Page 1 of Hacking the Holidays
Chapter One
ZARA
In the world of code, I was a master. In the world of social intelligence, I was a disaster.
The elevator incident last week is a good example of my interpersonal ineptitude. I’d magically turned a casual conversation about weekend plans into an impassioned lecture about two-factor authentication. The poor guy from accounting still avoids eye contact when he sees me in the parking lot.
This ability to turn normal human moments into awkward educational seminars that nobody had requested was a special talent of mine. A deeply incurious superpower that made me superb at my job and spectacularly bad at peopling. It wasn’t that I couldn’t interact with others. Old Zara had been amazing at the chit-chat and actually thrived in social situations without scattering people just by coming into a room. Current Zara was a lot more circumspect about who I interacted with and I was woefully outof practice.
Fortunately, I was indispensable in Seattle’s Cyber Division of the FBI. My coworkers called me a female Sherlock Holmes in the digital age, except instead of solving murders in Victorian London, I tracked cybercriminals through sophisticated networks, and rather than a deerstalker or bowler hat with a matching Inverness cape, I opted for comfortable joggers. Oversized cardigans were also in my fashion arsenal since the Bureau always kept things nippy. Then there were my dark-blue Hokas—because if I’m wearing sensible shoes with memory foam, they need to be relatively fashionable and versatile.
I was currently in the midst of a battle with a satisfying bug—a piece of malware so poorly coded it was less a formidable villain and more a digital joke, practically begging for a public shaming. My fingers danced across the keyboard as a torrent of code cascaded across my three perfectly angled monitors, each line bringing me closer to victory. The final keystroke was an exultant click, and a pop-up confirmation on my main screen that read, “Vulnerability Patched: Target Neutralized.”
“Gotcha!” I proclaimed triumphantly.
Agent Chloe Davis—my only friend at the bureau and lifelong ride or die—had told me many times that I talked much more with my computer than I did with humans. It was a criticism I couldn’t really argue with. A computer with an off switch can’t really do the damage a human can.
Chloe appeared at my desk and glanced at my monitor, shaking her head in amazement. “You are like digital poetry in motion.” She then eyed my prized possession, a slightlydusty rubber ficus tree to the right of my desk. “It’s still alive. Good.”
“Barely,” I joked.
The fake plant had been a birthday gift from her last year, complete with the inscription that read, “Congratulations—you literally cannot mess this one up.”
“How about we hang some ornaments on it this year?” Chloe asked.
“How about we don’t?” I countered, not wanting another opportunity for awkward interaction with my co-workers.
She reached over and gave my shoulder a squeeze, a touch that saidI see youwithout needing words. “You’ve spent so long protecting yourself from disappointment that you’ve forgotten what hope looks like.”
“Hope does not come in the form of hand-blown baubles and mercury glass,” I said, but my voice had lost its edge.
This was Chloe, after all—the one person who’d stuck around through my worst phases, who brought me coffee without being asked, who remembered that I hated surprise parties but loved surprise donuts.
She studied my face with those knowing eyes that had seen me cry over everything from failed relationships to dead flowers.
“Maybe not,” she said softly, “but I’m not giving up on you.”
“Don’t get all mushy on me,” I said, even though she knew I treasured every single thing about the woman.
Chloe was everything I no longer was—effortlesslysocial and naturally charming, the kind of person who could walk into any room and have three new best friends within minutes. She remembered people’s birthdays without calendar reminders, knew exactly what to say when someone was having a bad day, and made small talk look like an actual life skill instead of advanced calculus.
But here’s what I admired about her most: she was authentically, refreshingly herself. No performance, no hidden agenda, no saying “we should totally hang out soon” when she really meant “please stop talking to me about network protocols.” In a world where most people communicated as if they were running encryption software, Chloe was like beautiful plain text. Direct. Honest. What you see is what you get.
“Thorne wants to see us about a fresh case,” Chloe said, leaning against my cubicle wall. “Sounds like a big one.”
Marcus Thorne was the SAC (Special Agent in Charge) at our field office. He was a man who believed in a firm handshake and a tailored suit—two concepts that were, in my estimation, wholly unnecessary. I mean, grooming is definitely important, but we spend most of our time in front of at least two computer screens, so no need to splash out on couture or anything.
“It’s rarely a big case,” I muttered with disappointment, looking up from my screen and then swiveling the chair in her direction, missing her perfectly pedicured toes by inches. “A big case is a data breach at a Fortune 500 company, not some middle-aged accountant who hacked hisex-wife’s dating profile and changed her occupation from lawyer to professional yodeler.”
“Why do yodelers get such a bad rap?” Chloe said without missing a beat. “It’s actually a specialized skill that requires serious vocal control. Plus, I read somewhere that it can improve your lung capacity and reduce stress.”
“So does meditation, and you can do that at home without causing an avalanche,” I deadpanned.
“You know what else reduces stress? Not keeping your boss waiting.” She reached for my arm and hauled me out of my chair. “Thorne’s already in the conference room.”
We had only taken a few steps down the hallway, and I was already missing my corner cubicle. It had become my personal sanctuary—a carefully curated fortress of solitude wedged between the cybercrime unit’s humming servers and, unfortunately, the men’s bathroom wall. The location came with its own ambient soundtrack of questionable noises that I’d learned to drown out with noise-canceling headphones and sheer determination to pretend certain biological functions didn’t exist.
“I want to warn you, though … he mentioned something about Santa Claus,” Chloe added as we walked down the hallway.
