PART 20:

Found something I missed before. What? The spyware that was installed on your car, it wasn’t just tracking your location, it was also transmitting data to a remote server. Every trip you took, every destination, every person you met if they were in the car with you. Basically, a complete surveillance package. Claire felt cold. Can you trace where it was transmitting to? Already did.

Took me most of the night, but I followed the data trail through three proxy servers to a server farm in Nevada. And guess who has a contract with that server farm? Tell me. Montgomery Industries. Specifically, your IT department. Which means whoever set this up had internal access to your company’s infrastructure. The pieces clicked together with sickening clarity.

David Chang had worked in IT security. David Chang was Marcus’s chief of staff. David Chang had the skills, the access, the motivation. We need to confront them, Claire said. No. Nate’s voice was firm. We need evidence that will hold up in court. Right now, all we have is circumstantial connections and digital trails that a good lawyer could argue are coincidental.

We need them to make a mistake. How? I have an idea, but you’re not going to like it. Tell me anyway. There was a pause and Claire could picture him weighing his words, trying to find the right way to say something dangerous. We set a trap. We let Marcus think he’s won. That you’re scared, hiding, vulnerable. Then we give him an opportunity to finish what he started.

And when he takes it, we catch him in the act. You want to use me as bait. I want to use your car as bait, Nate corrected. The Valkyrie is still at my shop, still evidence, still the key to everything. What if word gets out that I’ve found definitive proof of who sabotaged it, that I’ve traced the hack all the way back to the source, and I’m planning to give that evidence to the police? Claire saw where he was going.

Marcus panics, sends David to destroy the evidence. Or comes himself. Either way, we’ll be waiting with cameras, with witnesses, with Detective Chen ready to make arrests. Nate’s voice was steady, but she could hear the underlying tension. It’s risky. If they’re smart enough, they’ll see through it.

But people who think they’re about to get caught tend to make desperate choices. And desperate people make mistakes. Exactly. Claire thought about it, weighing the risks against the alternative of spending the rest of her life looking over her shoulder. Okay, let’s do it. What do you need from me? Stay hidden. Stay safe. And trust me. He paused.

Can you do that, Claire? Actually trust me to handle this? It was the hardest question anyone had asked her in years. Trusting people meant vulnerability. It meant giving up control. It meant accepting that you couldn’t solve every problem with money and willpower and refusing to show weakness. But she’d promised.

She’d promised to let him help. “I trust you.” she said quietly and meant it more than she’d meant anything in a long time. “Good. I’ll call you when it’s done.” “Nate?” “Yeah?” “Be careful. If I’m right about Marcus, he’s not going to just give up. He’s wanted my job for 3 years. He’s not going to let a mechanic stand between him and a CEO position.

” “I’m not just a mechanic, Claire. I used to design systems that put satellites in orbit. I think I can handle one ambitious executive.” There was something in his voice, confidence mixed with determination, that made Claire believe him. She ended the call and sat in her anonymous hotel room feeling helpless and hating it.

This was her fight, her company, her would-be killer, and she was hiding in a hotel while someone else fought her battles. But maybe that was okay. Maybe strength wasn’t always about fighting alone. Maybe sometimes it was about knowing when to let other people help. She pulled out her phone and opened her notes app.

Her list of good things stared back at her. Three items that felt inadequate and incomplete. She added a fourth. People who design traps to catch bad guys. Then she waited. Across the city, Nate was already setting things in motion. He called Detective Chen first, explained his plan, got her reluctant agreement to provide backup and surveillance.

Then he called Jack Davies and asked him to spread the word at every mechanic shop and auto body place in Seattle that Nate Rhodes had cracked the Montgomery case wide open, that he had proof of corporate sabotage, that arrests were imminent. In a community as tight as Seattle’s automotive repair scene, gossip traveled faster than electricity.

By noon, everyone knew. By 2:00, the story had reached the business district. By 4:00, Marcus Webb was making phone calls. Nate spent the afternoon preparing. He moved Stella to Mrs. Rodriguez’s house with strict instructions not to let anyone in, not to answer questions, to call 911 if anything felt wrong.

He kissed his daughter goodbye and promised he’d be back before bedtime, ignoring the fear in her eyes that said she didn’t quite believe him. Then he went back to the shop and waited. Detective Chen had positioned plainclothes officers at strategic points, one in the Vietnamese restaurant next door, one in a car down the street, one actually inside the shop pretending to be a customer picking up a vehicle.

Cameras were hidden in the rafters recording everything. The trap was set. All they needed was for someone to walk into it. Night fell. The other mechanics went home. The neighborhood settled into its evening rhythm. Families eating dinner, kids doing homework. The mundane machinery of normal life that Nate had sacrificed his career to preserve for Stella.

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