Page 107 of Misdirection

She’d thought.

But after he’d shuffled them and when she pointed to the middle cup, the ring wasn’t there. Instead, it was in his hand.

Her dad had told her he never put the ring under the cup. He’d only acted as if he had.

That’s the key,he’d said. People instinctively follow where others are looking, so when you’re pulling off a trick, never underestimate the power of your gaze.

Misdirection, she mused. He’d also taught her about looking natural, about muscle memory, about building trust and rapport.

She could see where her father’s advice could be valuable also—though in a different way.

But she understood what Tom was saying also. There were certain rules investigators needed to play by in order to keep their integrity.

After their talk, Olive felt something growing inside her.

The desire to follow in her dad’s footsteps. Or maybe in Tom’s footsteps.

Or were their paths one and the same?

She honestly wasn’t sure.

And that was something she needed to figure out.

CHAPTER 47

TODAY

Olive still hadn’t heard from Jason, and two hours had passed. Twolonghours.

He should be done with his meeting with Adriana by now.

Knowing Jason the way she did—or the way shehad—Olive would think he’d slip away from Adriana long enough to give Olive an update. He knew what was at stake, knew she was waiting.

But she’d heard nothing.

Olive continued to scroll through some security footage she’d been sent from the day Beau had been killed. She wanted to see everyone coming and going from the building that day.

The task felt mundane. But it was necessary. So far, she’d found nothing of note.

But as she scrolled, her mind remained on the case.

She took a break from the video and decided to review everything she knew so far.

Adriana was a Russian operative who’d been sent over to obtain sensitive, dangerous information from Conglomerate. The woman had needed to pinpoint employees within the company who could allow her to get her hands on it.

She must have first targeted Jason and then realized he was a brick wall she wouldn’t be able to break through.

So she’d then moved on to Beau. Yet, in other ways, his murder had seemed to be one of circumstance, like he’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Olive hadn’t figured that out yet.

For some reason, Adriana had also pulled Claudine and Alex into this.

Or maybe the mole had been blackmailing Alex and Claudine. That made more sense.

Their original intel said the deal was supposed to go down today. Could that change? Of course. But most of the Russians Olive had encountered liked their deals to happen on time.

A bad feeling churned in her gut.

She glanced at the time again. Two hours and twenty minutes.

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