Knight taps it. “Or a misdirection.”
“Maybe,” I shrug. “But whoever this is? They like watching. They like marking people. You’re not just a nuisance to them, you’re a pet project.”
He grunts.
Not a fan of that image.
“Dean and BRAVO will be chewing on this from the outside,” he says. “We hit it from here. If we can isolate where ALFA07connects to local operations, we might find a real-world handle. Name. Front company. Something.”
“So we’re basically reverse-stalking our stalker,” I say.
“Pretty much.”
I grin. “Romantic.”
He gives me a look.
We work.
Hours blur.
I love this part—the puzzle, the flow. The way our brains click together. I’ll spot a pattern, and he’ll already be halfway to validating it. He’ll mutter something about a subnet, and I’ll be rewiring how to visualize it before he finishes.
We fall into little pockets of banter that keep the air from getting too heavy.
At one point, I flick a grape at his forehead because he’s being too grim about a dead-end log file. It bounces off his temple and lands in his lap.
He looks down at it. Then at me.
“Really?” he says.
“Consider it vitamin C.”
He picks up the grape, rolls it between his fingers, then eats it without breaking eye contact.
Unnecessarily hot.
“I hate you,” I mutter.
“No, you don’t,” he says.
He’s not wrong.
Sometime in the afternoon,my back starts to protest the wooden chair. I stretch, arms over my head, spine cracking.
Knight notices.
Of course he does.
“You need a break,” he says. “Stand up.”
I make a face. “I’m fine.”
“Lark.”
I sigh theatrically and push back from the table, standing. “Okay, Dad.”
He stands too. He’s been more restless than usual—tapping fingers, glancing at the window, scanning corners that never change.
