Page 29 of Fallout

The bank manager frowned. “The one for the cemetery?”

“That’s right.” Simon nodded.

“We heard there was a shooting over there. Are you with the police?”

“I work for Vanguard.”

“Ah.” He turned to the front entrance, and the automatic doors slid open. “You must be working with the police on this one. I’ll go fetch a copy.”

Simon followed him in. “You don’t need to transfer it to a flash drive or anything.” Most non-techy people didn’t even know how to do that.

“It’s all backed up to the cloud. Do you want me to email it to you?” The manager walked down a hallway and stopped at a cubicle close by, where a young woman typed on her computer. “Julie, honey, can you help this Vanguard agent get what he needs?”

“Yes, sir.” She smiled politely at her boss.

Simon explained succinctly what he needed from her, and she accessed the online portal for their surveillance like an employee who knew what she was doing—not always a given.

The interplay between her and her boss wasnotsomething he needed to get into. Whoever these people were, they weren’t stuck. They had a choice to stay or to leave. They were free to make whatever decisions they wanted.

Simon fought for people in situations where their choices had been stripped from them.

People like Destiny, who’d tried to do a good thing, and it had gone horrifyingly wrong. Like his mother, who had testified against his father’s criminal activities, and he’d murdered her for it. And so many more of his friends.

He might do it online and not with a gun or kicking down doors or punching people. But he fought in his own way.

Like trying to identify who had shot at Destiny just a few hours ago and nearly killed someone. The latest report was that Jasper’s mom was stitched up but hadn’t been released yet. Or like finding the person who had been using a programhewrote to help a criminal kingpin stay under the radar.

Everyone was trying to find this guy.

Simon, too, but for an entirely different reason. If he could find the kingpin, then he would discover who had stolen his code and used it to further their criminal activity. Sure, he’d written it back when he hadn’t been on the straight and narrow. But he and his twin had turned their lives around—thanks to Clare.

“Here you go.” She brought up the dashboard and all their camera feeds.

He tapped her screen. “This one.”

She clicked it.

He said, “Two hours ago, maybe a bit less. We’re looking for someone leaving.”

“This is very exciting. Are you on acase?”

“Someone nearly died this morning,” he said. “I wouldn’t call that exciting.”

She shut down. He might’ve said that with a tone, but his bad relationship with Lena started with her being entirely too interested in what he did. She’d managed to make him feel special.

Apparently, she’d also been making his brother feel special at the same time.

He liked Destiny a whole lot better and had zero romantic feelings for her. He could care and not get distracted from work.

On the screen, a car pulled out of the cemetery fast. The rear entrance was only used by maintenance personnel, and they had golf carts they drove around in. No one would’ve pulled a car in there.

I need that license plate.

Aloud, he said, “Can you send me that footage?”

“Uh.” She moved the mouse but didn’t seem to know where to go.

“May I?”

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