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“I’m fine.”
The two most dishonest words in her vocabulary. She’d been delivering them since childhood, and they still came out smooth every single time. Some skills you never lost.
Fallon’s gaze drifted to the side of the bed. To the bag there.
“You’re packed.”
“Yeah. I’ve decided to go home to work.” Cassandra kept her voice even. “I can do everything you need from my apartment. I know I can. I have my own setup, my own systems. Whatever data analysis, whatever pattern work, whatever digital builds you need, I can do all of it remotely. Better, actually, you know? Because I won’t be dealing with migraines every time I step outside.”
“Cass—”
“I’m not bailing on you, I promise. I would never bail on you. I’ll be online twenty-four hours a day if you need me. But I can’t do what you need me to do from a conference room. You saw that today.”
Fallon didn’t argue with that, and Cassandra peeked over at her to check her reaction. Good, no arguments. That was more than Cassandra had hoped for.
“If you have to go, I’m not going to stop you. You know that. But did you hear Ian talking about the fact that we’re sending someone undercover?” Fallon leaned forward.
Damn it, she’d missed that. She’d given up on focusing on anything Ian had said. “Right. Undercover. Yeah.” Still didn’t mean she was staying.
“It’s Ryder who’s going under.”
Her stomach dropped. She’d done her best to force her mind not to think about that he had been in that meeting watching her sit mute and useless.
“Ryder knows the Diehl brothers,” Fallon continued. “From his past. They’d trust him enough to let him back in. That’s our way inside their operation.”
Cassandra nodded. “It’s a good play.”
“He needs a cover identity. A full digital persona, airtight, something that holds up when these people dig into him. And they will dig into him.” Fallon paused. “That part, I know you could do remotely. We could find a way to make it work.”
“So let me do it remotely.”
“But it’s more than that, Cass.”
“How?”
“He also needs to learn how to navigate their computer system once he’s inside. How to access their data, get past whatever security they’re running, pull what we need without leaving a trace. That’s hands on.”
Damn it. “Yeah, but…”
“He has to practice. He has to make mistakes and have someone right there to catch them.”
“You could relay my instructions.”
Fallon shook her head. “For something this technical? No. I couldn’t, and you know it. I wouldn’t know what I was looking at.”
“Fallon—”
“This isn’t about you. You’re my friend and I love you like a sister and you’ve saved my life more times than I can count.” Fallon’s voice went quiet, which was always worse than when she raised it. “But this isn’t just about you. If Ryder walks into that operation and doesn’t know these systems cold, he’s the one who doesn’t come back.”
Fallon didn’t say that trumped any social awkwardness issues that Cassandra dealt with, but she didn’t have to.
Cassandra stared at her packed bag. Her apartment waiting on the other end, safe and controlled and hers. The one place in the world where she never had to pretend to be normal.
“A few days,” Fallon said. “That’s all I’m asking. No more meetings. No rooms full of people. I’m clearing out a computer lab for you. Your space. Nobody comes in without your say-so.”
That would be better. As long as she didn’t have to be around people, her brain wouldn’t short-circuit. “I guess that could work.”
Fallon held up her hands. “It’ll just be you and Ryder, one-on-one, working through what he needs to know.”
