Page 44 of Raven

I opened my mouth again and forced out a cry.

“Help!”

But no one was around to hear it.

Just trees. And silence.

I was alone. Injured. And Katherine had just tried to kill me. At least my wrist and ankles were unbound.

23

Cyclone

I was halfwaythrough a grilled cheese and a report on stolen ammunition in Tijuana when my secure laptop pinged.

It never pinged.

Only a handful of people had access to that line—Raven, Oliver, and Beatrice.

I shoved the sandwich aside and opened the message. One look at the sender and I sat up straighter.

FROM: B. Jones

Subject: Need your eyes on this—quietly.

My gaze dropped to the attachment. Encrypted files. Password-protected. And a single line in the message body that hit me like a sucker punch:

“Raven would know what to do. Just… help me confirm I’m not losing it.”

I keyed in the password:oceanfire.

The files loaded fast—system logs, timestamp screenshots, access IDs. I scrolled, jaw tightening with every line.

Katherine Laurent. Logged into the department server nearly an hour and a halfbeforethe warehouse bomb went off. Accessed building layouts. Forensic templates. Drafts of reports that hadn’t even been submitted yet.

I muttered a low, “Son of a bitch.”

I pulled out my phone and called Raven, but it went straight to voicemail.

He was still in transit.

I texted instead:

She was right. It’s bad. Katherine knew. Logs confirm it. Bea’s not safe.

I stood, already moving. I had a contact in local cyber forensics. Quiet guy, used to work with three-letter agencies. If Katherine had gone this far, we were looking at more than jealousy or rivalry. We were looking at premeditated sabotage— murder, those firefighters died in the bomb explosion, and some were badly injured.

And Beatrice was alone with her.

I called Sean next. “We’ve got a problem.”

“Let me guess. It’s about Beatrice?”

“You saw it too?”

“No, I talked to Raven, who is worried that something is up. I was just about to pull records on Laurent when yours came in. This goes deeper than anyone thought.”

I grabbed my go bag off the floor. “I want eyes on Beatrice now. And if Katherine so much as sneezes in her direction—”

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