it.
“I’ve just been busy,” I said. “You know that, right?”
Mom reached across the table and put her hand on mine. “You look tired, Angela. This work is changing you, and not in a good way,” she said.
“I am tired,” I told her honestly. “But we’re doing good work, Mom. We really are. And I’m exactly where I want to be—at the Bureau, working with Eve, the whole thing. I’m just on a steep learning curve, you know?”
“Hmm.” Mom narrowed her eyes at me and sat back. “Why do I still feel like there’s something you’re not telling me?”
I could only shrug and avoid her stare by looking down at my menu. The alternative was to tell her she was right. There were plenty of things she didn’t know about. Things I had no intention of telling her.
Like, for instance, how the homicidal maniacs at the center of this case had singled me out, by name. Or how the retired FBI agent quietly having a burger at the bar was there for my own protection.
Or how if she knew everything there was to know it would only kill her with more worry.
And nobody needed that.
CHAPTER 62
BACK AT EVE’S that night, I was disappointed to find that Hermes hadn’t replied to any of my messages. I was surprised, too. This guy seemed like he really did thrive on attention, and exactly the kind I was trying to give him.
Maybe Hermes was just some highly skilled nerd playing in his basement somewhere, I thought. It wouldn’t be the first time. Some of the most surprising hacks had come from ridiculously young people.
I sent a couple of follow-up messages from my own alter ego, Pandora, but I wasn’t holding my breath for it to yield me anything useful. Once that was done, I turned my attention back to the usual: tearing apart the app one piece at a time.
That took me all the way up to eleven o’clock, when Eve said good night and went upstairs. I told her I’d let myself out by midnight, which was as late as I wanted to keep George waiting outside in his car. He never complained. I knew this was his job, but still, I felt bad for keeping him waiting like that.
In any case, the next hour flew by, the way it always did when I was working. This app’s code was seemingly endless. All I could really do was plug away at it one subroutine at a time and hope to get an overall better understanding of what it could do—and, by extension, a better understanding of whoever had written it.
I was just on the verge of shutting down for the night when I heard my new burner phone ping with a text notification.
Only three people had that number: Eve, A.A., and Justin Nicholson. But what I saw instead on the screen was a short message from an unknown caller, with a number I didn’t recognize.
Hello, Angela.
What the hell? I was deep enough into this that I knew something strange had just happened. But what, exactly?
Who is this? I wrote back.
We’ve never quite met, but I think you know who it is, came the reply.
My heart was thudding, and I wasn’t sure what to do.
Why are you contacting me? I asked.
Isn’t that what you wanted? I got back.
My next thought was, Hermes? I doubted it, but then again, nothing seemed certain these days.
I reached for Eve’s landline to call Keats next. It seemed like a prudent thing to do, but before I even got that far, another message came through, on top of the last one.
By the way, how’s George?
Jesus Christ! How did this guy know about George? Much less what his name was.
I ran over to the window and looked down at the street. From there, I couldn’t see anything except the top of George’s car. Nobody else seemed to be around. The block was quiet.
Even so, I didn’t feel reassured.
My phone chimed with another message, but I ignored it as I bolted down the stairs and threw open the front door.
I could see George in his car, and for half a second, I felt a flood of relief.
“George?” I called out, but there was no response. It looked like maybe he was sleeping.
Except—of course—he wasn’t.
There was blood, I realized. I could tell even in the low light, from the way his white collar had been stained dark.
The sight of it scrambled my brain. There were no cogent thoughts in my head now, as