Version 1.21.0

  Scott

  Monday December 26th

  I woke up in a panic.

  For a moment, I didn't know where I was. My apartment was too bright, afternoon light streaming through curtains I hadn't closed, and my phone was buzzing insistently on the nightstand.

  I grabbed it, squinting at the screen. Twelve missed calls from Christopher. Six text messages, each more irritated than the last.

  Christopher: Call me.

  Christopher: Scott, this is urgent.

  Christopher: Where are you?

  Christopher: Answer your phone.

  Christopher: I'm starting to get concerned.

  Christopher: SCOTT.

  The last message was from an hour ago. I'd slept through all of it.

  Sam's journal was still in my hands. I must have held onto it all night, clutching it like a lifeline while I slept. There was a crease in the leather where my fingers had dug in, and the pages had bent slightly where they'd pressed against my chest.

  My phone buzzed again. Christopher, calling for the thirteenth time. I stared at the screen, watching his name flash over and over.

  What would I even say? "Hey Christopher, good news! I found out how she's doing it. Bad news, the how involves literally rewriting reality. Oh and also I'm in love with her, so probably don't expect an arrest anytime soon."

  Yeah, that would go over well. I declined the call. I wasn't ready. Not yet. Not until I figured out what to do.

  * * *

  The case files were still spread across my desk where I'd left them days ago. Photos, bank statements, interview transcripts, timeline charts. The collected evidence of Operation Glitch.

  There was a photo of Sam on top of the pile. Her employee ID from Holloway, the professional headshot they'd taken when she was first hired. She looked younger in it. Not in years, but in experience. Her eyes weren't sad yet.

  That photo was dated seven years ago. Before Daniel. Before Greg. Before the systematic dismantling of everything she'd built. Before I made her cry.

  I set the journal down next to it and looked at them side by side. The woman in the photo and the woman who'd written those entries. Same face, different eyes.

  The bank anomaly. The Holloway leak. The complete lack of digital fingerprints. They all made sense now. There were no fingerprints because there was no hack. She wasn't manipulating systems through code. The bank records hadn't hit an API call to update and log a change. The number just simply became a different number.

  I should call Christopher. I should report what I'd witnessed. I should do my job. Instead, I sat down at the desk and started making notes. This was how I processed things. Always had been. Give me a complicated emotional situation, and I'd turn it into data. Give me a revelation that shattered my understanding of the universe, and I'd make charts.

  Some people dealt with crisis by drinking. Some people dealt with crisis by crying. I dealt with crisis by organizing information into neat little boxes. It was pathetic, really. Here I was, twenty-four hours after watching a woman change the fundamental properties of a physical object with nothing but concentration, and my response was to make a spreadsheet.

  But the alternative was thinking about her face when I'd told her the truth. The way her expression had crumbled from hope to horror. The way her voice had cracked when she'd said "Get out.” So. Charts it was.

  * * *

  The journal entries had been burned into my brain. I'd read them over and over, trying to find some explanation that didn't involve throwing out everything I knew about physics and reality.

  Now, in the cold light of afternoon, I tried to systematize what I'd learned.

  Level 1 (October 4-5): Visual manifestation. Can see "the code." - Trigger: Trauma from firing - Symptoms: Nosebleeds, migraines, dissociation - Duration: Hours to days

  Level 2 (October 5-6): Physical manipulation. Can change physical objects. - Trigger: Emotional distress + concentration - Symptoms: Nosebleeds, migraine, nausea and vomiting - First noted change: Blanket color

  Level 3 (October 8): Digital manipulation. Can affect electronic systems. - Trigger: Intentional experimentation - Symptoms: Significant nosebleed, multi-day migraine - First noted change: Bank account balance

  Level 4 (October 27): Passive perception. Can see code without trance state. - Trigger: Deep manipulation of Holloway systems - Symptoms: Brief disorientation - Permanent change: Always-on awareness

  I stared at my chart. Four levels in less than a month. Each one gave her more power, more control, more ability to reshape the world around her. The pattern was familiar. I'd seen something like this before. Not in a case file, but in college. My roommate had been obsessed with those progression fantasy novels, the ones where characters unlocked new powers like leveling up in a video game.

  I'd always thought they were ridiculous. Power fantasies for people who couldn't handle the real world. But Sam was living one. Actually living it. I added a new section to my chart:

  Level 5: ??? - Trigger: Unknown - Symptoms: Unknown - Abilities: Unknown

  The question marks stared back at me. What was Level 5? What came next? And why?

  I pushed back from the desk and rubbed my eyes. The afternoon light had shifted, gone from bright to golden, and I realized I'd been sitting here for hours. My coffee had gone cold. My stomach was growling. I couldn't remember the last time I'd eaten anything.

  The chart was supposed to help me make sense of things. Instead, it just highlighted how much I didn't understand.

  This wasn't like any case I'd ever worked. There were no foreign accounts to trace, no money-laundering schemes to unravel, no digital footprints to follow. How do you investigate someone who can change reality by thinking about it?

  More importantly, how do you build a case against someone when everything they've "stolen" they could theoretically just will back into existence? The thought stopped me cold.

  If Sam could manipulate numbers in bank systems, she could probably also manipulate evidence. Digital records. Security footage. My own case files. Every piece of evidence I'd gathered over the past three months was potentially compromised.

  Not that she would. Reading her journal had made one thing abundantly clear: Sam wasn't a criminal mastermind. She was a scared woman who'd stumbled into something she didn't understand and tried to use it for good. Exposing her abuser. Burning down the career of a man who'd ruined hers. Giving money to people who needed it.

  In another universe, she'd be a hero. In this one, she was my assignment. And I was hopelessly, stupidly in love with her.

  I picked up my phone, stared at it for a long moment, then put it down again. What was I supposed to say? "Hey, sorry I lied to you for two months, but the feelings were real, and also your abilities are genuinely terrifying and I have no idea what to do about any of this?"

  Yeah. Real romantic.

  * * *

  That evening, I picked up my phone a dozen times.

  Each time, I pulled up Sam's contact. Stared at her name. Tried to figure out what I could possibly say that would make any of this better.

  "I know you have every reason to hate me, but please let me explain"? "I'm an idiot and I'm sorry and I think I'm in love with you"?

  Nothing sounded right. Everything sounded desperate, or pathetic, or both. She'd told me to get out. She'd meant it. And maybe the kindest thing I could do right now was give her space. Let her process. Let her decide if she ever wanted to see me again.

  I set the phone down without calling. Without texting. Without doing anything useful at all. Tomorrow, I told myself. I'll figure out what to say tomorrow.

  * * *

  Tuesday, December 27th

  I woke to more missed calls from Christopher and nothing from Sam. The day stretched out in front of me, empty and accusatory. I should be working. Should be filing reports, building cases, doing the job I'd spent eight years perfecting.

  Instead, I sat at my desk and stared at Sam's journal. I'd read it cover to cover three times now. Her handwriting had become as familiar as my own. The way she looped her y's, the angry slashes when she was frustrated, the careful precision when she was documenting something important.

  I knew things about her I had no right to know. Her fears, her hopes, her desperate loneliness. The way she'd written about me, about how I made her feel safe, about how she'd started to believe she might actually be happy.

  And I'd destroyed all of it. Around noon, I started thinking about Kate. I'd seen Kate's interview in the case files. Her statement about the friendship ending, and how despite everything, she'd insisted that Sam knew nothing about the bank anomalies. At the time, I'd flagged her as a potential co-conspirator or a naive friend being used.

  Now I saw it differently. Kate had been Sam's closest friend. The one person who'd seen the changes in her, even if she didn't understand them. Maybe she could help me understand.

  More importantly, there was something in Kate's interview that nagged at me. A detail I hadn't thought much about at the time. She'd mentioned headaches. Complex migraines, with visual disturbances. Started a few weeks ago.

  Just like Sam's had started. I found Kate's number in the case file and dialed before I could talk myself out of it.

  * * *

  "Hello?" Her voice was guarded, suspicious.

  "Kate? This is Scott Mitchell."

  "Who?"

  "We met briefly. At the coffee shop with Sam, a few weeks ago."

  A pause. "Dread pirate?"

  I almost smiled. "That's me. Look, I know this is out of nowhere, but I need to talk to you. It's about Sam."

  The pause stretched longer this time. When Kate spoke again, her voice had gone cold.

  "What about her?"

  "I'm worried about her. Can we meet?"

  "Why would I meet with you? I don't even know you."

  "Because you care about Sam. And right now, she needs people who care about her."

  Silence. I could practically hear her weighing her options.

  "There's a coffee shop in the financial district," she said finally. "The one on Third and Market. I can be there in an hour. But I swear to God, if this is some kind of setup, I will make your life very difficult."

  "It's not a setup. I promise."

  "Your promises don't mean much to me, Scott Mitchell. One hour."

  She hung up.

  * * *

  Kate was already seated when I arrived, tucked into a corner booth with a clear view of the door. Smart. She'd positioned herself so she could see anyone coming, with an easy exit route behind her.

  She looked tired. Dark circles under her eyes, tension in her shoulders, a half-empty latte going cold in front of her. The posture of someone who hadn't been sleeping well. But underneath the exhaustion, I saw something else. Wariness. Protectiveness.

  She was ready for a fight.

  “Hello, coffee guy.”

  "That's me." I sat down across from her slowly, keeping my hands visible on the table. "Scott Mitchell."

  "Okay, Scott Mitchell." Kate's eyes were sharp, assessing. "Why is the guy who spilled coffee on me two months ago suddenly calling me about Sam? How do you even have my number?"

  Fair question. I'd gotten it from the case file, but I couldn't exactly say that.

  "I've been seeing Sam," I said. "Since November. We've been dating."

  Kate's expression shifted from confusion to something harder. "You've been dating Sam. For two months. And she never mentioned it to me."

  "You two haven't been talking."

  "No. We haven't." Kate's jaw tightened. "So why are you here? If you're Sam's boyfriend, shouldn't you be talking to her, not me?"

  "Because I need to tell you something, and I need you to hear me out before you react." I took a breath. "I'm not an IT consultant. I'm FBI. I was assigned to investigate Sam for bank fraud."

  The color drained from Kate's face. For a long moment, she just stared at me, processing.

  "You're FBI," she repeated flatly.

  Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

  "Yes."

  "And you were investigating Sam."

  "Yes."

  "While dating her." Kate's voice was rising. "For two months. While I wasn't talking to her. While she had no one."

  "I know how it sounds."

  "Do you? Because it sounds like you targeted a woman who'd just lost her job and her best friend, pretended to fall for her, and gathered evidence to put her in prison." Kate's laugh was sharp, humorless. "God. She really knows how to pick them."

  "The feelings are real. That's why I'm here."

  "Right. Because FBI agents never lie." She leaned forward, and I saw the anger burning beneath her exhaustion. "Let me be very clear about something, Agent Mitchell. Sam is my best friend. My only real friend, if I'm being honest. And whatever you think she did, whatever case you're building against her, I will not help you."

  "I'm not here to build a case."

  "Then why are you here?"

  "Because I'm trying to protect her."

  Kate stared at me for a long moment. Then she laughed again, but this time it sounded more like a sob.

  "Protect her. That's rich. Because from where I’m sitting it sounds like trauma.”

  "I know."

  "Do you? Do you have any idea what you've done?" Kate's voice cracked. "She trusted you. She let you in. Sam doesn't let anyone in, not really. And you were just... what? Gathering evidence? Taking notes for your case file?"

  "At first, yes." I met her eyes, forcing myself not to look away. "I was assigned to figure out how she was manipulating bank records. Get close, gather intel, build a case. Standard undercover protocol."

  "And?"

  "And then I actually met her. Talked to her. Listened to her." I ran a hand through my hair. "She's funny. Did you know that? Really funny, in this dry, self-deprecating way. And she's kind, even when she's pretending not to be. And she looks at the world like she's seeing something no one else can see."

  I stopped, suddenly aware of how much I'd revealed. Kate was watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read. Something between suspicion and curiosity. Maybe a hint of sympathy underneath it all.

  "Keep going," she said quietly. "You were saying she looks at the world differently."

  "It's like she sees through things. Through people. Through all the surface level stuff that everyone else gets distracted by." I stared at my hands on the table. "The first time we had coffee together, she made this joke about corporate culture being a form of Stockholm syndrome. And the way she said it, this offhand comment that most people would have laughed off, there was this whole worldview behind it. This whole way of understanding how systems work and how people get trapped in them."

  "That's Sam," Kate said softly. "She always sees too much, thinks too much, works too much.”

  "The investigation was supposed to take a few weeks. Get close, figure out how she was doing it, build a case. Instead, I found a woman who was dealing with something impossible, completely alone, and somehow still managing to be the most genuine person I'd ever met." I swallowed. "I fell in love with her. I wasn't supposed to. I tried not to. But I did."

  "And then what?”

  “She took me to meet her family.”

  “She what?”

  “She took me to Christmas.”

  “Oh. Oh no. Does she know who you are?”

  “She does now.” “So, you got the worlds most guarded individual to take her to meet her narcissistic mother, whom almost no one meets and then what?”

  “We told each other everything. She kicked me out.”

  “You broke her heart.”

  “Yes. I would do anything to have not done that.”

  Kate's hand trembled slightly as she reached for her coffee. “Wait, what do you mean you told each other everything?"

  "I mean she's not a hacker, Kate. She's not manipulating systems through code. She's..." I struggled for words. "She's something else. Something I don't have a name for."

  The color drained from Kate's face. She set down her cup with a clatter, sloshing coffee onto the table.

  "Kate? Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine. I just..." She pressed her fingers to her temples, wincing. "Sorry. These headaches. They've been getting worse."

  My blood went cold. "When did they start?"

  "I don't know. A few weeks ago? Right around Halloween, I think. The doctor says it's complex migraines with visual aura." She grimaced.

  I sat very still, trying to keep my expression neutral. Sam's first journal entries. The static. The patterns. The code in the corners of her vision.

  "Kate, how much time did you spend with Sam around Halloween?"

  "What? I don't know. We were together almost every day that week. She made our costumes for the karaoke thing." Kate frowned. "Why? What does that have to do with anything?"

  Everything, I thought. It has to do with everything.

  "I think you should reach out to Sam," I said carefully. "I think you should talk to her."

  "After everything? She lied to me. She put my job at risk with that stunt at Holloway. I had to sit through three security seminars.”

  "I don't think that's what happened. I think she was scared. Terrified. And she made a choice to push you away rather than drag you into whatever was happening to her."

  Kate laughed bitterly. “She didn’t push me away. I blocked her.”

  "It's what I read in her journal. Entry after entry about how much she missed you. How afraid she was that you'd think she was crazy if she told you the truth."

  "You read her journal? Sam journals?”

  "She gave it to me. Christmas night, when she showed me what she could do. She wanted me to understand." I paused. "She wrote about you constantly, Kate. About how you were the only person who ever really saw her. About how losing you was the worst part of all of this."

  Kate's eyes were wet. She blinked rapidly, looking away.

  "She's so stupid," Kate whispered. "She's so goddamn stupid. She could have just told me. Whatever it is, whatever's happening, she could have just told me."

  "Would you have accepted it?"

  "I don't know. Maybe. Probably not." Kate wiped her eyes angrily. "But I would have tried. I would have listened. That's what friends do."

  "She didn't want to put you at risk."

  "Well, she doesn't get to make that choice for me." Kate pulled out her phone, staring at it like it might bite her. "I've been wanting to reach out. I've started a text to her probably fifty times in the past few weeks. I just couldn't figure out what to say."

  "Say you're sorry. Say you miss her. Say you want to understand."

  "It's not that simple."

  "It could be."

  Kate looked at me, really looked, studying my face like she was searching for something. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and I could see the headache still pulling at her, making her squint against the cafe's lights.

  "You really do love her, don't you?"

  The question hit harder than I expected. For a moment I couldn't speak. The word "love" hung in the air between us, heavy and terrifying and absolutely true.

  "I don't know if it's love. We've known each other for two months. But when I think about her being alone with no one who understands what she's going through, something in my chest hurts. When I imagine walking away, closing the case, pretending I never learned what she could do... I can't breathe."

  "That's love, you idiot." Kate's voice cracked. "That's exactly what love feels like."

  "How would you know?"

  "Because that's how I feel about her too. Not romantic, obviously, but..." She pressed her fingers to her temples again, wincing. "God. This headache. It's like someone's driving nails into my skull."

  "Have you seen anyone about it? A specialist?"

  "I've seen three doctors. They all say the same thing. Stress. Anxiety. Take some Advil, drink water and get more sleep." She laughed bitterly. "Meanwhile I'm seeing things that aren't there and having dreams that feel more real than my actual life."

  I leaned forward. "What kind of dreams?"

  Kate hesitated. "It's stupid."

  "Tell me anyway."

  "I dream about... patterns. Lines and symbols, like equations or code or something. They're everywhere, in everything, and I can almost understand them. Almost." She shook her head. "Then I wake up and I can't remember any of it. Just this feeling that I was close to something important."

  My blood was ice in my veins. Sam's journal entries. The static. The patterns that resolved into code. The sense of almost-understanding that preceded her first level up.

  "Kate, this is important. Has anything else strange happened? Anything at all?"

  "Strange how?"

  "I don't know. Things that shouldn't be possible. Things that don't make sense. Hearing voices?”

  Kate’s pupils dilated and she looked away. I knew that she was lying or considering it.

  ”Last week, I was so frustrated with my computer that I wanted to throw it against the wall. And then it just... fixed itself. The error message disappeared. The file I'd lost came back." Her voice dropped to almost a whisper. "I told myself it was a glitch. That computers do that sometimes. But it felt like I did it. Like I made it happen."

  I didn't know what to say. Whatever Sam had, whatever had changed her, Kate was showing early signs of the same thing. Either it was truly contagious, spreading through proximity, or something about their friendship had created a connection.

  Or maybe the universe was breaking, one person at a time. Kate was quiet for a long moment.

  "She kicked you out Christmas night. After she told you the truth."

  "After I told her the truth. About the FBI."

  "And you haven't talked to her since?"

  I shook my head.

  "How long has she been alone?"

  "Since Christmas night."

  Kate stared at me. Then she stood up abruptly, grabbing her coat.

  "Scott, you're an idiot."

  "I know."

  "No, I don't think you do. You left her alone for two days after dropping that bomb on her? After she showed you the most vulnerable, terrifying part of herself?" Kate shook her head in disbelief. "What is wrong with you?"

  "I was trying to give her space."

  "She doesn't need space. She needs someone to show up for her. That's what she's always needed. Someone who doesn't leave." Kate pulled out her phone and started typing. “I'll set up a meeting with her tomorrow morning."

  "Kate, wait. There's something else you should know."

  She paused, looking up. "What?"

  "My supervisor. Christopher Dyer. He's been pushing hard on this case. He knows I'm compromised, that I have feelings for Sam. If he finds out what she can do..."

  "What are you saying?"

  "I'm saying be careful. And tell Sam to be careful. I don't know what Christopher is planning, but I don't trust him."

  Kate studied me for a long moment. "You're really trying to protect her."

  "I'm trying. I don't know if it's enough."

  She nodded slowly, then surprised me by reaching out and squeezing my hand briefly.

  "For what it's worth, I think Sam could do a lot worse than you. Even if you are an idiot FBI agent who doesn't know how to communicate." She slung her bag over her shoulder. "Don't screw this up, Mitchell. She's been hurt enough."

  She walked out, already typing on her phone.

  I watched her go, thinking about what I'd seen. The headaches. The static in her vision. The timing, right around Halloween, right when Sam had been using her powers on their costumes.

  It was spreading. Whatever had happened to Sam, whatever she had become, it was happening to Kate too.

  * * *

  I thought about her journal on my drive back to the apartment.

  "He makes me feel like I might be okay," she'd written. "Like even with everything that's wrong with me, with everything I've done, I might still deserve something good. I'm probably wrong. I'm probably setting myself up for another disaster. But for once, I want to believe."

  She deserved better than me. Better than an FBI agent who'd spent two months lying to her. Better than a man who'd taken the job specifically to bring her down. I made a decision.

  Tomorrow, I would call Christopher. Give him a sanitized report that closed the case without condemning Sam. The bank anomalies would be attributed to a software glitch, already fixed. The Holloway leak would be blamed on a disgruntled IT employee who'd since been fired. Every thread of evidence that pointed to Sam would be carefully, methodically explained away.

  It wouldn't be easy. Christopher was smart. He'd ask questions. But I'd been doing this job for eight years. I knew how to construct a narrative. I knew how to make the impossible seem mundane.

  And then I would go to her. Tell her everything. The truth about my feelings, about what I planned to do, about what I'd learned from Kate. We'd figure it out together.

  The plan felt solid as I worked through it in my head. Report to Christopher in the morning. Bury the real evidence. Close the case. And then, finally, honestly, try to build something real with Sam. And maybe, if I did this right, I could become someone who deserved her.

  Sleep came in fits and starts. Strange dreams. I saw Sam standing in a room full of code, lines of light that she wove between her fingers like a spider spinning silk. I saw Christopher's face, cold and calculating, holding something that looked like her journal. I saw Kate, surrounded by static, reaching for something she couldn't quite grasp.

  The dreams shifted and merged. Sam was falling, and I was reaching for her, but my hands passed right through. Kate was screaming something I couldn't hear. Christopher was smiling, that predatory smile he got when a case was about to break.

  "You lost perspective," Christopher said. "You let yourself get compromised."

  "I fell in love," I heard myself say. "That's not compromise. That's truth."

  But he just kept smiling, and Sam kept falling, and I couldn't save either of them.

  I woke at 3 AM, drenched in sweat.

  The apartment was quiet. Too quiet.

  For a moment, I lay there in the dark, listening. Something had woken me. Some sound or presence that my sleeping mind had registered as wrong.

  Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. The city lights painted abstract shapes on my ceiling.

  Probably nothing, I told myself. Just the dream. Just my subconscious processing the impossible situation I'd gotten myself into.

  I went back to bed and stared at the ceiling until dawn.

  * * *

  Wednesday, December 28th

  Just before 7:30, I sent a text to Christopher.

  Me: Hey, sorry man, I've been out sick. I've got the report ready. Let me know when you're up for a call.

  The response came quickly. More quickly than I was prepared for.

  Christopher: I'm in town. Let's meet instead.

  Me: Time and place?

  Christopher: Denny's. Can you be there at 8?

  Me: I'll be there.

  I dressed carefully. Clean shirt, tie, the professional armor. If I was going to lie to my boss's face, I might as well look the part. I rehearsed my report in my head. The key points. The false conclusions. The carefully constructed narrative that would close the case without pointing fingers at Sam.

  7:45. My phone rang.

  "Change of plans," Christopher said without preamble. "Don't bother coming in."

  "What? Why?"

  "You've been working a lot of overtime on this case. It's clearly taking a toll. I'm putting you on mandatory leave, effective immediately."

  Something cold settled in my stomach. "Christopher..."

  "I need you to send over all your files and evidence on the Marion case. Digital and physical. We'll be taking it from here."

  "What do you mean, 'we'? What's going on?"

  "Thank you for all your hard work on this case, Scott. Get some rest."

  "Chris..."

  "And Scott?" His voice dropped, became almost soft. Almost sympathetic. "You've lost perspective. The best thing you can do right now is step back and let us handle this professionally."

  The line went dead.

  For a moment I just stood there, phone in hand. The words replayed in my head. Mandatory leave. All files and evidence. "We'll be taking it from here."

  This wasn't about overtime. This wasn't about concern for my wellbeing. This was Christopher cutting me out. Taking control.

  The journal. The thought hit me like a punch to the chest. I was moving before I finished the thought, crossing to the desk, yanking open the drawer.

  Empty.

  No. No no no.

  I tore through the apartment like a man possessed. Every drawer. Every surface. Every possible hiding place. Under the bed, behind the couch, in the closet. I even checked the refrigerator, as if I might have hidden it there in some fugue state.

  The journal was gone.

  I stood in the middle of my apartment, breathing hard, trying to think. When had I last seen it? Last night. I'd put it in the drawer, locked it, checked the lock twice. I remembered the weight of it in my hands, the leather warm from where I'd been holding it. It had been right there.

  What had woken me at 3 AM?

  A sound. A presence. Something that had pulled me out of sleep for just a moment before I'd dismissed it and gone back to bed. Christopher. Christopher had been in my apartment. While I slept. He'd taken the journal, probably taken photos of everything on my desk, and left without a trace.

  The violation of it made me want to vomit. This was my home. My space. And he'd walked through it like he owned it. Because to him, I was just an asset. A tool that had malfunctioned. And the journal was evidence that needed to be secured.

  He had everything now. Every entry about Sam's abilities. Every detail about the code. Every confession about what she'd done and what she was becoming. The entries about the bank manipulation. The Holloway leak. The progressive levels of power. He knew exactly what she could do and how dangerous she could become. And the entries about me. About how she felt about me. About how much she trusted me.

  "Trust me," she'd written. "Something about him makes me want to trust him."

  He knew exactly how compromised I was. How thoroughly I'd failed the assignment. How completely I'd fallen for the target.

  And he had everything he needed to go after Sam.

  7:50. I tried calling her. Straight to voicemail. I tried again. Voicemail. I sent a text:

  Me: Sam, please call me. It's urgent. Don't go anywhere until we talk.

  No response.

  Kate. Kate had said she was meeting Sam this morning.

  I called Kate's number. It rang five times, then a huffy, out-of-breath voice answered.

  "Hello?"

  "Kate, it's Scott. I'm trying to get ahold of Sam. Do you know where she is?"

  "Yeah, Scott. She's meeting me at the coffee shop in ten minutes. I'm running late. Bad migraine this morning." Her voice sharpened. "Why? Did you need to investigate her today?"

  "Kate, listen to me. You need to warn her. Christopher is coming. My supervisor. He has the journal and he's going to..."

  "What? Scott? Who's coming?"

  7:55. "I gotta go. Get to Sam. Warn her."

  I hung up without waiting for a response. I was out the door in thirty seconds, keys in hand, heart hammering so hard I could feel it in my teeth.The elevator was too slow. I took the stairs, two at a time, nearly falling twice.

  My car was parked in the garage. I fumbled with the keys, dropped them, picked them up, finally got the door open. The engine roared to life.

  I drove like a maniac, running every yellow light, pushing through intersections where I technically should have stopped. Other drivers honked. One guy in a pickup truck gave me the finger. I didn't care.

  My phone buzzed with calls I couldn't answer. Kate. Kate again. Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay.

  The morning traffic was a nightmare. Everyone was out, going to work, going to stores, going about their normal lives while I white-knuckled the steering wheel and prayed to a god I wasn't sure I believed in anymore.

  8:00. I passed The Dusty Page, the bookstore where I'd found Sam's first edition Princess Bride. The windows were dark. It wouldn't open for another hour.

  Come on. Come on. Be there. Please be there.

  8:04. Red light. I had to stop. Had to watch the seconds tick by while the cross traffic crawled through the intersection.

  My phone buzzed again. Kate.

  I answered, putting it on speaker. "Kate?"

  "Scott, what's happening? You scared the hell out of me. I'm almost at the coffee shop..."

  "Don't go in. Wait for me. If you see anyone who looks like they might be law enforcement, get Sam out of there."

  "Law enforcement? Scott, what are you talking about?"

  The light turned green. I floored it.

  "Just trust me. Please."

  "I'm three blocks away. I can see the coffee shop. There are a lot of cars out front, Scott. Black SUVs. Oh god..."

  "Kate. Kate, get her out of there."

  "I'm trying, I'm..."

  The line went dead. Signal lost, or Kate had hung up, or something worse.

  8:07. I passed Dot's. Almost there. Getting closer.

  The street was wrong. Too many vehicles. Too many people standing around with the studied casualness of people who were paid to look casual.

  8:12. I turned onto Third Street.

  The coffee shop was surrounded. Black SUVs, just like Kate had said. Men in suits. The door opening, someone being led out in handcuffs.

  Sam.

  Her head was down. Her hair was falling in her face. And even from a distance, I could see the blood on her shirt.

  I was too late.