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Arlo headed back toward the bedrooms. His shoulder brushed the wall once as he turned the corner, and then the kitchen was empty again.

Ryder stayed at the counter. He counted to sixty, slow and deliberate, letting the house settle back into silence around him just to be sure. He poured the rest of his beer down the sink then tossed the bottles in the trash.

Sustainable. The son of a bitch had used the word sustainable, standing in his kitchen in sweatpants, talking about selling kids the way other men talked about flipping houses.

He went back down the short hallway to the computer room.

Cassandra was standing. The screen was dark. The thumb drive was in her right hand, held up between two fingers so he could see it the moment he came through the door.

“Everything okay?” she asked quietly.

He nodded. “Arlo couldn’t sleep.” He spared her the rest.

She’d finished. She’d kept her hands on the keyboard and finished the job.

“We’ve got it. Client lists, transport logs, network communications, the full architecture. I just need to decode it.”

He looked at the drive in her hand. Small enough to close a fist around. Everything they’d come here for.

She lowered her hand. He opened the door wider and checked the hallway, then gestured her through. She walked past him without a word, once again without looking at him, without anything at all. He pulled the door closed, relocked the deadbolt, and followed her through the dark house to their room.

Mission accomplished. The thing they’d risked everything for, sitting on a thumb drive in her pocket. It should’ve been something they were celebrating.

Instead, they were back to silence and not looking at each other.

The hollowest victory he’d ever had.

Chapter 23

Back in their room, Ryder got the phone back and didn’t waste any time. He called Fallon.

She picked up on the second ring. “Thank God.”

He set the burner on the mattress between where he and Cass were sitting and hit speaker, keeping the volume low. “I know, sorry. Calling to update when we didn’t have anything new to offer didn’t feel like it was worth the risk.”

“Your texts have been enough. But, you know, I still had concerns, given the situation.”

The situation being that her civilian best friend had found herself in an undercover mission.

“I’m okay, Fal,” Cassandra said.

“Good.”

“We have the data,” Ryder said. “Cassie just hacked the system.”

Fallon’s exhale was sharp enough to carry through the speaker. “All of it? We know who the kidnappers are?”

Cassandra shifted on the bed. “It’s encrypted, so I’ll need Zodiac’s system to break that and get the actual info. But yeah, it should be everything we need.”

“Okay. I’m sending a team. We sweep the lodge, take the Diehls into custody tonight, and bring you both home.”

“I don’t think that’s the right play.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “We don’t know what’s on that drive yet. Could be everything we need. Could be partial. Could be encoded in a way that takes weeks to crack. And meanwhile, the suppliers scatter and set up shop somewhere else if we take down the Diehls now.”

He heard Fallon’s chair creak. “You’ve been in that house for a week. Heath Diehl has been suspicious of you from day one. Plus, you have a civilian in an active hostile environment who⁠—”

“I’m aware of the situa⁠—”

Cassandra didn’t even let him finish the sentence. “I’m sitting right here, Fallon. You know I can hear you, right?”