“The night you were attacked in the alley?” Nico’s eyes flash dangerously. “You were texting with him? Did he know what you were doing? Where you were going? What did he say?”
“Nico, relax.” I lean across the island and pat his hand. “Apparently, we were just checking in. We do that sometimes. We were talking about the weather. And he was telling me about his grandkids. That’s all.”
“Soph.” He holds my gaze. “Right now, everyoneis a suspect.”
“It wasn’t Brian,” I insist. “He wouldn’t. He wasn’t just my boss. He was my mentor. He taught me everything. He gave me a job after?—”
No. Don’t bring up my failed attempt to join the FBI. Not now. Not when Nico feels so guilty already.
Why do you care if he feels guilty?the logical voice in my head asks.Heshouldfeel guilty after what he did.
Shut up,I silently respond.Don’t worry about why. I just do.
A beat later, I wonder,Is it weird to have so many conversations with myself?
“Maybe I’ve lived alone too for too long,” I mutter.
Nico shoots me a look of confusion. “What?”
“It’s nothing. Just… talking to myself.”
“Okay…”
“Anyway, Brian wasn’t involved. But he’s worried because he hasn’t heard from me. So I need to figure out what to say that won’t make him worry more.”
Nico’s shoulders lower a smidge. He gives the eggs a stir, then says, “Just tell him you lost your phone. It’s not even a lie, technically.”
Right. Thatwouldwork.
After I quickly shoot off a text to Brian apologizing for my silence, claiming I lost my phone on the subway and just got a new one, I open up my laptop and move on to my files.
In the moment it takes for the program to open, I’m still convinced my files are all there. That Nico wasn’t looking in the right place, that, despite his incredible skills with computers, he simply missed something.
Then the program opens, and I realize he was right.
My heart sinks.
There’s nothing there. No folders. No files. It’s just an expanse of white.
“Soph?” Nico moves the pan off the burner. “What is it?”
“My files. You were right. They’re gone.” A beat later, I realize what that means. “I didn’t delete them, Nico. Whoever took my things did it. Which means?—”
“The attack could be related to one of your cases.” It’s said like a foregone conclusion. “Or something to do with your business.”
I knew there was a high likelihood of that, but I’d still held out hope the attack could have been random. That maybe I wasn’t targeted. But given this news…
“All my client files. My old photos.” A lump sticks in my throat. “The last ones with my mom. I kept meaning to print them out.”
“Hey.” He hurries to my side. “It’s okay. There’s always a way to get files back. It’s just knowing where to look.”
“But… I thought I could look through my old client files. See if there was something that jogged my memory. Or at least give me a hint to who might have attacked me.”
“What about a backup?” he asks.
“The cloud storage was my backup. I had everything stored on my laptop and in the cloud. Brian… he used to have file cabinets. With mountains of paper. But when I took over, I wanted to modernize it. So I spent weeks transferring everything over. And I paid for extra cloud storage just in case I ever lost my laptop.”
Frustration builds. How could I be so stupid? Why was I so insistent on getting rid of the paper copies? Why didn’t I?—
