Something flickers across her face. Not quite a smile. Close enough to count.
We take the east trail. I chose it deliberately because it's a moderate climb with varied terrain, enough to challenge someone in new boots without being punishing, and because the ridgeline view at the top is one of the best in the area. If anything's going to crack the ice queen facade, it's watching the sun clear the eastern peaks over the Nevada high desert.
For the first twenty minutes, we walk in silence. I keep the pace steady, checking her footing on the rocky sections, noting how she moves. She's athletic. Controlled. Every step is deliberate, and she handles the uneven ground better than most first-timers. Former surgeon. Steady hands, steady feet.
"Tell me about the threat landscape," she says, breaking the silence as we switchback up a steeper section.
"Business or personal?"
"Assume I want both."
I hold a low branch aside for her. She ducks under it, her ponytail brushing my forearm. A whisper of jasmine and something warmer cuts through the pine and morning air.
"Business: Sully's digital forensics have narrowed the data leak to two individuals. Your VP of Research, Thomas Whitfield, and your Chief Innovation Officer, Diane Keane. Both have the access. Both have financial anomalies. Sully's building a complete picture, but he needs another week to trace the data pathway to its endpoint."
"Warren told me the same."
"Then you know we're on it. Personal: the penthouse break-in was a professional job. No forced entry means either a copied key or an inside man in your building's security. The note was meant to destabilize you, push you into making a reactive decision. Coming here was the right call because it takes you off the board while we work."
"I don't enjoy being off the board."
"I know. But sometimes the smartest move is letting other people fight while you stay alive to win the war."
She's quiet for a few strides. The trail levels out onto a shelf of granite, and the trees thin. The view opens up to the east, and the morning sun is doing exactly what I hoped it would. The valley below is golden. Mist clings to the lower elevations like something out of a painting, and the peaks beyond are sharp against a sky that's turning from pink to blue.
Lex stops walking.
I watch her face. The controlled expression softens by degrees. Her shoulders drop. Her grip on the coffee mug loosens. For three seconds, maybe four, Alexandra Morrison is not a CEO, not a former surgeon, not a woman under threat. She's just a person looking at something beautiful and letting it land.
"This is why you brought me up here," she says. Not a question.
"Partly."
She turns to me. Those blue eyes are paler in the morning light. Almost silver. "And the other part?"
"The other part is that up here, your phone doesn't get signal. Which means for the next hour, you can't work." I sit on a flat rock at the trail's edge and stretch my legs out. "Figured that might kill you, but I was willing to take the risk."
She stands there for a moment, coffee in both hands, looking at me with an expression I can't fully read. Then she sits on the rock beside me. Not close. Not far. The kind of distance that says she chose it carefully.
"You're very presumptuous," she says.
"I've been told."
"Does it usually work?"
"Depends on the person." I lean back on my palms and look out at the valley. "Some people need to be pushed. Some people need to be left alone. Some people need someone to hand them a cup of coffee and make them look at a mountain until they remember they're human."
"And which am I?"
"All three. In exactly that order."
Silence. But not the cold silence from the first day. This one has texture to it. She sips her coffee. I watch a hawk circle over the valley floor, riding a thermal with its wings locked.
"My ex-husband used to say I was incapable of being still," she says. Just like that. No preface, no setup. Like the mountain pulled it out of her. "He said my brain never stopped running cost-benefit analyses, even in bed."
"Was he right?"
"Probably. Robert was very good at identifying problems. Less good at being part of the solution."
