Then another.
To his credit, Nick did not ask.
“Exterior inspection only,” he said into the radio. “Check for tampering. Seals, zippers, pockets, device cases. Do not open personal items unless Ms. Wilder is present.”
He was exact. He was efficient. Watching him work hurt in a way I resented, and competence made resentment deeply inconvenient. He didn’t fall apart. He assembled.
“Daniel is posted outside the library wing,” Nick said, turning toward the door. “He’ll be with you until I can move you to the secure guest quarters tonight.”
“And you?” I asked.
He paused at the threshold. He didn't come back in. He stayed exactly on the line, refusing to cross the boundary he’d just drawn in the dirt.
“I’ll be where I’m needed,” he said.
The answer was both true and evasive. He'd found the one place I could not follow him: duty.
For one last second, his attention returned to me. The human part of him—the part that wanted to step across the two feet of floorboards and pull me against his chest—almost spoke. His hand closed around the doorframe and stayed there, locked against whatever he refused to do.
Then he turned and walked away. His boots were heavy on the stone, the sound fading until the library was silent again.
I looked down at the phone.
This time, I looked past our faces.
I looked at the frame. The glass. The stolen second the photographer had chosen because Nick’s guard was down and his attention was on me.
They hadn’t found a weak point in the fence.
They had found him.
Chapter 28
On the Inside
NICK
Themessagehadn’tcomefrom nowhere.
Someone had been close enough to touch the system.
I stood over the back-office desk, palms braced on a paper map weighted by a flashlight. The monitor washed the topography in blue. Sweat from 0300 sweep had dried under my collar, stiff and sour. My eyes burned.
Forty-eight hours on coffee and adrenaline had worn down my margins, leaving nothing but an aggressive, blunt-force focus.
"It touched the internal network," Daniel said. He sat in the swiveling desk chair, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. The keys clicked, heavy and loud in the small office behind the luxury kitchens.
"Define touched," I said. My voice sounded like gravel being dragged through fucking water.
“It used our access, then disappeared before the log could give us a name.”
"That's not a definition."
Daniel didn't look up from the log lines. "It means either someone used a staff device, borrowed credentials, or got close enough to ride the system."
"Close enough from where?"
"Service side. Staff corridor. Generator path. Utility roof. We’re still narrowing."
