Page 86 of Cruel Kiss

I don't jump. Weeks ago, I would've grabbed the knife. But the house has a vault door now, plus a rotating cast of men in dark coats parked at the corner, and somewhere along the way, my body learned to stop flinching at ordinary sounds.

So I dry my hands, go to the door, and open it.

Two men in shabby suits await me. One's older, gray at the temples, holding a leather folder. The other's younger, with a square jaw like a brick.

"Ms. Meadows?" the older one asks.

"That's me."

"FBI." He flips open a badge, quick and practiced. "Agent Hodges. This is Agent McCarty. We have a compelled-production order for materials related to the software developed by your company."

He hands me the folder. I open it—and frown.

Because, first off, it'sbeautiful.

I mean it. It's the prettiest legal document I've ever held. Crisp letterhead. Case number formatted just right. A judge's signature, a seal, a paragraph of dense language about the codebase and the source repositories and the obligation to produce "all versions, forks, and dependencies."

"This is a lot," I say, buying myself a second.

"It's routine," Agent Hodges says impatiently. "We'd like the materials today. You can hand over a hard drive, or we can walk you through a supervised export."

I keep reading. It's so good that I honestly feel compelled to at least skim every word. Nobody in this whole mess has ever handed me a document this polished on a doorstep at nine in the morning.

But I can feel the clock ticking. These men seem much less concerned with the paperwork or issues of software than they do with getting a toe through this door. They're looking at me. And past me. Into the house.

I reach the end of the page and my frown deepens. Nothing here looks amiss. So why does it feel like something is so wrong?

I think and think and think as the thought burrows deeper like a fishhook in the meat of my thumb.

And then it hits me.

A flash of memory from the past.

It's the badge. Something was wrong with the badges. Agent Hodges flipped his open for exactly one second and then closed it and tucked it away, but I have spent an entire month staring at Gia Mercer's business card until the letters blurred, and I know what a Bureau credential is supposed to say.

The ID number under his photo had too many digits. And it started with a letter. Mercer's card didn't do that. The formatting was wrong.

It's small.

But I can't help feeling like it's meaningful.

"Sorry," I say, pitching my voice bright and dumb and harried, just a frazzled mom in fuzzy socks with syrup on her hands. "It's just, my youngest is a menace when she's unsupervised and I think I might've left the stove on. Can you give me one sec? I want to grab my glasses so I can actually read this thing properly."

Agent Hodges smiles. "Of course. Take your time."

The younger one, McCarty, inclines his weight forward. Toward the threshold.

"Great," I chirp. "One sec. Don't move."

I don't shut the door all the way. I leave it open six inches, because slamming it would tell them I know, and I need them to keep believing I'm exactly the woman they think I am.

Slow. Gullible. A step behind.

I've been underestimated by better men than these two.

I walk to the kitchen at a completely normal pace, my heart fluttering like a trapped bird, and pick up my phone off the counter. I call Ronan—once, twice, three times—but he doesn't answer.

"Dammit."