Christine boiled some homemade pierogis from her freezer, then fried them in butter for their dinner. Finch was very hungry and they were delicious. “These are fantastic. Did you make these yourself?”
“No,” she admitted freely. “The church ladies down the block make them during Lent. I buy as many as I have freezer space for. I can usually make them last all summer. And then at Christmas I can get more.”
“Excellent planning.”
When they were finished, Christine washed the dishes and put them away while Finch continued patching. If he’d said something, he knew, she would have left the dishes until morning, but her OCD would have distracted her all the while they sat in the sink. It wasn’t worth mentioning. She was perfectly aware of her compulsive tendencies, and battling them as well as she could.
Chaos, Finch realized, was her one place to let disorder reign. But as she’d told him, she couldn’t live down there. She could only visit, and then retreat to her achingly orderly world.
Her idea to have Zelda check previous patches was paying off; one out of every three or four stalls was self-correcting. But they were barely a third of the way through the vast database.
It was going to take all night. But Finch didn’t mind. He had the feeling that Christine didn’t, either.
She rejoined him. After a few minutes of code patching, she said, “There’s something still wrong with this.”
“Hmm?”
“What we’ve sorted out so far. The files are still too big for what they are.”
Finch nodded. “Yes. Which suggests?”
“That there’s something else hidden within them.” She sighed. “And you noticed that how long ago?”
“A little while.”
Christine growled at him. “Any guesses?”
“I hate guessing. But I have another program running to tease it out.”
“And you weren’t going to mention it.”
“You’re not going to learn for yourself if I spoon-feed you. I knew you’d catch on eventually.”
She looked at him, equal parts annoyed and amused.
Unexpectedly, the whole left smart screen flashed bright green.
“Zelda?” Christina asked.
”I’ve found Honey,” the computer announced.
“Where, Z?”
“Locating.” The flashing stopped and the screen displayed a grid map of the city. After a very long thirty seconds, a red X appeared on the map.
“What businesses are at that location, Zelda?” Finch asked.
Christine shook her head bitterly. “Don’t bother. I know that office. That’s Venture East. Damn it.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Harold said quickly. He dropped back into the chair and opened the surveillance camera feed from Campanella’s office. It was dim, empty. “It’s not him.”
“Dover’s office,” she said.
It took Harold a minute to hack into the general security system for the firm. While he worked, he placed a phone call. “Mr. Reese? We’ve located the external drive.”
“About time,” Reese answered gruffly. “Where is it?”
“At Venture East,” Christine told him. “But not Campanella. We’re looking.”
“How are you coming with Mr. Garuccio?” Finch asked.
“He’s sleazy,” Reese said. “Very probably sleazy enough to be behind this.”
“If he is, we’ll have him by morning.” He frowned at his monitor. “I’m into Venture East’s security, but I can’t get to Dover’s office.” Christine started toward him, then stopped and sat down. She’d remembered that hanging over his shoulder had annoyed him. He kept working on it while he spoke. “Mr. Reese, we’re also discovered something else hidden under the black web.”
“What is it?”
“We’re not sure yet. Something fairly small, probably images rather than video. Sorting it out now.”
“Secrets inside secrets,” Reese observed.
“Yes.”
“Once we get this web reassembled,” Christine asked, “how are we going to drop it?”
“You’re going to load it on a box just like the one you burned,” Reese told her. “I’m going to put it in Larry Dover’s house, and then Finch is going to send a link from Dover’s e-mail, set up to look like a dead man’s drop.”
“Simple enough,” Finch said.
“Sure,” she said. “Remind me never to cross you guys.”
“We’ll remind you,” Reese promised, “if we need to.”
“This also has the advantage of leading them to Dover’s body without our overt involvement.” Finch shook his head. “Your Mr. Getty is proving to be almost as elusive as you are.”
“Almost?”
“Almost.” He sat back. “I’m in.”
He sent the view to one of the big screens and stood to join her there. “Mr. Reese, Matthew Getty has the hard drive in Mr. Dover’s old office.”
“So it’s right back where it started,” Reese said.
They watched and listened while Getty stared at the screen of his laptop. While he swore and pounded his big shiny desk with both fists.
Christine knocked her forehead against the screen, gently but repeatedly. “Dumb, dumb, dumb. He was out with appendicitis. That’s when the system got all borked up.”
“It wasn’t Dover,” Finch said. “It was Getty.”
“I’m on my way,” Reese said.
On the screen, Getty looked up towards the door. “Mae,” he said. “I said I’d call you.”
A woman came into view. She was small, blonde, dressed plainly, about fifty years old. She glanced over her shoulder at the camera. “Your office is secure?”
“Of course. What are you doing here?”
“I came for my files.”
Even on grainy surveillance video, Getty looked frightened. ”I have them right here,” he said. “I told you I did.”
“Show me.”
“I, uh … they’re still encrypted. But I can get them.”
“You said corrupted before.”
“Corrupted. Yes. Well, both. Corrupted and encrypted. But I can fix it. I can. I just need a little more time.”
“Are you lying to me, Kevin?”
Christine said, “His name’s Matthew.”
“Finch?” Reese called. “What’s going on?”
Finch keyed the phone to let him watch the live feed. “I don’t know. There’s someone with him. Someone he’s afraid of.”
In the office, the woman looked over Getty’s shoulder. “Show me, Kevin.”
“It’s just … I have them here … I can get them … I just need more time. Just a little more time. I can get them back.”
“Get them back. So you did lose them.”
“No, no,” Frey said. “No, I always had them. I always …”
“You lied to me, Kevin.”
“Mae, it’s fine, I have them right here, I can get them back …”
“I can’t have you lying to me, Kevin. “
“I swear to God, Mae …”
“Swear to anyone you like,” she said calmly. “But if I can’t trust you, Kevin, I can’t use you.”
Finch knew what was about to happen. He also knew he could do nothing to stop it. He couldn’t look away from the bigger-than-life image on the screen, but he reached out blindly, took Christine’s hand. “Don’t look.”
The woman in the office pulled a gun and shot Kevin Frey in the head.
It was very loud for an instant, and then very quiet. The quiet surprised Finch. The death of a man should be something more than an instant of noise and a soft slump onto a shiny desk. It shouldn’t be so easy, he thought, to extinguish a life. That part never stopped surprising him.
He finally managed to look away, at Christine. She was still staring at the screen. Her face was blank, expressionless. In her eyes was a look he knew too well; on Reese he called it the forever stare. “Christine.”
She didn’t look away from the screen, but her fingers folded over his fiercely.
“Christine!” he snapped. She finally looked at him. Her fingers relaxed a little.
“Finch,” Reese said, “you need to get ready to move.”
“The program needs hands-on attention,” Finch protested.
“Then send it to your own system. That woman’s some kind of government, and it won’t take her long to figure out that Getty doesn’t have what she wants. And after that she’ll come for the girl.”
Finch nodded. “All right.” He turned Christine toward him. “I need to you set Zelda for remote access. Then shut everything down.”
She didn’t answer, but she didn’t argue. She went to the keyboards and set to work. She was still expressionless, working on autopilot. But from her that would be good enough.
A cell phone rang.
Christine stood up, pulled her phone out of her back pocket.
“Don’t answer that,” Finch warned.
She looked at the caller ID, then at the screen. In Getty’s office, the woman with the gun held the dead man’s phone and waiting impatiently for Christine to answer.
Christine stared down at the phone like it was an alien artifact. “Should have left it turned off,” she said quietly.
“She’ll be on her way,” Reese said urgently. “You need to get out of that apartment.”
“Can she get in here?” Finch took the phone out of Christine’s hand and dropped it into his pocket. It finally stopped ringing.
“She can burn the building down around you, Finch.”
Christine sat back down and continued to work with her system. “Two minutes,” she said.
“Finch, get on the surveillance cameras, watch for a team. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Finch moved to the screen and brought up the outside views. “Christine,” Reese continued, “what’s the most unexposed way out of there?”
“Tunnels,” Christine said.
“What?”
She straightened up, seemed to gather herself. “There’s no meth lab, but there really are secret tunnels. We can get six blocks from here undergound.” Finch turned to stare at her. “What?” She gestured to the apartment. “I like backups. Did you think it was all about nostalgia?”
“Where will you go?” Reese asked.
Finch hesitated. He needed his system “ his whole system, at the library. He needed for Christine to be somewhere safe. “I could … take her with me … to where my … set-up is.” His chest hurt; he could barely get the words out.
Reese was silent. He probably didn’t like the idea of taking the girl to the library, but it was Finch’s system and his call.
Christine shook her head. “I can stay in the tunnels. I’ll be okay.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone.” Especially not on the streets, he thought. Not where you can score heroin.
“I do just fine alone.”
Finch shook his head emphatically. “No. Not now.” He was being tremendously unfair to her, he knew. She hadn’t given the slightest hint that she would ever go back to using. But he also knew that it was an ever-present danger for addicts. He couldn’t forget what she’s looked like that night in the pizza parlor. On the floor of the car. Between the big white-clad orderlies …. He couldn’t let her fall back there. He couldn’t take the chance.
“Hold on,” Reese said. There was a pause and then another phone rang. “What?” Fusco said.
“Where are you?” Reese asked.
“Half-way home. Why?”
“Turn around, come back toward the bar. I’ll send you an address in a minute. I need you to pick up the girl and stay with her at a safe house.”
Fusco didn’t hesitate to agree. “Chrissy’s okay with that?”
“I am,” she called, “if you promise never to call me Chrissy again.”
He chuckled. “Damn, I hate these conference call things. What am I supposed to call you then?”
“Christine. Or Scottie. You pick.”
“Scottie,” he said. “Like that guy on Star Trek.”
“Sure, okay.”
“Ten minutes,” Fusco promised.
“Done,” Christine announced. The system began to shut down. “Press that button,” she said. Finch pressed the touchpad and the big screens flared, went flexible, and rolled up.
He held her phone out to her. “I need you to unprotect this.”
She didn’t ask why. She simply entered a code, checked it, and handed it back.
“Bring your laptop,” Finch said.
She grabbed it from under the counter, then moved the chair back to the corner and activated the bookcases so that the whole system concealed itself. She looked around. “Okay.”
“Leave the window open like you did for Moodey,” Reese instructed. “And send me the passcode for the locks.”
“We’re on our way,” Finch said. He took one last look around the apartment. Everything was neat, as if no one else had been there. He cracked the window open. Christine shoved her laptop into a bag, added her small purse. Grabbed a jacket and a thick paperback. “Ready?”
“Key.” She opened a cupboard and grabbed a mug rom the top shelf. She dumped a key out into her palm and replaced the mug. Then she also took a pen light off the side of the refrigerator. Finch went out the front door ahead of her, cautiously, but there was no one in the little lobby. “Door code,” she said in the elevator. Finch brought out his phone and she entered the lock code.
She stopped in the café long enough to give Zubec some quick instructions. He didn’t like what she told him, but Finch noted that he didn’t argue long. He knew her well enough, clearly, to know that she rarely lost an argument.
She led Finch down a narrow set of stairs to the basement. “Thank you,” he said as they crossed the mostly-empty storage room.
“For what?”
“For understanding about the … Bat Cave. I’m sure you must be curious.”
“I’m wildly curious,” she admitted. She led him down a short corridor. “And if the day ever comes when the thought of showing me doesn’t cause you actual physical pain, I would love to see it. But we aren’t there yet. And you don’t need the distraction.”
Behind a pile of dusty boxes and empty beer crates there was a very old, heavy-looking wooden door. Christine brought out her key and unlocked it.
The key ring had only one key and a little tag, in the shape of a daisy.
“Besides,” she said, pushing the door open, “I suspect the state of your tech would make me weep in despair.”
She turned on her flashlight and led him into the tunnel. It was dark and damp, but also wide and tall enough for the two of them to walk comfortably side-by-side. The floor was made of smooth sandstone squares, the same material as the sidewalk in front of the café.
"Very nice,” Finch said quietly. “Can I get a copy of that key?”
“We’ll see,” she answered. She touched his arm, had him turn as she closed the door behind them. “That mark over the door?” She trained the light on the door frame. On one corner there was a white mark. “If it’s on the hinge side, like this one, the door opens into a concealed space. If it’s over the handle side, it opens into open space where you may be seen.”
Finch nodded. “Is there a map?”
“No. But I could make one.” She turned again, led him down the tunnel away from the bar. “Wireless and phones are very intermittent down here. If you get close to an outside wall they’ll usually work. There are lots of cracks.”
At the end of the corridor was a small chamber. The floor was still sandstone, but the walls were made of wood. At one time they’d been painted. There were light fixtures on the walls, but Finch got a glimpse of the wiring and wouldn’t have dared to turn them on. Across the room was another door. Christine unlocked it and they stepped through.
By the sound and feel of the air, Finch could tell the space on the other side was huge. He took the light from Christine’s hand and looked around. He could see round tables, with their chairs set up on them. Chandeliers. A wooden stage, and in front of it a broad wooden dance floor. A thirty-foot long bar on each side. What looked like a roulette wheel, half-covered with an old sheet. There was carpet on the floor, ripped up in places. The room was the size of a grand ballroom. It had been elegant once. A massive secret drinking palace.
And it had gone out of business the instant Prohibition was repealed.
It was not silent here. He could hear movement from the street above, from the businesses above. And something else. Something closer, furtive.
Christine took his arm gently, brought him to a stop. She took the light back, pointed it at the ground in front of them. Then she brought something out of her jacket pocket “ money, Finch realized “ folded it between her fingers, and held her hand out to her side.
The man appeared from nowhere. He stayed mostly in the shadows, but Finch gathered an impression that he was small and quick, and that he smelled awful. He snatched for the money; Christine pulled it back. “Hank,” she said, “where’s Pony?”
The shadow man grunted. “He ain’t here.”
“Why not?”
“Went to the hospital. His sugar’s bad.”
“He need anything?”
Another grunt. “He didn’t say. I’ll let you know.”
“Good. This is Mr. Finch. He may be back some time, on my key. You’ll give him safe passage.”
“Huh.”
“Hank.”
“Safe passage. Sure.”
She held out the money again. The shadow man snagged it and vanished.
“You have interesting neighbors,” Finch said, very quietly, as they moved across the abandoned speakeasy.
“Hank’s okay. Pony’s got a little better memory, but Hank should be okay.”
“You know all of them down here, don’t you?”
“Daisy does.” She shrugged. “I lived down here for a while.”
Finch shuddered. “Speaking of weeping in despair.”
“Don’t.” Christine squeezed his arm. “You’re the one who told me I didn’t have to die here.”
“I didn’t think you were listening.”
“I wasn’t, then. But later on, when I could think straight … I heard every word.”
Finch nodded in the darkness. “I’m glad you believed me.”
***
Reese drove as fast as he could without attracting attention. He was closer to Chaos than the woman who’d killed Getty was, and he knew where he was going, so he was sure he’d be there before her. But if she’d called in a team, as she should have, they might well have an advantage.
He held his phone against the steering wheel with one hand as he drove, watching the woman. Aside from her attempt to call Christine with Getty’s phone, she didn’t make any calls before she left the office. She took the hard drive with her.
It was puzzling.
Whatever files she was looking for, Getty hadn’t told her that he’d lost them. And based on her behavior, she hadn’t told her superiors that they were missing, either. That could be useful.
Unless she had a team waiting just out of camera range, which was very possible.
Reese put his phone away and concentrated on driving.
***
Fusco parked his car in front of an empty storefront and checked the address on his phone again. It was the right place. He got out, looked around. The street was dead empty. There were stores open at each end of the block, a little foot traffic there, but nothing here in the middle.
It looked like the kind of place Daisy would have hung out, back in the day. He didn’t like it.
But Reese said she was doing okay now.
He waited a couple minutes. About the time he reached for his phone, she came up an old stairway from the basement of the building. Reese’s boss was with her. Fusco barely looked at him. The girl “ Reese was right. She looked good. She’d gotten tall. Well, not tall, really, not any taller than the guy with the glasses, but a lot taller than the little shrimp she had been. She was pretty, too. The way he’d thought she’d be pretty that first afternoon. She didn’t look like a starving refugee any more.
“Thank you for coming, Detective,” Finch said. He handed him a slip of paper. “There’s an address, and the code for the lock. You should be safe there.”
“Sure,” Fusco said. He took the paper without looking away from the girl. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” she answered quietly. And then, “I’ve had better days.”
“You’ve had worse,” Fusco answered before he could stop himself.
She took it the right way. “True.”
Finch touched her arm. “Stay off the internet unless I call you. I’ll let you know when it’s all clear.”
She nodded solemnly. She looked frightened.
“This is almost over, Christine. I promise.”
“I know. And … thank you.”
Fusco opened the passenger door for her and she got in, settled her bag on her lap. He shut the door, looked at the little guy. “Anything I need to know?”
“Just keep her inside. Stay close to her. And don’t buy her any cigarettes. Or anything else.”
The detective knew exactly what he meant. “Is that an issue?”
“No. Just an abundance of caution. Call when you’re at the safe house.”
“You got it.” Fusco walked around the car and got into the driver’s seat. By the time he looked in the mirror, the man had vanished. “Wish I knew how he did that,” he said to himself.
“What?”
He shook his head. “That guy. What do you call him?”
“Random.”
“Random? You’re kidding, right?”
“That’s not his name.”
“Yeah, I know. I don’t think even he knows his real name any more.” Fusco looked at the address, started the car. “And you got new names, too, huh?”
“Names have power,” she said.
“What’s that mean?”
“If you know something’s true name …” She stopped, shrugged. Hugged her bag against her chest. She got pale, shaky.
“You okay?”
“I am having the mother of all flashbacks right now.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “You and me both.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let them call you.”
”Nah,” Fusco said, “it’s okay. I’m glad I can help. What’d you get yourself into, anyhow?”
Christine looked out the window for a long moment. He thought she wasn’t going to answer. Finally, though, she said, “I stepped on a porn ring by accident.”
“Porn?”
“Kids.”
“Oh.” She sounded sick about it. Fusco didn’t want to pursue it, and didn’t know what to say. “You, uh, you can still run the lights if you want.”
She looked over at him, and after a minute she came up with a little smile. “Thanks, Fusco.” She took a long breath. “I’m really sorry about all the times I jacked you around.”
He smirked. “Yeah, you were kind of a pain in my ass back in the day.”
“You enabled me,” she said lightly. “But I appreciate everything you did for me. Thank you.”
He was embarrassed, and pleased. “Sure, kid.” They stopped at an intersection and he looked at her again. In the right light she still looked like that cocky little brat. “Can I ask you something, though? How come you live over the Happy Hours?”
“Oh. My. God. What is with you guys and bitching about my apartment?”
“What? John said something, too?”
“And Finch. What the hell? I’ve had three bodies drop behind me today and all you guys think I should be thinking about where I freaking live … that’s it. That’s it. The next one of you that so much as mentions my apartment between now and Labor Day, I swear to God I’ll destroy your credit rating.”
Fusco laughed. “Yeah, well, you’re too late, my ex-wife already took care of that, so you better come up with a better threat.”
Christine eyed him. “Your ex trashed your credit rating?”
“Oh, sister, you would not believe.”
“I can fix it.”
“What?”
“I can fix your credit. It’s all computer-generated, there’s nothing to it. I can’t make it perfect, not without attracting attention, but I can make it better.”
“You’d do that for me?”
“Sure.”
“Is it legal?”
“Of course it’s not legal. What do you care?”
Fusco shrugged. “True. Sure, that’d be great.”
“And you’ll lay off the apartment until Labor Day?”
“Why Labor Day?”
“Because that’s the minimum amount of time I need to get my head straight behind all of this. We have a deal?”
Fusco thought about it a minute. He couldn’t see a down side. She wasn’t going to budge about the apartment anyhow. “Sure. Deal.”
“Good.”
They were quiet for a minute. Then Christine reached out, very gingerly, and flipped a switch on the dashboard. Blue light flickered around the car from the strobes. She shut it off. “Yeah. That was kinda fun.”
Fusco shook his head. She was a nut. But she was okay.
***
Finch watched the detective’s car from the shadows until it was out of sight. Then he set out on foot and keyed Reese’s phone “The girl’s on her way.”
“Good,” Reese said. “We need to find out what else is in that data, Finch.”
“I will get to that as quickly as I can,” Finch said. He paused at the end of the block and looked around. “Just need to drop something off first.” He headed north, away from his car, toward the police station. As he’d hoped, within another block he saw a patrol car. He stepped to the curb and waved at it in his most non-threatening way.
The cop pulled the car over and rolled down the passenger-side window. “What’s up?”
“I’m sorry to bother you.” Finch leaned close to the open window. “I seem to be a little lost. Can you tell me the best way to get to Time Square from here?”
The cop shook his head. “Yeah. Get your GPS fixed.”
“I’ve been meaning to do that, yes.”
“All right.” The cop sighed, but began to gesture. “You go up here, turn right at the light …”
As with most people, he was incapable of giving directions without actually looking the way he was directing. Finch waited until his head was turned. Then he slipped Christine’s phone through the window and dropped it between the cage and the back seat. It slithered to the floor, landed with a soft thump. The officer didn’t notice.
When Finch had thanked him for the directions and stepped away from the car, the cop hopefully drove away with Christine’s pursuers.
***
Reese stood in the alley and looked at the café again. The place was full, as it seemed to be every night. Zubec was behind the bar. Reese thought he looked unhappy. He knew their girl was in trouble.
It had to be a confusing relationship for the man, he thought. Christine’s father had tried to kill Zubec; Christine had saved his life. His bar was failing; she gave him a new career and a free place to live. She was half his age and a third his size, and he took orders from her because she was twice as smart. At least. Zubec seemed to take it all in stride, most of the time. But he was very protective of her.
It wasn’t really surprising that Christine Fitzgerald wasn’t afraid of men. She seemed to have a knack for getting her way with them. Even Finch wasn’t immune to her charms. More resistant than most, perhaps, but not immune.
If I’m honest, Reese thought, even I’m not immune. She knew the monster and did not fear it. There was something deeply powerful in that. She was just a pretty girl, smart and badly damaged by her past. But something in her softened his defenses.
He’d been right about her. She was dangerous in a way he’d never seen before.
And for the moment, still in danger.
He glanced at his watch. Getty’s killer should be here right about …
As if he’d summoned it, a four-door black sedan drove slowly past the café. Just the driver, no passengers. It turned at the corner. Reese moved down the block a bit, until he could see down the alley. It took the woman a few minutes; she probably checked the back door. Then she made for the fire escape.
She didn’t move like a field operative. She had trouble getting the ladder down, and she wasn’t quick climbing it. But she got herself into the apartment, and she didn’t turn any lights on once she was in.
He touched his earpiece. “Finch? Our guest has arrived.”
“Alone?”
“Apparently. I’ll have a look around to make sure.”
“I’m just back at the library,” Finch said. “I’ll see if I can find out what she’s looking for. And I’ve found another external drive to load.”
“Anybody report the gunshot?”
“I’ll check, but I highly doubt it. There aren’t many people around there this time of night.”
“Good. That will give us a little time.”
“There’s no way to keep Campanella out of this now, of course,” Finch said.
“Not with a dead man in his office,” Reese agreed. “But we might be able to mitigate the damage.”
“I’m listening.”
“Just get me the files, Finch.”
***
Fusco drew his weapon and checked the apartment. It was clear, of course. He put his gun away and got his phone out. “Hey,” he said when Reese answered. “We’re here.”
“Good. Keep the door locked.”
“Yeah, thanks, I never would have thought of that.” He hung up the phone, flopped onto the couch next to the girl. She was still awfully pale. “Well. Here we are. You want to watch a movie or something?”
It seemed like it was a real struggle for her to have a conversation, but she tried. “What would you do if I wasn’t here?”
“Have a beer. Watch the ball game.”
“God, I would love a beer.”
“I checked. There isn’t any.”
“Of course not. But I’m okay with the ball game. If you promise not to make fun of me.”
“Why would I make fun of you? You don’t know the rules or what?”
She stood up, started going through drawers. “It’s worse than that.” She found a pad of paper and a pen and came back to the couch. “I have to keep a scorecard.”
“A scorecard. You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope. It’s an OCD thing. I think. It might be something else.”
“A scorecard.”
“You want to watch the game or not?”
“Sure.” Fusco turned on the TV. “You’re weird, kid.”
“I always have been.”
He nodded. “Yeah. But I like you anyhow.”
***
Finch settled in behind his desk and partitioned his own hard drive, then pulled in the files. It took a few minutes to upload. While he waited, he looked around. A big screen, he thought, and a rolling keyboard stand. It had seemed like a good idea at Christine’s apartment. Now it felt like too big of a change to bother with.
He’d think about it.
It was quiet in the library, and he was aware that he felt a great sense of relief at being alone to work. It was his own system and his own security, for one thing. But it was more than that. He wasn’t a social creature by nature, any more than the girl was, and spending hours on end with her had been pleasant but exhausting.
He set the two pieces of the file sorting on two separate screens and began patching as needed. On a third screen, between his interventions on the first two, he re-started the program that would tease out whatever was hidden beneath them.
When everything was running, he made himself, finally, a decent cup of real tea.
He liked Christine Fitzgerald. He even liked Zelda, once he got used to her. But it was good to be home.
***
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