to say he'd found her out? The timing was worrying to her. Of course, the other alternative was that he was letting her know about a new case. Those were the only two choices. There was no other reason why Connor would be calling her at all, let alone at five-thirty a.m.

  It was time to find out.

  Hoping it was the second of the two possibilities, she picked up the call. "Cami speaking."

  "Cami, it's Connor here."

  He didn't say he hoped that he hadn't woken her. Wasn't that what a normal person would say when calling at this hour? Unless, of course, he already knew that she was awake because he knew what she'd been doing.

  "Morning, Connor," she said nervously.

  "I need you in the office. Now. Can you get here in twenty minutes?" he asked.

  Her heart accelerated even more. This was trouble, she sensed it.

  "Twenty minutes? Sure, I can be there." She hesitated. "Is this . . . is this in connection with a new case?"

 

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