Page 70 of Shatter

By two in the afternoon, we're in Vanir's room, at the end of the second-floor hall past kirkja, behind a steel door with a keypad lock.

I've never been inside it, either.

It's smaller than I expected, and colder, with the air conditioning cranked down so low my breath almost clouds.

Three monitors glow on a long desk against one wall, and a rack of humming black boxes blinks green and amber in the corner.

A laptop sits alone on a card table in the middle of the room, closed, with no cords running to it.

"Air-gapped." Vanir taps the lid when he sees her looking. "Never touched the internet. Never will. Whatever's on your drive stays on your drive."

She nods.

She's showered and changed into fresh jeans, her damp hair pulled back tight.

A thin line of flour is still caught under one of her fingernails.

She hasn't let go of the drive since we walked in.

Tor sits at the end of the table with his arms folded, and Dag leans against the wall behind him, a muscular gray man with half-moon glasses who's kept the club's books for longer than I've been alive.

I stand by the door.

Close enough to reach her.

Far enough she has to choose it.

"Whenever you're ready." Tor's voice is low. "No rush."

She sits down at the card table and looks at the drive in her hand for a long moment.

Then she opens the bag and slides it into the laptop's port.

Her fingers hover over the keys, trembling, before they start to move.

The screen fills with folders.

Hundreds of them, named by year and month, stacked in neat columns like the drawers of a filing cabinet.

"Carrow Logistics." Her voice is flat and low, like somebody reading off a grocery list. "Freight forwarding, out of the Port of Seattle. My father's company. These are the real books."

Tor's eyes flick to her face at the name.

He doesn't say anything.

"There are two sets." She opens a spreadsheet, and columns of numbers spill down the screen. "The ones the IRS sees, and these. Every container Carrow moved for Desmond Arsenault in the last nine years, and every shell account the money bounced through on its way home."

Dag pushes off the wall.

He comes around behind her and bends to look at the screen over her shoulder.

She stiffens, and he stops.

"May I?" He keeps his hands behind his back.

She looks at him.

Then she nods, slowly, and tilts the laptop an inch toward him.