Page 4 of Just Right

Her throat was dry as dust. Her heart was pounding. She felt sick.

But she was almost there. There was no time to check the file because now, she needed to get out and get away before anyone could grasp onto the trace of her presence due to this illicit foray into the records.

Out and away. It had to be done perfectly. Flawlessly, and cold-mindedly. No room for panic. Every step had to be backtracked and erased, and all the while, she had to keep an eye out for anyone who might be deploying software to track her or leaving a trap.

Cami didn't think that this was something she should have to worry about when exiting archives. The fact that she had to indicated a malevolent presence. An enemy within the organization.

But there was no time to think about that. Everything needed to be in place. Erase, repeat, reverse.

And finally, with a huge sigh, she was out. Her hands were shaking. She felt like she'd just run a hundred-yard dash. But the file was now on her desktop.

Same file. It looked the same. It had taken less time to download, and she didn't yet know if that was good or bad.

Now, she had to find out if it worked and if she could access the contents and the information within.

"Opening it,"she typed.

Holding her breath, Cami double-clicked the folder and waited to see what appeared.

CHAPTER TWO

Cami felt breathless. She felt as if she'd been on an actual physical raid into the archives. But where a physical raid would tell her instantly if she'd been seen, she knew that it wouldn't be as easy to tell if she'd gotten away free and clear now.

Only time would show her that. But in the meantime, she could see what she had.

The folder opened, and she let out a long, shaky breath.

It had worked! The program to counter the malware had done its job, and Cami sent a silent thank you and good vibes to the faceless, unknown genius who'd hunched over his or her keyboard, figuring out the coding necessary to counter the program that had—virtually—shredded the file as it had been extracted.

At times like this, she felt a flare of happiness and pride that she was connected to this weird, intangible network of genius and ideas. People thought of hackers as bad, but there were only a few who used their powers to harm. Many more used them to solve problems, to fix issues, and to progress technology. They were channeled for good, rather than bad.

"It's not damaged,"she messaged to Amo-1.

"Brilliant!"A flood of happy emojis followed, and then a quick,"Chat later!"

"Thank you,"Cami typed back.

Amo-1 signed off, and Cami eagerly turned her attention to the copy of the file.

She was startled to see how meager it was. Having had some limited experience of cases in the FBI so far, she was used to what they contained. And by comparison, this didn't have much.

"So, what's here?" she muttered to herself.

There was the missing persons report to say when and where Jenna Lark had last been seen, with a description of her sister and an attached photo. That was correct, even though those stark black and white words bore no relation to the emotions Cami had felt.

The confusion and heartache had filled her world. This had been her big sister, her rock. Her protector from the harsh authority of her father's rule, where even her mother tiptoed around him, meek and submissive.

In that household, there hadn't been much love to be found, and a large part of what there had been had come from Jenna. When she'd disappeared, it felt as if Cami's world had shattered. The pain had never gone away, and she felt it now as she looked at the photo in the case file—Jenna, her pale blonde hair short and spiky, that cheeky smile on her face.

They had done some work, Cami saw. They'd interviewed a few neighbors, trying to find out if Jenna had been seen, or if she'd said anything to give a hint as to where she might have gone. But there was no clue, no lead. No real information in that sparse file, and it made her wonder if something was completely missing from it or had been physically taken out.

Her heart felt leaden. She had always hoped, all these years, that Jenna was still alive. It was all that had kept her going. The knowledge, however fragile and uncertain, that the sister she'd loved so much was still out there. Living her life, waiting to come home. Or perhaps she was in darker circumstances, kept prisoner, or held by someone and coerced into staying away from her family for some unknown reason. Cami's imagination had always run ahead with scenarios.

But perhaps she had been deceiving herself all this time. Perhaps Jenna was dead, and she had been clinging to a fake dream. It could be that there was nothing to be found, and she'd have to accept that. People went missing. Runaways got murdered. Accidents happened. Of course, it was the not knowing that was the worst. Hadn’t the FBI cared about that?

Who had investigated this file, anyway?Cami wondered with a sudden rush of anger.Who'd done such a half-assed job on it?

She looked for the investigating agent's name. Liam Treverton. That was who had been in charge. Agent Treverton.

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