Page 74 of Close to the Edge

“Caleb?” Her fingers were curled tensely around the lid of her laptop.

I cleared my throat and fired up the video app on my phone. In a dark gray room, across a desk and two chairs, two men faced each other.

I pointed to the younger man. “Do you know him?”

She set her laptop aside. “No. Should I?”

“His name is Eric Vasiliev. He works for Baitlin Tech.”

She blinked. “Baitlin was on the list I gave you.”

I nodded. “He’s also Sanjeet’s roommate.”

Alarm widened her eyes. “Okay. Who’s the other guy?”

“A friend of mine. He’s in law enforcement. He did me a solid.”

“How?”

“He interviewed the remaining people on the list, helped me fill out a few blanks.”

Her breath caught, hope filling her eyes. “Are you saying... Have you caught my stalker?”

I smiled. “Yes. You don’t need to worry. They’re in custody. And your algorithm is safe.”

Relief drenched her face. She covered her open mouth with one hand. “Oh, my God,” she whispered.

I wanted to touch her so badly my hand burned with the need.

She took a few more breaths, and then her gaze returned to the screen. “Did Sanjeet have anything to do with it?”

“Not directly. But he unwittingly started the whole thing. Eric saw what he was working on during a FaceTime call and asked a few questions, enough to get an idea of what you were working on.”

“But Sanjeet was just a third of the team, and the others didn’t know about each other.”

I hit the second video in the folder. “They didn’t, but she did.”

Lily stared at the video, hurt and anger flashing across her face. “Miranda?”

“Yeah. She had access to you. All she had to do was listen and watch and tell Eric when to strike.”

“But...why?”

The throb of anguish in her voice cut through me. I wanted to absorb her pain. “Money. She was dating Eric. They hatched the plan together. All they had to do was destabilize the team, stalk you in the hopes of you making a mistake. If that didn’t work they were going to move to outright blackmail to get the code. They had a bidding war going with six countries.”

“She told your friend all of this?”

I nodded. “We got it all on tape.”

“Oh, my God.” Her eyes filled with tears.

Unable to hold back my need, I reached for her. She flinched away, jumped to her feet and paced to the window.

I threw my phone on the coffee table, swallowing the boulder of pain in my throat.

After a minute she swiped her eyes. When she faced me, her face was a controlled mask. “So it’s over. I can leave?”

Every ounce of power concentrated in keeping my jaw clenched just so I didn’t have to answer. But the part of me that yearned to give her what she wanted forced my head to nod. “The police will need a statement from you at some point, but with the confession they have it should all be straightforward.”

---