Page 15 of Power Play

"Evan." First-name basis. Always has been, since the day he decided my particular skill set was worth more inside his operation than outside it. "I appreciate you coming in. Sit."

I sit. The chair across from his desk is positioned slightly lower than his, which I noticed the first time I sat in it and have never mentioned. Arthur's office is designed for the people in it, and the design tells you exactly where you stand before a word gets spoken.

"The Halcyon Group," he says. "Chicago-based industrial holding company, third generation. The founding family's majority stake is under pressure from an outside investor group that's been acquiring minority positions through shell entities. The engagement is defensive, advisory, and quiet enough that the usual firms are too loud for the room."

"Sounds like a siege."

"It sounds like whatever keeps the walls standing without anyone seeing the reinforcements." Arthur leans back. His cufflinks catch the light, platinum today, and his hands settle on the arms of his chair with the patience of someone who has never once been in a hurry. "I want you running the operational side. Assessment of external pressure points, stakeholder mapping, the standard package. You'll work alongside Meagan on the financial restructuring analysis."

My face doesn't move. I've been controlling my reactions in rooms like this for longer than I've known Meagan Keating, and the discipline holds.

But Arthur Harrow just put me on an engagement with the woman I spent last Friday night installing locks for. The timing is either coincidence or positioning, and Arthur doesn't trade in coincidence.

"Timeline?" I ask.

"Preliminary assessment by end of month. The family isn't patient, and neither am I." He smiles, and the warmth of it is the most dangerous thing in the room. "You and Meagan should work well together. I would think."

Three words that could mean compatibility or that he's been watching what runs underneath it. Arthur doesn't clarify. He never does.

I give him nothing. My coffee is halfway to my mouth, and I finish the motion without adjusting the speed. "I'll review the file this afternoon."

"Good." He stands. Meeting over. "Close the door on your way out."

I close the door. Arthur paired me with Meagan. With Arthur, reward and trap are usually the same operation.

Priest calls that afternoon. The line is clean. His voice is flat.

"Your girl's got a problem."

"She's not my girl."

"Your whatever-she-is has been running searches on the firm's internal database that touch multiple engagements connected to the secondary operation. The queries were structured to avoid pattern detection, which tells me she's smart. The flag still caught her, which tells me the system is smarter. Somebody in Arthur's IT infrastructure is reviewing the access logs, and the review window is narrowing."

I stand at my kitchen counter with the phone pressed to my ear and the loft quiet around me. The November light through the south windows hits the floor in long rectangles that look like bars.

"How narrow?"

"Narrow enough that I wouldn't be running any more searches from her workstation for a while. The flag is automated, not manual. Which means it might sit in a queue until someone gets to it, or it might route straight to whoever built the trigger. If it's the second option, the clock is already running."

"Can you tell who built the trigger?"

"Working on it. I can tell you it wasn't installed as part of the standard security package. It was added separately, which means somebody decided those specific engagement files needed an extra set of eyes. That's not IT protocol. That's personal."

I end the call. The loft holds its silence, indifferent and wide, and the silence is the wrong kind of empty today.

Arthur's system caught her clean. Not almost. Not a near miss. The flag exists and the queries are logged. Somewhere in the firm's database, a record sits with Meagan's workstation ID attached to searches she thought were invisible.

I told her at the bar that her work was being repurposed. I didn't tell her the building she works in is wired to catch anyone who notices.

This is Arthur's second win, and Meagan doesn't know it yet.

I text her.

Wicker Park. Tonight. The place on Division with the green awning. 8 PM.

The reply comes fast.

You're making a habit of this.