“A new team was just formed to help Huston-Tillotson University—a small historically black university here in Austin—with networking issues. It’s similar to a project I worked on last year, so they’re restoring some of the security clearances I previously had. It’ll give me access to all the databases I’ll need for research purposes.”

“Oh.” He nodded. “That’s…um…cool. You, uh, want to grab lunch?”

“Sure.” Samiah regarded him with a slight frown. He seemed…off. “Just give me a few minutes to check email.”

She returned to her desk to find an email from Barrington waiting in her inbox, thanking the entire team for their hard work on the Leyland Group project. As a token of the entire Trendsetters family’s appreciation, the team was invited to dinner at the Driskill Grill in the famed Driskill Hotel. On top of that, they were all being treated to a day of adventure at Schlitterbahn Waterpark in New Braunfels.

After weeks of working so closely with them, Samiah wasn’t sure she wanted to spend time at an amusement park with her teammates, but whatever. It was a nice gesture.

Her cell phone vibrated again and Samiah remembered the text she’d missed while in the middle of the presentation. She took out the phone and saw a text from London with a link to a gossip site.

She groaned as a still shot of her pointing a menacing finger at Craig Walter’s face anchored a headline that caused her eyes to bulge.

“Oh. My. God.”

There were two knocks on her door before it opened.

“Hey, are you ready?” Daniel asked, poking his head in her office.

Samiah held up her phone, a grin spreading across her face. “Craig is being sought by the police. He’s been scamming seniors out of their social security checks.”

“What?” Daniel sprinted to her desk, taking the phone from her. “Takes a special kind of asshole to steal money from elderly folks.”

“The same kind of asshole who dates multiple women at the same time and makes a living out of lying,” Samiah said. She ejected her access card from her computer, slipped it in her purse, and locked up her desk. “But the authorities are on his tail now, so Craig’s cheating and scamming days are numbered. Let’s go to lunch. Today calls for celebratory tres leches from that cute cantina on Brazos.”

Daniel swept his hand out. “After you.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four

Daniel burrowed his chin deeper into his jacket collar, bracing himself against the brisk wind blowing in from the northwest. The atypically strong, early-season cold front that crawled across the area overnight was the talk at the gas station, Laundromat, and coffee shop he’d visited this morning. Still-green leaves and thick acorns that had been ripped away from nearby bur oaks tumbled along the cracked asphalt.