Maybe she’d finally suggest the voice chat she’d been thinking about for months. Maybe she’d hear his voice for the first time, see if it matched the rhythm of his typing, the precision of his code.
Maybe she’d tell him the dress was actually more navy than sky.
The parking garage was poorly lit and mostly empty. Morgan’s footsteps echoed against concrete as she walked toward the elevator, her new book tucked under her arm and her mind already composing tonight’s opening message.
She was humming. Dickinson, the rhythm of “Hope is the thing with feathers”—da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM—her typing pattern shifting into waltz time without conscious thought.
Like a waltz, Binary had written.
She smiled.
Then she heard footsteps behind her. Heavy. Deliberate.
Her smile faded. She walked faster, but the elevator was still twenty feet away, and the footsteps were gaining.
“Miss Reece?”
She turned.
The man was clean-cut, expensive suit, the kind of polished that came from money rather than effort. He looked like a banker. He looked like someone who’d never raised his voice in his life.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “do I know you?”
“Not yet.” He smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. “But weknow you. We’ve read that article about you. Very impressive, Miss Reece. A memory like yours is quite rare.”
Movement to her left. A second man stepped out from behind a concrete pillar, blocking her path to the elevator.
This was not a conference attendee. Not a fan of her presentation. Morgan’s body understood before her mind caught up.
She ran.
She made it three steps before hands closed around her arms, professional and firm, not hurting her but absolutely not letting go.
“Don’t make this difficult,” the first man said. He was still smiling. “You’re far too valuable to damage.”
Her mind was doing what it always did—recording, cataloging, storing. The first man’s face: strong jaw, blue eyes, small scar on his left eyebrow. His voice: smooth, educated, with the faintest trace of an accent she couldn’t place. The second man: heavier, silent, hands like vises around her biceps.
A van pulled up. Gray, no windows, sliding door already open.
Holy shit, she was beingkidnapped.
She screamed. The sound echoed off concrete and died in the empty garage. She twisted against the hands holding her, kicked backward, felt her heel connect with a shin. The second man grunted but didn’t let go.
“Help!” Her voice cracked. “Someone?—”
A cloth clamped over her nose and mouth. The smell was sweet and sharp, filling her lungs before she could hold her breath.
No. No, no, no?—
Her mind kept recording even as her body went slack.The van’s license plate as they lifted her inside: Montana, 7-4892B. Her new book, abandoned on the concrete. The second man’s watch—silver, expensive, 7:52 on the face.
“We need your particular talents,” the first man was saying, his voice sounding like it was underwater. “Your coding skills. That remarkable memory.”
“Binary,” she whispered into the cloth, the word barely a breath.
He’ll notice when I don’t show. He notices everything.
The garage lights blurred. Faded.
