Page 39 of Fallout

Simon stepped out of the room to admit her. “Sam.”

“Sie.”

They grinned at each other. Friends? That was interesting. Peter lifted his chin.

Samantha faced the seated woman. “I thought we said no lies.”

April snorted. “Worked, didn’t it? You gave me cash. You got me in here when I needed it.”

“And now you need to not go to jail,” Samantha said. “Trust me, you won’t like it.”

“Don’t care.” The woman sniffed.

“Why access the Vanguard network?”

Simon shifted his weight, probably wanting an answer to the question.

“My business.” April leaned to the side so she could ask Simon, “Don’t you know what I did in your system?”

He said nothing.

“How about you tell us what you did?” Jasper asked.

Destiny waved Simon out into the hall. She kept her voice low and asked, “Do we know what she accessed?” If there was an issue with the network, he’d be fixing it, not hanging around to see what April said.

He shook his head. “I mean, not technically. She accessed the entire system. Walked in like it was nothing.”

“Did she copy any files? Would you be able to tell that?”

“I have the laptop she was using. I only got a quick chance to look, but she seems to have launched a program that erased everything on the device when she was caught.”

“So she accounted for the possibility of being caught.” Destiny didn’t like the sound of that. “She got herself beaten up on purpose to make it look like she needed protection so she could be brought here.”

And at nearly the same time, someone had shot at the senator. Or her. Or perhaps the target had been Jasper’s mother.

She needed to touch base with the Famous Ones and find out how the hunt for the shooter was going.

Destiny blew out a breath. “Okay, go see if you can find out what she did. If she didn’t take anything, maybe she left something.”

Simon flinched. He spun around, muttering as he ran for his desk.

The last thing they needed was a virus. Or a backdoor for someone else to come in and mess with the system—potentially without anyone knowing.

Back at the door to the conference room, she watched as Samantha reached for April’s arm. “Come on. Let’s go. You’re going to jail.”

Peter said, “Hold up. She’s not going anywhere until we know what she did.”

“He’s right,” Destiny said. “We may need her here to undo whatever she caused.”

April grinned. “Who knowswhatdamage I did to their precious system.”

Destiny wasn’t sure about this girl whose demeanor didn’t ring true. Behind the smugness was something else, and she couldn’t put her finger on what it was.

Jasper glanced between April and Destiny. “She’s being arrested. You guys can’t hang on to her indefinitely. She has the right to a lawyer.”

Peter saved her from having to answer. “What if we don’t want to press charges? Maybe this was nothing but an innocent mistake.”

April eyed Peter. “I don’t make mistakes.”