“How do you feel?”
“Good.”I’m a puddle of good.An ocean.Endlessly buoyant.
“I’m glad.You scared me before”—there’s a soft grunt behind me—“both of us.Never again.I’m not going to lose you, all right?Either of you.”He pulls Lucky closer, each of them a parenthesis around me.“You matter too much to me.I’m not letting you go.”
“We love you too,” Lucky says.
I swim through the fog of exhaustion to blink up at Sterling, sliding a free hand into his hair, making sure he’s looking at me when I say, “He’s right, and we’re not letting you go either.”
I fall asleep to the vision of him smiling down at me.
* * *
Ready for the end yet?
not even a little(go to 84)
go back(go to 76)
SIX MONTHS LATER
“Yes, I read the audit reports you sent, and you’re sure they’re accurate?”I crush the phone between my ear and shoulder as I type.
“Absolutely sure.There’s no story here, Miss Finnegan.”
Yeah, we’ll see about that.
“Okay, thank you for your time.If I think of any other questions, I’ll be in touch.”
There is a heavy sigh on the other end that I mirror after I hang up.
“No luck with the bank?”Sterling pushes backward from his desk, rolling over to take a look at the reports on my screen.
“They’re adamant that there hasn’t been an external breach of their system.No customer data has been compromised.”I repeat the stock response I’ve been getting since I started looking into the story.“And the reports back it up.”
“Who ran the audits?”he asks, not taking his eyes off the screen.
I’ve grown used to his uncanny ability to maintain a conversation while researching.It’s what makes him so good at his job.
“The bank ran their own internal investigation when the initial complaints came in, then hired two objective third parties to complete independent audits after the first lawsuits were filed.All got the same result—their system is secure.”
“How many lawsuits are there now?”
I return to my notes.“Twenty and counting, with over four hundred complaints.They’re looking at a class action now.”
The whole thing is nagging at me.I can’t put my finger on it.The data isn’t lying, but it doesn’t explain how hundreds of customers of the same bank have suffered identity theft in the last two months.
It’s too much of a coincidence, and Sterling doesn’t believe in coincidences.
When I look up, his eyes are on me, a telltale smile tucked into the corner of his mouth.Tingles shoot up my arm as he traces his fingers lightly over the back of my hand.
“What is that brilliant mind thinking?”
Right now, all I can think about is tasting that smile with my tongue, digging my fingers deep into those dark curls and likely getting us both fired.
Instead, I flip my hand over and curl my fingers around his.“I’ve traced the complaints back to the earliest case, and it all started right after the bank was robbed.Something happened that day—I’m sure of it.”
“Want my help?”
