The Intelligence Unit Series
The Guardian Chapter 3

The list of things Delia loved was quite long-with dulce de leche ice cream and seven hundred twenty-six episodes of Star Trek (all generations, naturally) in existence, how could it not be? But two of its biggest headliners were spending time with her best friend, Camila, and Indian food courtesy of her favorite restaurant, Spice Up Your Life. The fact that she was about to get both in one shot was enough to make her forget those wonky spreadsheets. Mostly.

"Hey, there you are!" Camila lowered the phone in her hand, crossing the warm brown tiles of the lobby with a contagious grin. "Oh, my God, this dress. So beautiful. So you," she said, wrapping Delia in a full-bodied hug, then pulling back to give the dress a longer appraisal. "Do you really like it?" Delia asked, indulging herself with a swishy twirl.

"I love it," Camila corrected. Of course, she looked stunning, herself, in a snug yet still somehow tasteful black jumpsuit that showed off her toned shoulders and her sassy attitude all at once. "I asked the hostess for our usual table. Sound good?" "Perfect." Delia followed her friend through the lobby, past the jewel-toned mandalas printed on the walls and over the beautifully tiled floor. While there were plenty of tables laid out in the large, warmly lit dining room, the row of booths along the far wall had always been Delia and Camila's go-to spot; specifically, the second-to-last booth. The one on the very end was closest to the kitchen, thus the last the hostess would fill, so the second-to-last offered privacy and a little less bustle. Plus, the restaurant manager, Faiza, was usually happy to let them linger there over a two-hour lunch or an even longer dinner when the spirit moved them.

"Okay, tell me," Delia said after they'd settled in and ordered an appetizer-the samosas were to die for, honestly-and their entrees. "What's the latest Garza family drama?"

"I think it's hilarious that you're addicted to my family drama, of all things," Camila teased, but Delia didn't budge.

"Come on! I don't have any siblings, and my family hasn't seen any drama to speak of since I was six. Don't shut me out of the good stuff." She'd always found Camila's loud, boisterous, and, yeah, often dramatic family fascinating.

"Oh, there's gooooood stuff this time, too." Camila waggled her dark brows and laughed. "Marianna's pregnant. Yes, again. And, yes, those are her words, not mine."

"Wow, really?" Delia asked, surprised. That was good. Camila's sister Marianna's youngest was barely a year old, and she and her husband had a three-year-old, too. "Between her and Julian and Gianna, that's a lot of babies."

Camila was either long used to Delia's candor or she was too absorbed in the news to notice. "I know, right? I swear, it's like my siblings are trying to one-up each other in the procreation department. Of course, Matteo's so resistant to a relationship with anything other than his job that he's balancing out the numbers."

At the mention of Camila's older brother, Delia's hormones involuntarily cheered like it was game day. "Oh. So, I, uh, guess he's doing well, then?"

Camila's laugh was as loud and bubbly as the rest of her. "Your crush on him is so cute. Weird," she added, pausing for a sip of the iced tea their waiter had quietly slid onto the table along with Delia's ginger ale. "But cute."

"I don't have a crush on Matteo," Delia argued by default.

But it was self-preservation, and they both knew it. Delia had been embarrassingly attracted to her best friend's older brother ever since he'd helped move Camila into their freshman-year dorm. With that dark stare and permanent five o'clock shadow that framed his perfectly sculpted mouth, a crush of epic proportions couldn't really be helped. Never mind how Matteo's muscles had flexed and bunched beneath his Remington Police Department T-shirt, turning him into a work of art and Delia into a puddle of unrequited goo. From that moment on, she'd been essentially useless whenever he was within a mile radius of her. A fact which, despite her Herculean efforts to keep hidden, Camila had been hip to since five minutes after Matteo had delivered that very first, very gruff "hey" in Delia's direction.

Camila's snort deposited Delia back to their booth in a snap. "One of these days, we are going to have to work on your poker face, my friend. But you can relax. I love my brother, but for all his amazeballs intuition as a detective, he's as thick as a brick when it comes to women. I can guarantee that your secret is safe."

"Great. Moving on," Delia said, because seriously, the only thing more mortifying than her one-sided crush on Matteo Garza was the thought that he might figure out that it existed.

Camila, bless her, knew when to say when. "Okay, okay. How about you? How's Papi Oliver?"

"He's good." Delia's mood lifted slightly at the mention of her father, who'd pretty much single-parented her after he and her mom had divorced when Delia was six. "He actually just left for an extended trip to Puerto Rico."

"Jealous," Camila said, pointing to herself with both index fingers. "I'm assuming that's work-related?"

Delia nodded, fiddling with the wrapper on her straw. "He's doing a big study at Arecibo. Quasars," she added, as if that explained everything.

Since her father was one of the most well-renowned astronomers on the East Coast, it was a definite start. "Oooh, that sounds right up his alley," Camila said.

"Yeah." Delia graduated to folding her straw wrapper into neat, even sections as her mind moved restlessly toward the perimeter of the conversation, wanting to wander. "He'll be gone for about six weeks."

"Now, I'm really jealous. Six weeks in Puerto Rico?"

Delia shrugged, examining the diamond-shaped pattern on the brass lantern above their table. Nice and orderly, everything repeating and adding up as it should. No boxes missing. Nothing out of place. "His team wants to do a longer series of scans to collect comparative data, plus, there's a ton of research and stuff, I guess."

"Well, they've got the best person for the job."

"Mmmmm."

After a beat of silence, Camila-who had never minced words in her life-pounced. "Okay, mija. Spill."

"What makes you think I have something to spill?" Delia hedged, and while Camila's laugh wasn't mean, it also took zero shit.

"Again, with your terrible game face." Camila swiped an imaginary circle around her own cover-model face. "But, since I know you're a facts girl, here we go. You admire your father nearly as much as he admires you; in other words, a f*****g truckload. As such, under normal circumstances, you'd spend at least ten minutes reminding me not only what quasars are, but exactly how they're formed, what role they play within active galaxies, and give me a detailed description of what data your father is going to collect, along with why it'll be so groundbreaking. Instead, you just forked over some halfhearted info and actually uttered the phrase 'research and stuff'. Truth? You're lucky I'm not calling nine-one-one to report a body snatching right now. So, like I said. Spill." "Wow." Delia blinked. "Has anyone ever told you that you've missed your calling as a litigator? Because I have to be honest, I'm a little scared of you right now."

"I'm a high school guidance counselor, Deels. It's the same thing, only with shittier pay and clients I can't fire. Talk to me."

Just like that, Delia did. "Okay, you're right. I'm sorry I'm distracted, but something weird is happening at work."

By the time she'd caught Camila up on everything from the nonsensical numbers she couldn't replace the source of and the weird way Peyton had reacted, the plates of Saag Paneer and Chicken Vindaloo that their waiter brought to the table a few minutes after she'd started talking were nearly empty.

"I just can't figure it out," Delia said, taking one last bite of chicken. "The transactions appear randomly, then disappear a day or two later as if they'd never existed. I've never seen anything like it. Numbers just don't behave this way on their own." "Knowing you, you must be going crazy trying to figure it out," Camila said. Her eyes widened half a beat later. "Wait, you don't think there's anything shady going on, do you?"

A laugh flew out of Delia, echoing around the cozy booth until she realized Camila was serious. "Shady? At Cromwell A&M? You've got to be kidding."

Funny, Camila didn't budge. "Come on, Delia. Don't you watch Netflix? Corruption is a thing."

"I know there's a dark side to the global financial system," Delia said. Of course, she did-forensic accounting had been a required course as part of her Master's studies. "But Peyton? Or Kent?"

"Or both," Camila pointed out, making Delia's stomach take a one-way toward her Mary Jane pumps. "Or someone else entirely. But you said it yourself, right? Money doesn't just do this. Isn't the only explanation that someone is doing it to the money?" "I guess," Delia hedged. "But it's entirely plausible, and also highly probable, that it's not intentional. Like Peyton said, there's got to be a mistake." "And you believe that? That this is just some glitch?"

Well, shit. Camila just had to go and hit her where it hurt-directly in the truth zone. "A true glitch to explain all of this would be extremely unlikely. There are too many differences in the inconsistencies for one glitch to be to blame. But I told Peyton that." One dark brow arched. "And she heard you?"

"You know how she is," Delia said, because "yes" wasn't really on the menu of honest answers. "Still, she was adamant that it's no big deal."

"You clearly think it is, though," Camila replied. "It's been bugging you for days, mija. That's not nothing."

She was right-of course, she was. But... "What if it is something, and I'm the one who inadvertently screwed it up? What if this somehow my fault?"

The worry that had been lurking in the back of her mind shoved its way to the forefront, pushing past her lips in a rush. "I mean, I'm one of the only people with full access to the accounting system. For God's sake, I practically created the accounting system. I'm the person responsible for keeping all of our financial information in order. Peyton all but said so."

Reaching across the table, Camila gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. "Honey, Peyton would sell her own mother if it meant making herself look good. Plus, you've done days' worth of digging. If you'd made an error-which I highly doubt-you'd have found it and fixed it by now."

Okay, so that was true. Delia's hesitation, however, was the stuff of freaking champions. "I'm still not sure rocking the boat with Peyton is a good idea. She is my boss, after all. Plus, I spent all morning trying to figure out where all this money was going and I came up empty."

"The whole thing does sound pretty complicated, not to mention weird." Camila ran her finger over the rim of her glass in thought, then brightened. "Hey, I know! Do you want me to call Matteo? He'd probably be able to tell you if something shady is going on." "Absolutely not," Delia said, the words immediate and hot in her mouth. But come on. If Peyton thought this was no big deal, imagine how stupid Delia would look in front of a tough, seasoned Intelligence Unit detective if it all turned out to be nothing. But at this point, could it really be nothing?

Delia shook her head, tired of all this useless indecision. She needed to rely on facts, and she needed to do so right now. "Look, I'm grateful for the suggestion, but honestly, I don't have anything concrete to go on, here. Calling the police would be rash, not to mention almost certainly jeopardizing my job. Yes, the whole thing is weird, but I don't really have any options other than to play it safe and let Peyton handle it."

The pause that stretched out between them lasted long enough to prompt Delia to finally ask, "What?"

"I get that you're most comfortable going with the flow. I really do," Camila said, her soft smile sending a pang through Delia's belly. "But if you think something's really wrong here-more specifically, if you think Peyton is wrong-it would be okay if you took a big, brave step, you know? You're smarter than anyone I know. Maybe you should trust your instincts and speak up. If not to Matteo, then at least to Kent. You have a good relationship with him, right?"

"Well, yes. In a boss's boss/employee kind of way," Delia said slowly. "But what I don't have is proof of anything, and Kent is one of the few people on the planet more grounded in facts than I am. I can't go over Peyton's head without quantitative proof to back up my suspicions."

"Your gut is telling you this isn't right," Camila argued, but Delia shook her head.

"My gut isn't a proof point. Plus, financial corruption and money laundering are for the movies. I'm sure this will all turn out to be nothing."

After an eternity, Camila said, "Okay. Just promise me that if it doesn't, you'll go to Kent?"

"I promise," Delia said, relieved to be letting the whole thing go. "Now, do you want to split dessert, or am I going to have to eat it all by myself?"

After half an orderof decadent Gulab Jamun and a parting hug from Camila, Delia bit the bullet and headed back to work. The heat was far enough below her melting point that she was glad she'd walked the ten-block distance, and with her cat-eye sunglasses and the ultra-swishy skirt of her dress, she indulged in an extra spring in her step. She window shopped along the way-Spice Up Your Life was pretty much the only thing in Delia's price range in this part of Remington, unless you also counted the convenience store on the corner-and when she reached the Plaza hotel, she indulged again by stopping to watch their famous fountains at work.

Rather than going the same-old, same-old route as most other fountains, the ones at the Plaza weren't set inside a larger basin housing a pool to capture the runoff, along with the loose change and secret wishes of people passing by. Instead, these were set in the mosaic-tiled pavers themselves, designed at angles to keep the water flowing downward into a set of covertly hidden drains to prevent flooding. Once every hour, the fountains sprang to life, the water dancing upward to a carefully choreographed rhythm, arcing and falling gently back to the ground in huge rain-like drops. Delia had always found them mesmerizing-not in the oooooh, aaaaah way, but from an engineering standpoint. The precise degree of tilt required to get the water to behave just so. The specific amount of water pressure required, the spray of each jet that had to be properly timed right down to the second. Giving in to the fascination of watching them now, she wandered over the raised "dry zone" of pavers that the swanky hotel had specifically designed so onlookers would remain safe from all but the mist and a few stray drops if it was windy, mentally calculating the degree of lift for each upward spray, the velocity, the-

The sight of Peyton coming out of one of the Plaza's side exits caught her completely off guard. That her boss would lunch at the uber-expensive hotel wasn't the shocker. But that she'd do so when she'd promised Delia she'd stay behind to fix a major problem made Delia's chest tighten.

That she had a look of pure and obvious displeasure all over her Botox-perfect face sent Delia's feet forward without thought.

"Peyton?" she called out, realizing three steps later that her boss wasn't alone. The dark-haired man beside her looked even unhappier than Peyton, his features pinched and his mouth flattened into a thin line.

Oh. Oh, shit. They were obviously arguing over something big. But it was too late not to at least say hello-both Peyton and the man had looked directly at her as she'd called Peyton's name.

Delia tugged a smile into place. "Hi. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt."

In a flash, Peyton's cool, confident demeanor returned. "Delia, what a surprise. I didn't take you for the type to enjoy the Plaza for lunch."

"Oh, yeah, no," Delia laughed. A salad alone would cost more than what she'd just paid for her entire lunch with Camila, tax and tip included. "Too many forks for me. I was just walking back to the office from my lunch with Camila."

"In August?" Peyton smiled to cover the beat of surprise. "How charming."

"It's not so hot today, plus, the fountains are so pretty," Delia said. Unable to squash her curiosity, she asked, "So, I guess you were able to fix that problem we discussed earlier?"

A tense beat of silence bounced between them like a rock being thrown at a window, and ugh, Delia knew better than to bring up work in front of strangers. This guy could be a potential client-his suit certainly looked expensive enough to mark him as an executive

or an investor, never mind the pinkie ring with a ruby the size of Texas weighing down his left hand-and she'd just opened her yap and asked about problems.

Peyton recovered, lightning fast. "Of course." She flashed a conspiratorial smile. "I told you it was nothing to worry about."

Delia waited for her to add something-anything, really-that would explain either the origin or the solution, but instead, the man beside her finally spoke.

"I apologize," he said, extending a hand. "I've been rude. I don't believe we've met."

"Oh." Delia's face flushed on the realization that she hadn't made a move to introduce herself, either. "Delia Sutton. I work for Cromwell A&M. With Peyton, obviously."

"Nick." His handshake had the perfect firm-to-friendly ratio and his expression had lost all its hard edges, leaving behind a smooth, slick smile.

Delia's nerves flared, letting her awkward flag fly. "First name only, huh? Kind of like Beyoncé? Or, well, I guess you'd be more like Bono, maybe."

He laughed politely, but the gesture didn't come close to his eyes. "Something like that."

"Well, I really didn't mean to interrupt," Delia said. She'd honestly only done so because she so rarely saw Peyton upset, but clearly, whatever argument they'd been having wasn't that big of a deal, after all. "Peyton, I'll see you back at the office." "Actually, I'll be in meetings with Kent for the McElroy merger all afternoon." Peyton's smile translated to a head pat. "No rest for the weary, don't you know?"

"I think it's wicked, actually. The saying, I mean. No rest for the wicked." Delia heard the words just as Peyton's eyes widened, and gah, she needed to stop talking and start going. Like, two minutes ago. "Right. Okay. So, it was nice to meet you, Nick." "The pleasure is mine, Ms. Sutton."

With one last nod and smile at Peyton, Delia headed back to work on quick feet. Her curiosity resurfaced, and she moved through her office door with every intent to see how Peyton had magically fixed the account errors. Someone had been here after she'd left.

Delia stared at her laptop for a full ten seconds, certain she was seeing things. But no, the lid, which she always, always made sure was firmly closed, was the tiniest bit lifted from the keyboard. Moving closer to her desk, nothing else seemed out of place. But she was certain she'd shut her laptop before leaving to meet Camila, just as she always did.

Popping the thing open, she checked her browser history. Her usual suspects appeared on the screen, easing her heart rate a little farther out of the stratosphere. Nothing else looked odd or out of place, so she moved on to the accounts she'd asked Peyton to look at, opening each one for a thorough examination. As promised, all of the numbers now aligned to the decimal, with every column balanced as if the discrepancies had never existed. As if they'd been deleted rather than resolved.

Delia reached for her purse, ready to send Peyton a text asking her for more details on what she'd done and why, but Camila's voice echoed in the back of her mind, making her pause.

You don't think anything shady is going on, do you?

Okay, so the thought was still pretty laughable. But now, with the possibility that someone had been in her office and the way these accounts were so clean, they squeaked?

The percent chance that these inconsistencies were caused by intentional action had just risen significantly.

Sitting back in her chair, Delia forced herself to consider the facts over her now-pounding heart. Yes, the odd imbalances in the accounts had been fixed, just as Peyton had promised. Yes again, there was a chance they'd been resolved in a way that was completely aboveboard. But her gut still twisted and pulled with the feeling that something wasn't right.

"Think, think," she murmured to herself, her fingers flying over the keyboard. This money had to have gone somewhere. Imbalances didn't just self-correct; these numbers represented real money that existed-or didn't-in a real place.

Delia opened every account one by one, scrutinizing all the data even though it took hours. On the surface, everything looked as it should, numbers flowing from place to place in logical, methodical order.

Except, wait...

Delia squinted at her screen. Although the discrepancies were a lot more difficult to spot this time, they were definitely there, hidden deep within the columns and figures of different accounts than the ones from before. Money disappeared, then reappeared in different places, routing all over the place until Delia was dizzy from tracking it all. Using her credentials, she clicked her way through the higher-level files that were double password protected, that only she, Peyton, and Kent could access. "Hang on. What on earth...?" She stared at the file on her screen. Among the accounts she expected to see was one she didn't recognize, simply labeled "Silhouette".

The contents were encrypted.

Delia's breath caught in her throat and stuck. Willing her hands to stop shaking, she reached for her phone, but as soon as she managed to grab it, she paused. She'd promised Camila she'd call Kent, but could he be in on this? Could he be responsible for it, with Peyton none the wiser?

Delia forced herself to think rationally, even though, holy cannoli, it was a tall order. Peyton had been the one to minimize the discrepancies, then fix-not-fix them. Kent had always been ridiculously trusting, transparent with both Delia and Peyton in all aspects of the business when it came to the finances. Plus, he had zero pretenses-for God's sake, half the time he was going on about some article he'd read in WIRED or the best way to maximize your time at Comic Con. He was about as power hungry as a pussycat. The idea that he knew about any of this bordered on ludicrous. Annnnnd he was also in meetings for the rest of the day. Specifically, meetings with Peyton.

Why couldn't things go back to normal, where the most difficult thing Delia had to deal with was multivariable calculus?

Opening up her email, she composed a quick message to Kent, asking if they could meet first thing Monday morning to discuss something important. Then, before she could lose her nerve, she downloaded the files to her hard drive. Processing...processing... Ding! Download complete.

Not wanting to leave anything to chance, Delia grabbed a flash drive from her desk, inserted it into her laptop, and copied the files, including the one she hadn't been able to open. She password protected everything-just because she was going to share it all with Kent, and Kent alone, didn't mean she didn't have to take precautions, and she was technically breaking company policy by making the copy as it was. Taking the flash drive from the USB port, Delia popped it into the zippered side pocket of her laptop bag. She looked at the time stamp in the corner of her screen, then to the window in her office, and whoa, when had dinnertime become a now-thing?

Delia climbed out of the rabbit hole long enough to get a few more tasks done; namely, the things she'd had on her To Do list before Weirdmageddon had hit. By the time she was satisfied that the rest could wait until Monday, night had fallen in earnest, and she packed up her laptop, tucking her phone into her purse and her purse into her laptop bag before heading out the door. The office was empty, which wasn't exactly a shocker for a late-summer Friday night. But it also meant the building's lobby and the street beyond were equally quiet, allowing Delia to let her mind spin in time to her footsteps on the concrete as she made her way toward the parking garage two blocks down.

Clack-clack, clack-clack, clack-clack, thump-thump-thump...wait-

The man grabbed her from behind. Delia's fight, flight, or freeze instinct was mired firmly in freeze mode, which her attacker used to his advantage. Wrapping a hand over her mouth and his arm around her neck, he dragged her toward a shadowy side street, her back to his chest and her throat tightening in such pure fear that she started to gag. Her brain randomly burped up some long-stowed statistic about how women who were taken from original crime scenes were far more likely to be harmed or killed than those who managed to stay in one place, and she dug both heels into the pavement as hard as she could.

All it did was make her ankles twist and her shoes scrape over the pavement, and oh, God, oh, God, she was going to die. Her fear turned briefly to confusion as the man stopped only a handful of strides later, but then redoubled as terror when she realized how dark and secluded the alley where he'd dragged her was.

Delia cried out against the hand clamped hard over her face. Gasping for air that didn't come, she used the last of her breath to whimper. The man's grip was impenetrable, flooding her with a hard push of anxiety that weakened her knees and blurred her vision. In one swift move, the man released her, yanking her bag from her body and shoving her forward.

Before she could turn or scream or run, a sharp pain exploded across the back of her head, then the pavement rushed up to meet her as the whole world went dark.