Chapter 4: The Safe Life (2)
She'd gotten good at it. Better than good. VanceTech Securities had a reputation now, small but solid, the kind of firm that mid-sized companies trusted with their data because Anna Vance delivered results and didn't ask uncomfortable questions.
It was a good life. A safe life.
So why did her chest feel tight?
"Hey." Sarah leaned forward. "You okay? You've been weird since last week."
"Weird how?"
"I don't know. Jumpy. You've checked the locks on the office door like six times this morning."
Aria forced a laugh. "Just being careful. There's been an uptick in phishing attempts regionally. Did you see the FBI alert?"
"Yeah, but that doesn't explain why you've been staring at the parking lot like someone's going to—" Sarah's phone buzzed. "Hold that thought. Client call."
She ducked out, and Aria exhaled slowly, pulling up her security logs. The blocked intrusion from six weeks ago still nagged at her. She'd traced it to a shell company in Brooklyn, and the attack pattern matched Grimaldi front operations with sixty percent probability.
Sixty percent wasn't certainty. Sixty percent was paranoia talking.
Except Aria had survived five years by trusting her paranoia.
She ran the shell company through three more databases, finding layers of corporate obfuscation that screamed organized crime. The attack had been sophisticated, probing her clients' systems, looking for...what? Weaknesses? Connections?
Her?
The office phone rang, making her jump.
"VanceTech Securities, this is Anna."
"Ms. Vance, this is David Monroe from Monroe Manufacturing. Just wanted to say thank you again for yesterday's presentation. Your team really knows their stuff."
Team. Just her and Sarah, but she'd learned to let clients imagine a larger operation.
"We're glad you're pleased, Mr. Monroe. Your IT director mentioned some concerns about regional threats?"
"Yeah." Monroe's voice dropped. "Between you and me, he's been seeing some weird probe attempts on our network over the past two months. Nothing's gotten through—your security protocols handled it—but the volume's increased. Corporate espionage, maybe. He wanted your opinion on whether we should escalate to the FBI."
Aria's grip tightened on the phone. "What kind of probes?"
"Advanced persistent threat pattern, he said. Whatever that means. Sophisticated enough to make him nervous."
"I'll have Sarah reach out to coordinate a deeper analysis. In the meantime, keep those monitoring protocols active."
She hung up and immediately pulled up regional threat assessments. There—buried in industry reports from the past eight weeks—a pattern of coordinated data probes targeting mid-sized firms in upstate New York. Too sophisticated for amateur hackers. Too careful for opportunistic criminals.
Too deliberate.
Someone was looking for something. Or someone.
Aria picked up Leo at 3:30 PM, finding him covered in finger paint and bubbling with excitement about butterfly metamorphosis. They stopped for groceries, then drove to Riverside Park because he'd been good and the afternoon was warm and she needed the illusion of normalcy like oxygen.
Leo played on the jungle gym while she sat on a bench, one eye on him, one eye on her phone, running that Brooklyn shell company through another database.
The black SUV pulled into the parking lot at 4:17 PM.
Tinted windows. New York plates. Engine running. No one got out.
Aria's pulse spiked. She forced herself to stay seated, watching Leo swing from the monkey bars, counting seconds. The SUV sat there for three minutes. Five. Ten.
She pulled out her phone, casually angling for a photo of the license plate. The moment her camera focused, the SUV's engine revved.
Seventeen minutes after it arrived, it pulled away. Slow. Deliberate.
Leo ran over, breathless and happy. "Mama, did you see? I went all the way across without falling!"
"I saw, baby. You were amazing." Her voice sounded normal. How did her voice sound normal? "Ready to go home?"
In the car, she memorized the license plate and ran it through a civilian database on her phone at the next red light. Registered to a corporate fleet service in Manhattan. Primary client list: unavailable.
Manhattan.
The word echoed in her skull like a death knell.
That night, after Leo fell asleep clutching his elephant, Aria went to her bedroom closet and pulled down the box from the top shelf. Inside: fifty thousand in cash, three sets of forged documents, Leo's birth certificate with no father listed, and a burner phone that she'd kept charged for five years.
Just in case.
She checked the cash. Confirmed the documents were current. Tested the phone.
Everything ready to run.
But run where? She had no family, no friends except Sarah who knew nothing, no connections that weren't built on the foundation of Anna Vance's carefully constructed lies.
And someone in Manhattan knew enough to send a surveillance team to Beacon.
Aria opened her laptop and ...