Page 48 of Exit Strategy

“It’s open. Can you walk me through it?”

“Yeah, no problem,” she said. “I’ll have to use Kurt’s code to access it, and I can only do that if I have alpha-level clearance from someone at the top.”

“Can you consider me at the top, since our head is missing, or do you need someone else to confirm that?”

“Can anyone else do that? I could but it would be more solid if you had Mister Rex or his head agent’s permission.”

“They’re both at the hospital right now, and I have no idea what happened. Clear it and I’ll accept full responsibility for it. You can note me on it.” I heard the keys click over the phone while I walked through the kitchen, into the pantry, and then pushed the concealed lever to pop the door on the panic room. The door swung in with no incident. The room was empty, and none of the security triggers were activated. Whatever had happened, it had been quick.

“I’m in, walk me through the system,” I said. Mac’s voice was almost clinical as she walked me through the monitors to bring up the internal security cameras. There was a first level of security that I was able to pass with my login, but then half the house had a second layer of additional encryption. That seemed unusual. I didn’t know that there were two layers. Fuck, there might be more. I guess being second in security didn’t count for that much. That was a bunch of bullshit, and I was going to talk to Anderson about that. If I was number two, I should have at least known about this.

The system responded, and I started scrolling through the recordings. There were hours and hours of nothing happening, empty rooms, and feeds of trees swaying in the wind, cars moving down the street. Then, Kurt’s sedan pulled up. He keyed the door, entered, and walked through the foyer. There was a pause as the feed switched to a camera that was inside the second layer of security.

“Where are we on getting through this second layer?” I asked.

“A few minutes, I can probably sus this out. Anderson and Soren aren’t that creative,” Mac said. She gave a laugh of victory, and then a litany of obscenity. “The internal feeds are being deleted. I’m actually watching the files delete out in real time.”

“What about backups, offsite? Tell me there is some hack bullshit you can pull off to save something, anything?”

“Yeah, I’m doing that. I’ve been doing that.” She grunted. “The good news is whoever is deleting the files is a fucking scrub. They are deleting the files one at a time instead of trashing the entire folder. This is something being actively concealed. What the fuck happened?”

“I’ll see if they will let me talk to Tomcat. Maybe he’ll tell me what happened, or what he remembers.”

“Unlikely,” Mac said. “Not considering that he’ll have his agent and his emissary from New Eden with him.”

“Soren is a fucker,” I said. “And Anderson is a puppet.”

“They were both picked by the August, Obe, both of them.”

“Yeah, I can forget that.” I ground my teeth; they did outrank me. Both of them did, in the eyes of the August, and in the New Eden Centre. I was lucky enough to have gotten a special bye, to be allowed to remain in the organization even though I had failed out of being a First Daughter. Since I screwed up my attempt at the Cotillion so bad that I didn’t even get to appear before any of the Centre leadership. I clenched a fist. I was only allowed to remain because I was the absolute best at what I did.

Even Kurt admitted that, that I was a better shot than him, and that in hand-to-hand, I had beaten him in all three of our serious sparring matches. I wasbetter.I had to be. I wiped a hand across my face. “Go ahead and send me copies of the files you were able to save.”

“They aren’t decrypted,” she said.

“Doesn’t matter. I’ll hold on to them until we can deal with that.”

“Consider it done.”

An hour later, the mansion was swarming with New Eden publicity managers and a black-label cleaning service. I watched as they methodically cleaned away proof of everything that had happened. No photos were taken, no evidence gathered. They didn’t even try to get samples of the blood, to see who it belonged to.

I called Kurt again and immediately got his voicemail.Fucking shit, man, answer your goddamn phone.

* * *

“This iswhat is going to happen,” Soren said, hands crossed behind his back, chest stuck out like a tinpot dictator. “Nothing, and I meannothingis to be said about anything you’ve seen. Everyone in this room has signed a minimum of two non-disclosure agreements, which are ironclad. If there is a leak, I will find out who did it, and will prosecute them to the full extent of the law.”

“What are we going to do about Worthington and Calanthe?” I asked.

“Miss Calanthe is a missing person, and we are going to handle that internally. Owen Worthington is considered the primary person of interest.”

“We should reach out to the police and the FBI,” I suggested.

“Absolutely not.” Soren turned to face me, snapping like a flag in a sharp breeze. “Our first priority is to preserve the integrity of New Eden and the image of Arik, is that clear. If there is any question about what has happened, your official answer is no comment. Those are the only two words you are legally allowed to say, do you all understand me?” Everyone in the room nodded.

“Madeleine?” He gestured for me to come to him, and then pointed for me to sit. I knew it irked him that as a man, he had to tilt his head up to look at me. If he tried just cutting his eyes up, he couldn’t make eye contact. This way, me sitting, I had to look up at him. That was the way it was supposed to be, and he had told me more than once. Too tall to be a First Daughter, too strong, too muscled, too independent.

I had done my best, proved my devotion, my loyalty, and faith to the order. There were only a few holdouts who didn’t accept that, and Soren was one of them.

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