Page 57 of Fallout

She said, “Jasper went with Blake to the police department. They’re going to talk to April, see if they can get her to tell us who the shooter is. If she hid the file and he wants it, they’re going to be connected somehow.”

“That’s what I’ve been working on.”

Of course, Simon would be in a spiral working out how April hacked so far into their network so fast, even with physical access, but if he was able to pull out of that hyperfocused state, that was a good sign. He was a great guy, whose brother Peter seemed better able to handle the setbacks he’d been faced with. Simon would figure it out, though. And when he did, the guy would be a force to be reckoned with. An operator in his own right—even if it was only from behind his computer.

She asked, “What have you got?”

“When April was here, we collected her DNA and her prints. We ran that through the system and got a much wider spread than just running her ID. Buried in the system, we found another identity the Benson PD doesn’t even know about. It’s a familial match for her DNA to a woman who spent thirty years in federal prison starting in the nineties. She recently passed away from cancer.”

“A triggering event.” April had experienced a major life change that had sharply altered the course of her life. “Who was the woman to her?”

“From the DNA profile, forensics concludes the woman was her mother.”

“So, her mom died. Now she gets tangled up with this guy?”

“A man the PD is hunting,” Simon said. “Either her mother’s death set her against him and she’s hiding his things in our system or she’s workingwithhim and this is all part of some larger game.”

“Maybe they’re also related.”

“Could be her dad,” Simon said. “That would make sense, at least. Or a father figure. A mentor.”

Destiny didn’t like the sound of that. She chewed on her lip. This woman seemed to have slipped through the cracks and wound up in the middle of a whole lot of trouble. If she’d been preyed upon, they’d need to figure out how to help her even while justice was served.

“Whichever it is,” Destiny said, “she knows a whole lot more than she has said to anyone.” Did they need to tell the police what they suspected? “If her dad is the shooter, then the Famous Ones need to double down on finding him, and we need to get the PD working with us on it.”

“They won’t like that.”

Sure, the Famous Ones wanted to take care of things themselves. They didn’t want the police to “get in the way.” As far as Destiny was concerned… “They’re big girls. They can handle it.”

Simon chuckled. “You can tell them.”

“Anything on who the guy is?” They had a sketch and a federal file with no name.

“I’m hesitant because I’m not done putting it together, but I’ve connected it to an Interpol file and a file the Canadians have. They ID’d him, but it’s bogus, so I can’t get to his original, authentic name to start putting together the full profile.”

“What do you have?”

Simon said, “From what I’m piecing together, it looks like he might be a contract killer.”

“What’s the file, Simon?”

Peter glanced over, apparently hearing his brother’s name. Like a radar of anything to do with his twin. He sat with Selena, who was on the phone with Clare’s mother, giving her updates. She would be here soon enough.

Simon said, “She password protected it. And if I try to access it, and I get the password wrong, even once, the file explodes and takes our entire system with it. The whole thing will be dumped on the internet for all the world to see.”

Destiny blew out a breath. Her phone chimed, a notification on the Vanguard system, which showed up on the phone like an app. She passed the request on to the relevant department who would send it to the closest team leader. “If that happens…”

“People will die.”

They had operatives in the field all over the world. People who lived quiet lives in the safety that Vanguard provided them, in the form of clean identities or assumed identities kept secret from the company or family they had infiltrated. A particularly dangerous religious group just outside Calgary had been on their radar for a long time.

Too many lives would be at stake.

“So, we don’t try to access it. But if she gives us the wrong password out of spite, it takes us with it.” Destiny didn’t like saying that any more than Simon probably liked hearing it. The guy was probably fuming. “It’s safe where it is, right?”

“But if we leave it there, he’s going to kill someone.”

She wanted to have bravado, to stand up and face down this guy. Be strong. But none of them were bulletproof. Her new life meant she had far more responsibility. Not just for Vanguard but for her baby—both of their futures. Wishing for a life of love and laughter with Jasper didn’t mean anything if they lived it drowning in grief.

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