Chapter 8 #2
Katherine twisted the water bottle cap between her fingers. "I helped a little girl find her mom. She'd gotten separated from her family."
"And?"
"A dad from earlier in the day recognized me. When I was getting in my car to leave, he came over alone and called me Miss Lord." She looked down at her hands. "I went there to be nobody. Just Katherine, not Kit Lord. But I can't escape it."
"You helped that kid," I said.
"Of course I did. She was five years old and terrified."
"Most people would have found a park employee. Handed it off."
"Would you have?"
Fair point. "No."
"Then why ask?"
Because I was trying to understand her. The real her, not the carefully constructed public image that everyone else saw. Every interaction revealed something new. The way she'd played with Amber and Lachlan, competitive but teaching. Now this, helping a lost child without hesitation.
"It tells me something about you," I said. "The real you, not Kit Lord."
Her blue eyes met mine. "What does it tell you?"
"That you see people. Really see them. That kid wasn't a photo opportunity or publicity stunt. She was just scared and needed help."
"My dad would have been disappointed if I'd just handed her off." Her voice softened. "He always said that being able to help meant you were obligated to help."
"Smart man."
"He died when I was fifteen. Right before I was discovered." She picked at the label on her water bottle. "Sometimes I wonder what he'd think of all this. The movies, the fame, the complete loss of privacy."
"He'd be proud of you fighting for this role. For understanding it's bigger than just another part."
She looked at me like I'd said something unexpected. "You think so?"
"Yeah. Fighting for what matters is never wrong."
We sat there in silence. Not awkward, just present. The PlayStation hummed softly in the background.
"What about you?" Katherine asked. "At the science fair, you didn't have to help the twins with their robot. But you spent hours teaching them."
“How do you know about that?”
“Bonnie told me.”
"I helped because they asked."
"Lots of kids ask for things. Most adults say no."
I thought about Amber's frustrated face, Lachlan's disappointment. The way they'd looked at that robot like it held all their hopes for the future.
"They reminded me of myself at that age," I admitted. "Curious about how things worked. Wanting to understand systems, figure out patterns."
"Did you have someone to teach you?"
"My mom, mostly. She was an English teacher before she became a diplomat's wife.
She believed in understanding things, not just accepting them.
" The old pain surfaced, sharp and familiar.
"But she was gone a lot. Embassy functions, international trips.
My dad's work took priority over everything else. "
The word hung there between us.
Lonely.
"I know something about that," Katherine said quietly.
"Yeah?"
"Hollywood's the loneliest place on earth." Her voice dropped. "You're surrounded by people constantly. Publicists, agents, assistants, photographers. But nobody actually sees you. They see the brand, the commodity, what you can do for their career.”
She shredded the water bottle label into tiny pieces.
"After my divorce, I thought things would get better.
That maybe I'd find something real. But it just got worse. Every date was calculated. Every friendship had an angle. I stopped trusting that anyone cared about Katherine. They only wanted Kit Lord. That’s why I treasure what I have with Angelica. "
I understood that completely. "Is that why you came here?"
"Partly." She met my eyes. "But mostly because someone's trying to take away the one of the few things I care about. This role, this film—it matters. It's not just another movie. It's a story that deserves to be told right."
"And they're using your face to destroy it."
"Yeah."
I leaned back against the couch, the worn cushions accepting my weight. "You know what's messed up? I spent twenty years hunting people through digital footprints. Nation-state actors, terrorist cells, criminal networks. I was good at it. Really good."
The words wanted to stay buried, but something about Katherine made me want to talk. To explain.
"A couple years ago, we were helping Ukraine defend against Russian cyber-attacks. Intelligence sharing, threat assessment, teaching their people how to protect critical infrastructure. It was important work. Lives depended on it."
My hands clenched into fists.
"Then the orders changed. Policy shift. We were pulled back, told to cease all operations. All that relationship building, all those people depending on us, just cut off."
"That must have been awful," Katherine said softly.
"It was like abandoning them in the middle of a firefight." My voice roughened. "I knew what was coming. The attacks, the infrastructure damage, the civilian casualties. Hospitals without power, water treatment plants compromised. And I couldn't do anything about it."
She was quiet for a moment, studying my face. My clenched fists, the tension in my jaw, the way I couldn't quite meet her eyes when I said I couldn't do anything about it.
Then, carefully, "But you couldn't just walk away, could you? Not when you had the skills to help them."
I tensed. "What do you mean?"
"You're too torn up about this for someone who just followed orders and moved on." Her voice was gentle, not accusing. "Someone who really did nothing wouldn't still be carrying this much guilt. Which means you did something. You found a way."
Smart. Most people wouldn't have caught that distinction.
"I can't talk about classified operations."
"I'm not asking you to." She shifted closer. "I'm just saying I recognize someone who kept fighting even when they were told to stop. Because it was the right thing to do."
The validation hit harder than it should have. Nobody else had understood. My commanding officer thought I was being insubordinate. My colleagues thought I couldn't let go. Even Jase thought I'd just burned out from twenty years of operations.
But Katherine saw it. The impossible position of having the skills and knowledge to help, being forbidden from using them, and finding ways to do it anyway.
"It cost me," I said quietly. Not saying anything else. I couldn’t. Too many others were involved.
"Is that why you really retired?"
"I retired from the Army when I could no longer be of service, in any capacity.” I gave her a long look, hoping against hope that she would know to drop it.
She gave me a weary smile. “I get it. So you came here.”
"So I came here." I met her eyes.
Her smile turned mischievous and her hand found mine. “And now here you are, right back in the thick of things. You just can’t walk away from a person in need, can you?”
The touch grounded me. Her fingers were warm, soft, but her grip was firm. Certain.
"Not when they’re a yellow superhero. How can I resist?"
Katherine laughed, and it was a beautiful sound.
Something in my chest loosened. The weight I'd been carrying since retirement, the sense of purposelessness, eased slightly.
"We're quite a pair," I said. "You running from who everyone thinks you are. Me trying to figure out who I am without the job that defined me."
"At least we're lost together."
"Is that what we are? Lost?"
She considered it. "Maybe. Or maybe we're just in transition. Between who we were and who we're going to be."
"That's very philosophical."
"I took a semester of philosophy at Stanford before I realized I was never going to finish my degree." She smiled slightly. "Some things stick."
We sat there, hands linked, both processing what we'd shared. The vulnerability felt dangerous. I'd spent twenty years behind operational security and need-to-know restrictions. Opening up went against my every instinct.
But Katherine had trusted me with her fear about the deepfake, her loneliness, her sense of losing herself. And somehow she could see my own demons, and she knew when not to push.
Was she really as incredible as she seemed?
"One more round?" I asked, reaching for my controller with my free hand.
She understood. The shift was deliberate, necessary. "Yeah. But I'm not going easy on you."
"Good." That almost-smile appeared. "I like a challenge."
We played for another hour. The competition got fierce, trash talk flying back and forth. But underneath was something else building between us. Every time our shoulders brushed. Every shared laugh. Every moment of comfortable silence.
Finally, I set down my controller and stretched. "I should get back to work. The malware won't trace itself."
"Right." Katherine stood. "I should go anyway. Angelica's probably wondering where I am."
I walked her downstairs to the Honda. The parking lot was empty except for our vehicles and the security lights creating pools of yellow against the dark.
"Kit?"
She turned back. I'd called her Kit, not Katherine. The distinction felt important somehow.
"Whatever's going on, whatever has you hiding here, we'll figure it out." I kept my hands in my pockets to stop myself from reaching for her. "You're under Jasper Creek's protection now. That means something here."
She looked like she wanted to say something profound, but her throat was too tight. I understood. Some things were too big for words.
"Drive safe," I said. "Text me when you get back to the Inn."
"You'll be here all night?"
"Probably."
"Code, you need to sleep."
"I'll sleep when I find the bastard who did this to you."
The fierce protectiveness in my own voice surprised me. When had her problem become my mission? When had Katherine Lord become someone I'd go to war for?
"Goodnight, Code."
"Goodnight, Katherine."
I watched her drive away, taillights disappearing down the empty street. Then I went back upstairs and dove into the code with renewed focus.
The malware pattern was starting to emerge. Whoever built this had military training, I was certain now. The structure was too clean, too efficient. And they'd used a custom encryption protocol that looked familiar.
I pulled up my old case files from Fort Gordon. Cross-referenced the encryption signature against known threat actors.
There.
A match. Not perfect, but close enough to narrow the suspect pool.
My phone buzzed. Text from Katherine.
KATHERINE: Made it back safe.
I typed back immediately. Good. Sleep well.
KATHERINE: You too. Eventually.
CODE: Eventually.
I set down my phone and stared at the screens. The case was coming together. Pieces falling into place. But my mind kept wandering back to Katherine on that couch, controller in hand, genuinely happy for the first time since I'd met her.
The way she'd opened up about her loneliness. The way she'd listened when I talked about Ukraine, really listened. The way she'd seen through my careful words to understand what I couldn't say directly.
The way her hand had felt in mine.
This was dangerous territory. She was a client. She was dealing with a crisis. She'd be gone in a few weeks, either back to LA for filming or fleeing the wreckage of her career.
Either way, she'd leave Jasper Creek. Leave me here, still trying to figure out who Code Drakos was without the Army.
But for now, for tonight, I had a mission. Find the threat. Eliminate it. Protect Katherine Lord.
The rest could wait.
I pulled up the network logs and dove back in. Somewhere in this digital maze was the person who was trying to destroy her. And I was going to find them.
My phone buzzed again. Another text from Katherine.
KATHERINE: Thank you for tonight. For listening. For seeing me.
I stared at the message for a long moment. Then typed back.
CODE: Thank you for trusting me with the real you. Sleep well, Katherine.
Her response came fast.
KATHERINE: Thank you for trusting me too. Then: Sleep well, Code.
Just three words, but they hit harder than they should have.
I set the phone face-down on the desk and forced myself to focus on the screens. But her words echoed in my head, mixing with the memory of her laugh, the feeling of her hand in mine, the way she'd looked at me like I mattered.
Like the choices I'd made, the rules I'd bent, the career I'd sacrificed, all of it mattered because I'd done the right thing even when it cost me.
This case was getting complicated in ways that had nothing to do with malware or deepfakes.
And I was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, that wasn't entirely a bad thing.