Page 18 of Stolen Vows

“Something like that,” I mutter.

“Huh. Who died?”

“My . . . client’s aunt.” The lie tastes awkward, but outwardly, I keep my expression neutral. “I’m trying to find, uh, confirmation of it.”

Beau sends me a sidelong glance, his smirk slow and knowing. “Sure. Maybe try the county clerk instead. Much easier way to sort information, isn’t it?” His smirk deepens. “Unless you can’t hack it?”

I roll my shoulders back, leveling him with a flat look. And he knows how much I can’t resist a challenge. Joke’s on him—that was already my next stop.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I mutter. “Of course I can get into the county clerk’s office. They barely even have a fucking firewall.”

Beau laughs as he straightens up. “That should be your pitch to them:‘Hire me because you barely even have a fucking firewall.’” He drops his voice, pitching it both deepandnasally. Jesus, what a bad imitation of me.

“You make me sound like a Muppet,” I grumble, pulling up my software program, Sentinel. I originally built it years ago, but I’ve been tweaking and refining it so I can easily grow it into something much larger. But for now, it’s exactly what I need. It’s fast, efficient, and so good it should be illegal.

But it isn’t. Which is an important distinction.

Sentinel scans the backend of portals, websites, and databases, mapping out every weak spot or outright hole in their security. Firewalls, outdated encryption, exposed admin credentials—it highlights the fastest way in, making my job a hundred times easier.

I pull up the county clerk’s internal database—the system that stores digital records of deaths, births, marriages, and property transfers. It takes less than a minute to find an entry point into their portal. Amateurs.

I filter by recent deaths, female, age forty-five and older. Only a couple of hits come back. I drag them to an open list on one of my screens, scanning the names.

None of them feel like the right one. But that doesn’t mean I won’t keep looking.

“So, did you find her?” Beau asks.

“Maybe,” I hedge, skimming the files again. “Not sure yet.”

I exhale sharply, fingers flexing against the desk. Avalon Falls isn’t a one-stoplight town, but it’s not a bustling metropolis either. If someone died, chances are, everyone knew about it by the next morning. At least, that’s the way it feels.

I widen the search, pulling records from the three surrounding counties. Sentinel runs the parameters in seconds, spitting out seven more names.

“That’s not a lot,” Beau murmurs, his gaze flicking to the screen. “How do you know you found the right person?”

I exhale, buying myself a minute to figure out how much I actually want to divulge.

Beau’s my little brother, my best friend, and I trust him with my life. But this isn’t just my life.

Oracle iseveryone’slife. It’s something I’m still developing, but it can take basic parameters and scrape every inch of available data online to create a well-rounded file on someone.

From every time you paused for five seconds on an ad on social media to every store you’ve purchased from online. To every newsletter you’ve ever signed up for. Deleted forum posts, archived website snapshots, and forgotten accounts buried under years of digital dust.

If it exists somewhere, anywhere, I can find it. At least in theory, that’s how it’s supposed to work.

I enter the parameters, running each name through Oracle, cross-referencing it against Francesca.

My jaw locks as I wait.

Nothing.

I exhale through my nose, shifting in my chair, rolling my shoulders back. I crack my knuckles one by one, then flex my fingers.

Still nothing.

I stare at the monitor like the results are going to change. No hits. No connection between any of these names and my girl.

The muscle in my cheek tics as I lean back, fingers drumming against the desk. I stare at the screen, unseeing, unsettled.

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