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“No you don’t.” She shakes her head. “Not possible. I saw you first. I got the drop on you. You don’t even–”
“I know you, Maggie.” I step closer to her again because I can’t fucking help myself.
“No.” She backs against the shattered wall. “I don’t think so.”
I lift my hand, and to her credit, she doesn’t flinch as I reach past her and open the hidden panel on the wall, then enter my code. The door clicks in three different places, and a slight whoosh of air denotes that the door is free.
“Go ahead.”
“What’s down there?” She turns her head. “I know. No, Iknow!”
I wait. Ocean must be going crazy in her ear right now.
“I’m not–no.” She keeps her gaze on me as she reaches for the door handle. “You know where I am, okay? So if you don’t hear from me in like, five minutes, then send in the drones. Okay?”
I try to keep myself from smiling. But it’s difficult. She knows she shouldn’t be doing what she’s doing–and Ocean is yelling that same point in her ear–but she’s opening the door and moving down the stairs all the same.
“Tell Ocean you’re safe with me.” I follow her.
She whirls, her eyes even wider than before. “He knows,” she whispers.
I hear the faintest whine of the speaker in her ear. Ocean just screamed. I pull the earpiece away.
“Hey!” Maggie reaches for my hand.
“She might damage your hearing.” I hold it out to her. “Once she calms down, you two can talk all you want.”
She swipes the earpiece, then–with a bitter look at me–continues downward, the overhead lights turning on as she goes.
Alfie runs down and plops to the basement floor, then jumps onto my chair, causing it to spin and all the lights to come on.
Maggie stops. “You …” She looks around. Her face stares back. All my screensavers and wallpapers are images of her. They aren’t always the best photos since I had to take them from covert locations, but I have plenty. My favorite is the one on the biggest screen–it’s her sleeping peacefully, her mouth open just a little. I still remember the way she snored faintly as she hugged a cat stuffie that night.
Every night, really. She’s a creature of habit. She likes things just so. That’s why I’m always careful to leave everything in her place the way she wants it. Even her father doesn’t pay as close attention as I do. Sometimes he leaves the cans turned the wrong way in the pantry or turns the blinds a few degrees in the wrong direction. I fix all that. For her.
I shoo Alfie out of my seat and enter my password, booting up all the screens. One set is an array of images of her house, the businesses she likes to frequent, and the inside of her bedroom.
The other screens are various streams of data, all of it surveilling Agent Duffy and her crew of hackers. I’ve known about her work for the bureau for a long time. After all, that’s how I found Maggie.
“I don’t believe this.” She stares, open-mouthed, at the screens, her brain parsing the data even faster than mine can. I know for a fact she’s the best hacker I’ve ever had the pleasure of coming across.
“You would’ve found my secret eventually on your own. But I suppose it was time to stop the charade.”
She turns and glares at me. “The coffee shop? My car battery getting messed up?”
I shrug. “I knew you’d be there, and I know how to take the power connections on and off a battery. I also knew that you can find your way through a server full of traps and firewalls, but you don’t know the first thing about how cars work. It was simple, really.”
“You set this whole thing up?” The disbelief in her voice is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.
“Of course.” I wave a hand at the screens. “I’ve been following Duffy for quite a while. Her outfit takes down certain criminals and leaves others that she finds too dangerous or too difficult to get to. She doesn’t even tell you about those, which I respect. She wants to keep you safe, and so do I. But those criminals can’t just walk away–especially not when they’ve padded their pockets with someone else’s retirement money or extorted it from innocent people or even did an old-fashioned hack and theft. I find them, and I make them pay.”
“That’s why Duffy wants you.” She backs away toward the stairs.
“She’s guessed about me, yes. But she doesn’t have any evidence, nothing on me. At least, not until now.” I stare at her pointedly. “You know the truth, and you work for her. You’ve done the job she asked you to do by figuring out what I do and why I make sure my steps are untraceable.”
Warring emotions cross her face, and I move toward her again. I can’t help myself.
“Let’s go upstairs. I’ll make you something to eat, and you can ask me anything and everything.”
