Page 14 of Close to the Edge

His hands curled into loose fists but his breathing didn’t change. He carried on staring at me with a level look, then nodded for me to go on.

“The last time was yesterday morning. I received another code, but with a picture of me attached.”

“A picture?” Caleb asked.

I nodded, a sheet of ice unravelling through me at the recollection. “It was taken two days ago. I was shopping.”

“Fuck.” Caleb’s jaw rippled with tension before he leaned forward, bristling with quiet fury. “What happened to the package?”

“I have it at home.”

His expression tight, he reached for his phone and had another conversation with the unflappable Maggie, issuing terse instructions about retrieving the package and having a discreet service dust it for prints. Just as briskly, he hung up and dropped the phone on the table between us.

“Tell me about your online activities, outside of the work you do for SDM.”

“That’s a very broad question.” The plane dipped, taking a little bit of my stomach with it. “You want to know if I messed up somewhere?”

“I’m sure you didn’t but something you did triggered this.”

The logic was too sound to dismiss. I tried to suppress it but my unease grew. “You don’t think I covered my tracks?”

A smile twitched his lips. “You’re a coder. I’m sure you can clear your caches in your sleep. And I’m not talking about porn. Although I’d love to know which sites you prefer.”

A flush heated my chest and spread lower to my abdomen. “Mr. Steele—”

“Lily?” he responded with a heavy dose of snark.

I took a calming breath. “I don’t leave a trail of where I buy my lingerie or post minute-by-minute details of where I’m going to be at any given time of day. I know how to protect myself.”

“And yet he found you,” he stated with bracing finality.

After a moment, I looked at him. “What do you want to know specifically?”

“Coders make decent hackers. If you hacked your way into a job with SDM, you must be great. What’s your hacker handle?”

All of a sudden the name that sent shivers down the spines of faceless dark web hackers felt pretentious. “Cipher Q.”

His brows slowly rose. “You’re Cipher Q?”

Another emotion swept in to mingle with the cocktail swirling inside me. This time it was most definitely notunpleasant. “You know about me?”

He shrugged. “Cyber crimes are a problem for a few of my clients. Maggie and a few people on my payroll keep an eye on things like that for me. A few months back she wouldn’t shut up about some big-deal hacker contest going on. You won, if I remember correctly?”

The kick of pride warred with the need to set him straight. “Yes, but it was all aboveboard. No cyber crimes involved.”

“Who came second?”

“Nordic Razor.”

“What do you know about him? How did he take coming second?”

“You think he’s doing this?”

His shoulders rippled beneath his shirt as he shrugged again. “Not everyone likes losing to a woman.”

I shook my head. “It’s not him.”

“I’ll be the judge of that. I need the names of everyone who took part in the contest, too.”

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