Chapter 10 #2
Six monitors arranged in an ergonomic arc. Server racks humming against the far wall. Cable management that had taken him three weeks to perfect. The soft blue glow of systems running in perfect synchronization.
Morgan stepped inside and went still.
Lincoln tried to see it through her eyes. For him, this room was functional—a workspace optimized for his particular needs. But for someone seeing it for the first time, someone who’d only known him as text on a screen…
She moved toward the central workstation slowly, almost reverently, her eyes tracking across the monitors.
He watched her read the data streams, the code windows, the security protocols he’d left open.
Her fingers had started that rhythm again, tapping against her thigh, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“This is where you were,” she said quietly. “Every night at nine. When I was typing to you from my little apartment with my secondhand laptop and my slow internet connection.” She touched the edge of his desk, just barely. “You were here.”
“Usually, yes.”
“I complained to you once about my router. Made a joke about it being held together with hope and duct tape.” She turned to face him. “You could have hacked into my ISP and fixed it remotely.”
“That would have required knowing who you were.”
“And you never looked.”
“I never looked. You trusted me not to.” He paused. “Though your latency issues were genuinely painful.”
“Oh my God.” She pressed a hand to her mouth, but he could see she was laughing.
“I’ve been sending poetry to Binary. The actual Binary.
There was a whole thread on the Cipher Forum about whether you were a government operation or a collective because no one believed one person could do what you do. ”
“The government theory was particularly insulting.” He almost rolled his eyes. He’d seen that thread. The idea that his work—clean, efficient, unencumbered by committee approval or budget meetings—could be mistaken for something produced by bureaucracy had bothered him for days.
“Lincoln.” She was fully laughing now, bright and slightly unhinged. “I told you about my router. I complained about the library’s outdated firewall. And you’re—you’re this.”
“You’re a human being who can recall every piece of information she’s ever encountered with perfect accuracy,” he shot back. “I build machines trying to replicate what you do naturally. I think we’re even.”
The laughter faded, but something warm remained in her expression. “You really are jealous. Of my memory.”
Hell yes, he was. Who wouldn’t be? “I spent three years developing a database architecture that could handle the kind of cross-referencing your brain does in seconds. Sold it for forty-seven million dollars. And it still can’t do what you do.”
She was quiet for a moment, studying him with an intensity that made him want to look away. He didn’t.
“Ms. Delacroix used to say my memory was a gift, but not every gift needs to be unwrapped in public,” she said finally. “She taught me when to stay silent. When to pretend I didn’t remember something so people wouldn’t feel like I was surveilling them.”
“She taught you your own inside voice.”
Morgan’s eyebrows rose. “What?”
“Bear and Derek—my cousins. They created a system when we were children. A code phrase to tell me when I’d crossed a social line I couldn’t see.
” Lincoln leaned against his desk. “Inside voice, Linc. It meant I was being too blunt, too strange, too much. They taught me to recognize boundaries my brain couldn’t naturally detect. ”
“And Ms. Delacroix taught me to hide what my brain naturally does because people sometimes feel threatened by it.” Morgan’s voice had gone soft. “We’ve both been learning to translate ourselves into something more acceptable.”
“You haven’t needed to translate for me.”
“No.” She held his gaze. “I haven’t.”
The moment stretched. Lincoln wasn’t good at reading these things—the silent communications that other people seemed to navigate instinctively—but even he could feel the weight of what wasn’t being said.
Morgan broke first, turning back toward the monitors. “Show me what you’re working on. I want to see Binary in action.”
They spent an hour in the command center.
Lincoln walked her through his multiple current projects—some of the security consultations, the vulnerability assessments, the open-source tools he released anonymously because he didn’t need credit, just wanted the problems solved.
Morgan asked questions that proved she understood more than most of his federal contacts.
When his stomach growled loudly enough to be embarrassing, she laughed and suggested they find that breakfast he’d promised.
The kitchen felt different with her in it.
Lincoln made eggs while Morgan explored his cabinets with undisguised curiosity. She found the tea he’d ordered—the specific brand she’d mentioned eighteen months ago during an exchange about morning rituals—and went quiet for a long moment before reaching for the kettle.
“You remembered,” she said, not quite a question.
“I ordered it two days ago. After you arrived.” He focused on the eggs, not looking at her. “You said it was the only brand that tasted right. That you’d been drinking it since you were nineteen.”
She was quiet for a moment. “That was eighteen months ago. One line in one conversation.”
“I pay attention.”
He watched her make tea. There was a system to it—specific timing, precise amounts, steps executed in an order that clearly mattered. She finally wrapped both hands around the cup, fingers perfectly symmetrical, and closed her eyes to take the first sip.
Like praying, she’d told him once. He understood now what she’d meant. This wasn’t just drinking tea. This was an anchor. Routine. A small piece of control in a world that kept taking it away.
They talked while they ate. Real things, specific things. Her converted barn apartment with the cats she fed for her elderly landlord. The children’s reading program she’d started at the library. The way small-town Montana could feel like safety and suffocation in equal measure.
He told her about selling his first company at twenty-four, his second at twenty-eight. About the federal agencies that called him when their normal contractors failed. About being the last-resort option—expensive and difficult but effective.
“They don’t like working with me,” he said. “I don’t perform the social parts well.”
“Their loss.” Morgan finished her eggs. “At least with you, I always know exactly where I stand.”
The ease between them felt dangerous. Like something he could get used to. Like something that could be taken away.
“I can’t stay here forever.” Her voice shifted, the warmth fading into something more practical. “I can’t hide in your guest room while my life falls apart somewhere else.”
He set down his fork. “You can’t go back to your apartment yet. Not until we know more about what we’re dealing with.”
Her fingers found the rhythm again, tapping against the counter. “I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I can’t go home. I can’t stay hidden forever. I’m stuck in this limbo, and I don’t see a way out.”
Lincoln stood, moved around the island, and sat on the stool beside her. Close enough to reach, far enough to give her space.
“You can stay here as long as you need. There’s no timeline. No pressure.” He said it as simply as he could, because simple was all he had to offer. “We’ll figure out what comes next. But you don’t have to figure it out today.”
She looked at him. Her eyes were bright, but she wasn’t crying—just full in a way that suggested tears were close.
“‘Hope is the thing with feathers,’” she quoted softly.
“More Dickinson?”
“She gets me through.” Morgan reached out, her fingers brushing his wrist. “So do you.”
He covered her hand with his, and her sleeve rode up. The bandages were visible now—and beneath them, the parallel lines he’d been trying not to stare at since she arrived. Neat. Systematic. The work of someone who’d known exactly what they were doing.
Something hot and unfamiliar coiled in his chest. He wasn’t a person who felt rage—it was inefficient, clouded judgment, served no practical purpose. But looking at those lines on her skin, he wanted to find whoever had held the knife and make them understand what systematic really meant.
Morgan caught him looking and tugged her sleeve down with her free hand. Not ashamed. Just…not ready.
He forced the anger down. She’d tell him when she could. Pushing would only make her retreat, and right now, she needed safety more than she needed his fury.
They sat like that until her breathing evened out and the tension in her shoulders finally released.
When her eyes started to drift closed, he squeezed her fingers gently. “You should rest.”
“I’m not tired.” But her voice said otherwise.
“You’re exhausted. Your body is still catching up. Still figuring out you’re safe here. Go sleep.”
She looked at him—really looked—and whatever she saw made her nod. “Okay.”
After she’d gone upstairs, Lincoln retreated to his command center.
He’d been neglecting everything—ignoring messages, letting emails pile up, focused entirely on Morgan. Time to catch up.
He opened his secure communication channels. This was much more familiar territory than the interpersonal interaction in the kitchen had been. But also, for the first time in his entire life, not as enjoyable. He would rather be talking with her than in his lair.
He had to smile a little at that. Until he read what was on his screen and his stomach dropped.
Dozens of messages. Treasury. Homeland. His FBI contact and his NSA back channel and three different consultants he’d worked with over the years. All marked urgent. All time-stamped within the past forty-eight hours.
He opened the first one.
Bollinger—we’ve identified the primary actor in the fire sale breach. Sending you the file for verification. Let us know if you can help us locate her.
Her.
Lincoln opened the attachment. The federal wanted bulletin filled his screen.
Morgan Reece. Librarian. Whitefish, Montana. Wanted for questioning in connection with the largest coordinated cyberattack in US history.
The photo was her face. The details were her life.
Lincoln stared at the screen. The fire sale—the breach attempt his federal contacts had been panicking about. The one he’d dismissed as reconnaissance.
They were saying Morgan had done it.
That wasn’t possible. She’d been in a warehouse. In a box. She’d been—
He opened the next message. Same content. Opened another. Same.
Every federal agency he’d ever worked with, all saying the same thing.
They wanted Morgan Reece.
And every single one of them was asking if Lincoln could help track her down.