Page 29 of Shadowed Hearts: Frost
"On it." Rapid clicking carries through the comm. "Message came from... nowhere. Bounced through seventeen proxies before hitting your phone. Professional-grade encryption."
I stare at the message, mind working through implications. Echo knows who I am. Has been watching me specifically. The USB drive, the timing, the perfect vanishing act—all orchestrated.
So why does every instinct I've honed over years of hunting targets scream I'm missing something crucial?
Something shifts in my chest. A sensation I haven't experienced in years. I recognize it with professional detachment—the predator's acknowledgment of worthy prey.
And dare I say it, respect for an elusive target.
But beneath that lies something dangerously warm, completely at odds with the ice I've cultivated. My mind replays the way Vanessa's eyes met mine across the convention center—deliberate, knowing, lasting exactly long enough to send a message I can't decode.
For the first time in years, the ice within me begins to crack.
And I'm not sure if that terrifies me or thrills me.
eight
Vanessa
"Come on, Jenny. What were you trying to tell me?"
My fingers dance across the keyboard, the soft clicking a familiar rhythm that drowns out everything else. The sound bounces off the exposed brick walls of my loft, mixing with the quiet hum of multiple processors working overtime.
The clock on Obi-Wan—my main monitor—reads 3:42 AM. Not that time matters when I'm this deep in the code. Time becomes this weird, fluid thing when my brain latches onto a problem this complex. Jenny's digital breadcrumbs scatter across my screens like broken promises, each fragment telling a piece of her story.
A story that got her killed.
Two days ago, I made a cup of coffee in R2-D2, shut off notifications from the outside world, and dove into the digital rabbit hole.
Now empty ramen cups litter my workspace alongside three coffee mugs that I keep forgetting to drink from. My eyes burnfrom staring at screens, but I'm riding that hyper focus wave that makes everything else disappear.
My loft apartment sits in darkness except for the blue glow from my monitors and the projection system I installed last year. Data streams across the walls in dancing light. Financial networks, agency connections, victim profiles creating a living web around me.
I wave my hand, and the projection shifts, displaying a new layer of information across the exposed brick like I'm conducting some digital orchestra.
"Okay, okay, what if..." I bounce in my chair, the movement helping my brain process. "Obi-Wan, execute pattern expansion protocol delta-nine on the current agency connections."
My voice sounds rough from disuse.When was the last time I spoke to an actual human?At the convention, two days ago. Everything since then has been code and data and the constant buzz of discovery.
The code processes the expanded data set, building connections beyond the three agencies I discovered earlier. Numbers and patterns flow across my screens and walls as the system traces similar financial structures through state business registrations, banking networks, shell company databases.
"Holy shit," I whisper, leaning forward so fast my chair spins slightly. The projection shifts, bright green threads connecting fifteen separate points across multiple states. Then eighteen. Twenty. Twenty-three.
"Not three agencies." My fingers fly across the keyboard, pulling up corporation filings, tax records, employment patterns. "Twenty-three agencies across fifteen states."
The scope hits me like ice water. This isn't some regional operation. This is a coordinated network spanning the entire western United States, with tendrils reaching into the Midwest.
I chew my lip, a habit that always gets worse when I'm processing something big. The taste of mint lip balm mixes with the lingering coffee bitterness in my mouth. Around me, my loft feels smaller suddenly, like the walls are pressing in as the magnitude of what I've found sinks in.
But there's something else. As I dig deeper into the network structure, geographic clustering patterns emerge. Most agencies are in major metropolitan areas—Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver, Phoenix. But one location makes my pulse spike.
Sacramento, California.
"Well, well," I murmur to myself, pulling up detailed records. "What do we have here?"
The agency sits in downtown Sacramento, styled as a high-end modeling company. Website, social media presence, legitimate business registration.
But the financial markers match perfectly with the larger network. Same shell company structures, same payment processing systems, same suspicious international wire transfers.
