was silent.

. She was barefoot, moving like a ghos

c casing off with a nail file. She pulled out the connector cable she

ected he

screen. She bypassed the home firewall. She used the

bal Mainframe. Pro

re corporate servers on the planet. She didn't want to change a public record; she wanted

bar crawled.

He was lying in bed, watching a tablet. The scre

d by the thermostat. A sma

Marcus: Intrusion detec

o. Let her through. I wan

ption layer. It was tough. Department of Defense leve

it. The loc

lyn w

k-ops acquisition of a rival tech firm. The meth

began the

ACCESS DENIED. SYSTEM

to slam the door in h

shaky breath. She had fail

ped the panel back on,

A manic, frustrated energy buzzed under her skin

ked fresh, sharp. He poured h

t well,"

typed:

busy night. The Met Gala is tonight.

he Gala was crowded. It was the perfect plac

document across the marble island. "Sign thi

egal gibberish. It didn't matte

it with a

Constantine said. His eyes

d her eyelashe

ng the paper. "Don't disap

went to g

of earshot, Constanti

s-reference it with the anonymous tip from the Pierce case two years ag