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“Yes.”

“The insurance,” Moff said, more to himself than to any of us. “I’ve been staring at our systems while you came through the damn insurance.”

“You kept me out of your systems,” Seb said.

Moff looked at him. Then he went to his desk and pulled up the administrator’s portal.

Sparrow rubbed her face against my shoulder and started to fuss. I bounced her, but she only grew louder. “I need to get this one home for a nap.”

Seb closed his laptop and touched a finger to her sock. “Bye, baby girl.”

Robin offered to walk him out. While I packed Sparrow’s bag, I watched them go down the pier together. They stopped at the end, where Robin said something I couldn’t hear. Seb listened with his hands in his pockets. When they came back, Seb headed toward town and Robin came inside.

Robin stood in the doorway a moment. “He’s not what I thought he was.”

“Which bit?”

“All of it.” He rubbed his face. “I’ve had him down as a man who came here to take something.”

“He’s always been like that,” I said. “He’ll tell you what he found, even if it makes his life harder.”

“Except that night,” Robin said.

“He told me exactly what he thought that night. That was the problem.”

Robin looked at Sparrow, then back at me. “It was.”

I pulled on my coat and picked up Sparrow’s bag. Robin held the door.

Sparrow fell asleep before the marine-supply store. She always did on that stretch. At the lights I glanced at her in the mirror, her mouth open, one hand tucked beside her cheek.

I’d been angry with Seb for a year. I still was. He’d believed that video and called me a liar in front of everyone we loved. Nothing he did at Moff’s bench changed that.

But Sparrow had held on to his sleeve while he explained the breach, and he’d let her. He’d answered my questions with as much care as Moff’s. When he’d stood beside me, I’d wanted to put my hand on his back. I’d forgotten how much I missed touching him.

I pictured him at Robin’s kitchen table with Sparrow on his knee, listening to Nick and Dion argue over dinner. I wanted him there.

Chapter 14

❧

— Glitch —

“You found the hole and showed Moff how to close it,” Robin said as we reached the end of the pier.

I nodded. “I’ll send him the other four tonight.”

“He’ll enjoy that.” Robin stopped. “It doesn’t change what you did to Wren though.”

I nodded again.

“I liked you when Wren brought you to the cabin that first Thanksgiving. I liked you again today. But I was the one she called after you told her to leave.”

I didn’t say anything.

“She was at a gas station, crying so hard I had to ask her twice where she was.”

The gas station had been a point on my map. I’d searched cameras and receipts, anything that might tell me where she’d gone from there.