Chapter One

Claire Wallace wasn’t a hero. No one, by any stretch of the imagination, would ever call her one.

Heroes were outgoing and good-looking and quick to take action.

She, on the other hand, was a relatively slow-moving, rather plain, introverted loner who rarely talked to others unless that “person” happened to be her cat, Khan. Khan didn’t tend to answer back, but that didn’t bother Claire much. She still preferred his company over almost anyone else’s.

Right now, she was sitting where she had sat almost every weekday for the past five years since she graduated from college—at her desk at Passage Digital, a software and phone app development company. Most of the people hired five years ago had moved up the corporate ladder at least a little bit. Claire still worked on the third floor with mostly newbs, fresh out of school with their first career-oriented job.

Not being promoted didn’t bother her much, either. Getting promoted generally required regularly interacting with other people and getting noticed.

Did she have crippling social anxiety? Yep.

Did she plan to tackle that any time soon? Nope.

A hero she was not. So when her coworker/partial boss, Julia Lindsey, emailed her an hour ago to be at her terminal at 10:00 a.m. and that it would make Claire a hero, Claire had been less than enthused. But here she was.

Maybe she wanted to offer Claire a promotion?

But promotions came with more responsibility, and more responsibility came with increased human interaction, and increased human interaction came with...

Claire pressed a hand to her suddenly tight chest. Had someone turned up the office’s heat?

Taking a deep breath, she did her best to shake off the bad feelings.

The clock kept ticking. It was only 10:02, but Julia had always been early to meetings; her punctuality was one of the things Claire had appreciated the most while they were working on the camera phone filter app Julia had conceived.

“Hey.” Claire reached a hand out toward the guy walking by her cubicle, not quite touching him.

Tom? Trent? Terrance?

Who knew? He’d been working there a couple of years, but the two of them had never spoken.

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Uh...yeah?”

Claire cleared her throat, swallowing past the lump. “Have you seen Julia?”

Tom-Trent-Terrance shook his head. “No. Sorry.”

Claire nodded and slumped back into her chair. That had been hard enough. She wasn’t asking anybody else.

Julia probably wanted to talk about their cell phone filter app, Gouda. The first version of the app had been hugely popular. The new version they’d been working on—with a much more complex facial recognition matrix—would be able to do so much more.

Teenagers all over the country would be beside themselves with excitement as they were able to morph their faces into all sorts of animals, celebrities and objects.

Or would’ve, until Julia halted all work on Gouda last week. There’d been no explanation given for the project’s sudden stop, which was probably weird.

But, of course, Claire hadn’t asked for reasons. She never did.

Today’s meeting probably wasn’t about the app, anyway. That was over. It was probably related to doughnuts or something. Passing treats out would make anyone an office hero.

Claire’s phone beeped with a text from Julia.

Bring a portable drive to my office ASAP. Get on video chat.

Snatching up a portable drive, Claire did as instructed. Julia’s office was at the other end of the open work space, nice and private, with windows and its own door—exactly the kind of isolated area Claire dreamed of having.

The office was empty, but the computer screen wasn’t. Julia was already on the video chatting app the two of them had used regularly when working on their filter software. Her dark hair hung limp and tangled while bags underlined her eyes.

Taking a seat at the computer, Claire frowned. Julia was usually so polished.

“Are...are you okay?” Claire hated the way her voice shook.

“Listen, we don’t have much time.” Julia leaned closer to the screen. It was then that Claire recognized the board table in the background. Julia was in one of Passage Digital’s executive offices.

Did that mean she’d been called in for a meeting with CEO Vance Ballard? Was Gouda being green-lighted after all?

Julia licked her lips, seeming to not notice the hair falling in her face. “I don’t know who I can trust, but I believe you’re out of this entire mess. It’s gotten more dangerous than I thought.”

Claire’s stomach hardened. “What are you talking about?”

“Gouda. Ballard is using it to steal identification and money...from kids. He’s creating a database to utilize once these preteens become adults. He’ll be able to access their phones and bank accounts.”

They’d known this was a possibility with the camera software. Which was why they’d changed it—spent dozens of hours specifically designing it so the pictures that were taken weren’t stored.

Claire let out a shaky, disbelieving laugh. “No. We took all those sensitive fields out—”

Julia shot a look over her shoulder at the door behind her. “And Ballard put them back in. Hook up the drive. I’m sending you everything that proves Ballard has knowledge about what the camera filters do.”

Claire’s hands shook so much that she wasn’t sure if it was physically possible to connect the drive to the USB port.

“I don’t think this is a good idea. We don’t know what—”

“Claire, we don’t have time. Do it. Hurry.”

Gulping, Claire did as she was told. Oh yeah, she definitely wasn’t hero material.

“We’re going to have to go to law enforcement. Ballard doesn’t know that I know, so we should be able to—” Julia sucked in a breath and glanced over her shoulder again.

The box with Julia’s face went small on Claire’s computer. This meant Julia had turned off the picture on her screen—Claire could see Julia, but nobody on the other end could see Claire.

Vance Ballard strode in with two big security guys behind him. “Trespassing in my office, Julia? That’s a shame...it truly is.”

The Passage Digital CEO’s voice was smooth and calm—making it even more frightening. He patted his graying hair as he strolled closer to Julia and the camera. Claire had only spoken to the older man once, muttering an apology when she bumped into him in the hall.

“I just left some papers I needed to pick up. But you’re right, I shouldn’t have come in here without permission. I’m sorry.” Julia sounded nervous and high-pitched—the opposite of Ballard.

“You left papers on my laptop?” Ballard raised an eyebrow. “ Convenient .”

Claire looked over at the drive. Whatever Julia was sending was still transferring.

It didn’t take long for Ballard to realize it, either.

“Oh, Julia, what have you done?” He shook his head and reached for his laptop.

The transfer to the drive stopped. Now Ballard’s face took up most of the screen as he typed. At the very edge of what the camera captured, Claire could see Julia backing up until one of the large guards stopped her, holding her arm.

“Looks like you were transferring some pretty important data to your office,” he tsked as he turned to glance at Julia.

“I’m not going to let you steal all these people’s identities.” Julia tried to jerk herself away from the guard, but he held her tight. “And these filters are mostly for children. There are even more laws against that.”

Ballard shook his head. “You should’ve just minded your own business. I gave you the perfect out. Told you I’d take care of it. You should’ve looked the other way.”

He nodded at the man holding Julia and almost before Claire could process what was happening, the man grabbed Julia by the head and snapped her neck.

Claire clapped her hand over her mouth as she watched Julia’s body hit the ground, her eyes still open staring toward the laptop.

“Take care of this.” Ballard gestured toward Julia. “Make sure the body is found far away from this building and that it looks like an accident.”

Claire pressed a hand to her chest, her heart thumping uncontrollably against her shaking fingers.

Julia was dead.

Ballard had just had her killed.

“Go down to her office and get the drive she was sending the data to. Bring it back up here so I can look through it before destroying it.”

Claire had to get out of here. She pressed the key on Julia’s computer that downloaded the recorded interactions they’d had on each other’s screens.

Including, in this case, Julia’s murder.

It went straight onto the Passage Digital hard drive where Claire would be able to access it later.

But something happened on Ballard’s end, tipping him off.

“What the hell? That bitch was recording this whole thing?” Claire jumped back as Ballard’s face jerked right up to the camera. He couldn’t see her, but it sure felt like he could.

“We need to get to her office right away. Damage control.”

The monitor went blank.

Claire sat there, eyes wide, trying to draw enough air into her lungs. What should she do?

She could leave the drive, leave the footage of Julia’s death on the system, and nobody would know Claire had been here at all. But as soon as Ballard got hold of the drive and footage, he would wipe them both completely clean—and all proof of his wrongdoing would be gone.

Claire only had two or three minutes tops before Ballard’s men got here. If she was going to do something, she had to do it now.

Almost without conscious thought, her fingers were flying over the keyboard. She buried the footage of Julia’s murder deep inside the Passage Digital system. When Ballard tried to access it, it would look like a corrupted file—damaged beyond utilization. No link to Claire.

But if she took the hard drive, Ballard would know someone had been here. He wouldn’t know it was her, but how long would it take to figure it out? She stared at the drive, about twice the size and weight of a smartphone, still plugged into Julia’s computer.

She couldn’t let Ballard get away with this. With any of it.

She yanked the cord from the computer and grabbed the drive, then walked to the door. When she opened it, she expected to find the entire third floor staring at her, but no one so much as glanced in her direction.

Keeping her head down, she walked toward her desk. Nobody tried to engage her in any sort of conversation, as usual. Thank goodness.

She wasn’t sure what to do. Should she stay at her desk? Wait stuff out? Should she move? Get out of the building?

A voice from her group foster home days floated back into her mind. A voice she trusted. Luke. He’d never let her down, always protected her.

If you can walk away rather than fight, then do that. Especially you, kitten.

He’d never walked away from a fight. But for her, his advice had been true then and was true now. She grabbed her purse from her desk drawer, tossed the drive inside it, and walked down the corridor between rows of cubicles.

All she could hear was the thrashing of her own heartbeat in her ears when she saw Ballard’s men rush toward her. She couldn’t let them take her. She knew what would happen if they did.

But they didn’t even so much as glance at her, just brushed right by her, beelining for Julia’s office.

Claire didn’t look back, just kept a steady pace until she’d made it to the elevator. The doors couldn’t open fast enough, and she rushed inside the moment there was sufficient space, pounding the garage-level button with more force than necessary. Once the elevator had begun its descent to the lowest level, she began to shake.

“Come on, come on,” she murmured.

Just as Claire stepped out of the elevator, an announcement boomed over the loudspeaker that the building was being locked down due to a possible outside security threat.

She pushed through the elevator doors to the garage before they had a chance to seal her inside, racing toward her car. Once inside, Claire forced herself to drive at a reasonable speed out of the garage and onto the street.

Only after she’d made it onto the interstate did she finally feel like she could afford to breathe.

She’d made it out.

But she knew she was far from safe.