Pain flashed across his features before he could hide it. Whatever had driven him from these people was destroying him by inches.
She wanted to push, to understand, but something in hisexpression warned her off. Instead, she turned back to her laptops.
"Money doesn't disappear," Sarah said, her fingers hovering over the keyboard, ready to dive in. "It changes shape. And every transformation leaves fingerprints. I already figured out that someone’s siphoning off big bucks from government accounts. My bet is whoever’s doing it uses the funds to pay Stillwater, among other things. I just need to prove it."
He made a satisfied sound. “So ‘Follow the money’ is a real thing.”
“Yup. It’s almost always the right answer. Never bet against greed.”
She could feel Griff watching her, that intense focus that probably kept people alive in combat zones now directed at understanding her work.
"The FBI trained you well," he said.
"Business school trained me. The FBI taught me to follow rules. You're about to see what happens when I break them."
The familiar weight of her laptop grounded her. This was her battlefield, her weapon of choice. While Griff dealt in bullets and tactical maneuvers, she dealt in numbers and digital breadcrumbs. Equally lethal when properly deployed.
"First, I need the WIFI password," she said, clicking on the network icon. "Garofalo must have?—"
Her screen showed exactly what she'd feared: No networks available.
"There's no WIFI?" She checked her other laptops. Same result. "But the security systems are running. There has to be a network infrastructure."
"Closed circuit," Griff confirmed. "Hardwired only. No wireless signals to intercept—smart for someone paranoid about surveillance." He reached for his go-bag. "But I've got a workaround."
He pulled out a device that looked like a cross between a satellite phone and a small laptop. "Military-grade satellite internet. Completely untraceable if you know what you're doing."
Sarah's eyes widened. "You carry military satellite internet?"
"Never leave home without it." He began setting up the portable system. "Fair warning—this draws attention if anyone's specifically looking. But with the right encryption protocols..."
"We become ghosts in the machine." Sarah was already examining the device, her fingers tracing the connections. "Quantum encryption?"
"Among other things." He powered up the system. "Sessions need to be short. Even with encryption, patterns emerge."
The connection established with a soft ping. Sarah's fingers immediately flew across her keyboard, establishing secure tunnels, bouncing signals through proxies she'd memorized years ago.
"There," she breathed, pulling up her first banking portal. "Now we're really hunting."
Time to show this hardened SEAL exactly what kind of partner he'd acquired.
She cracked her knuckles and dove into the data streams, following money trails that had been cold for days but might still leave echoes in the system. Somewhere in these numbers was the answer to who wanted her dead.
And with Griff's military-grade connection and her expertise, she was going to find it.
12
The numbers finally made sense.
Sarah pushed her glasses up her nose and stared at the screen, her heart hammering against her ribs. Three hours of following digital breadcrumbs through offshore accounts and shell companies with Griff's military internet, and finally the pattern emerged from the chaos.
"No," she breathed. "That can't be right."
Griff materialized from the shadows. "What is it?" His voice carried that steady calm that both irritated and reassured her.
She ran the query again, hoping she'd made an error. The same results appeared. "This doesn't make sense. Look at these transactions."
She pulled up screen after screen. "Stillwater isn't receiving payments for contracts. They're PAYING money out. Massive amounts. To FBI accounts. DOJ accounts. Pentagon accounts."
