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Terri was hunched over her co on the wall of video screens facing her and analyzing the stream of NSA data that her back-door access provided Aidan had long since left for JFK and his quick trip to Munich That left Terri in workaholic solitude—save for Windsor, her black and tan Cavalier King Charles chilling out in his dog bed nearby He was one of her four rescues, all of whom had a special place in her heart, and each of whos orth opening your heart to People? No

Right now, Terri was relishing what she was doing She’d donned her other Zerroup’s chief revenue officer Wealthy as he was, Aidan couldn’t fund all their investigations himself So it was up to her to find other sources of income And her back door never let her down She always enjoyed the irony of hackers—in this case the NSA—being hacked by her Nothing better than being thethe cat

Tuning her filters to analyze the inforal oing She knehat to look for Patterns in co dealers Shady businessmen Equally shady corporations Corrupt politicians All of the

It took a while, but Terri found what she needed So money to an account in the Cayman Islands Well, it was tiains

This was Terri’s favorite part of the process It allowed her to indulge in her one ame she’d taken to a whole new level

S, she clicked on a specific icon on her desktop and the Wheel of Fortune game she’d created filled the entire wall of computer screens She clicked on the spin button and watched as the wheel went round and round, nu fro in between With Zer for big h athose bills had depleted soer to replace theh the plane was obscenely expensive to operate, its ultra-long range allowed Zer That tactical advantage had proved invaluable again and again

I and point to the su to help herself to

As it ca, fireworks flashed across the screen, and Donna Surinned ear to ear Jackpot She hadn’t seen five es

The Gulfstreaet a full tank of aviation fuel and those tax-cheating bastards would get screwed

She hacked into the Cayman Islands account, entered five h her nor around the world like a steel ball in a pinball h a dozen shell companies all around the world Moments later, it arrived in Zermatt’s secret bank account The funds had been cleaned, sterilized, and were now untraceable The scus not only couldn’t report it or recover it, they’d never even knohere it was or who took it

Outside the Cage’s steel door, Abby fidgeted, staring at the intercom button She knew that Aunt Terri was inside the room and that Windsor ith her She also knew that Aunt Terri orking, and that Abby was never supposed to interrupt that But she was so excited about Disneyland and she and Joyce weren’t leaving for the airport until Joyce packed what she called “essentials” into Abby’s suitcase Her daddy had kissed her good-bye ages ago, and she had to wait to get to the airport to see Ey and she needed someone to share it with

Giving in to her impulses, she did what she didn’t do too often— not unless she wanted to get scolded

She dragged one of the hall chairs over to the Cage, climbed up onto it, and pressed the intercom button

There was no sound from inside, but there never was Her daddy said the room kept all sounds in and let no sounds out It sounded like a boring roo Except art She loved painting pictures And since that was homework, it counted as work She counted it as fun