"Go ahead," DeRicci snapped. "But realize if you do, you"ll guarantee that your employees and your family will pay for your mistakes."

His chin wobbled and then the tears that had threatened became reality. He set the pistol down, and DeRicci grabbed it.

She had been playing a hunch, but it was a hunch based on countless arrests as a police officer. People who threatened suicide when they were about to be arrested were more afraid of the social consequences of that arrest than they were of going to prison.

He"d done something besides tamper with the information grids all over the dome. He"d done something that people would condemn him for, and he had probably done it for money.

She couldn"t wait to see those files.

She cuffed his hands behind his back and tossed him to another security officer.

"Get rid of this idiot," she said.

Then she turned to the computer screen before her. Even she could tell that the deletions had been extensive. All she could hope was that their techs could reconstruct the deleted information. She doubted that any of the employees outside knew what this idiot had done, or they would have been trying to cover up as well.

Her heart was pounding, but she felt better than she had in days.

She had an investigation to complete.

She had a bad guy in custody.

She had stopped a threat to the dome.

For once, she used every skill she had. And she"d stopped a problem before it threatened Armstrong or the United Domes.

Just as she"d been hired to do.

64.

The screens in front of Flint went dark.

"Dad!" Talia said. "I just lost everything."

Flint"s connection with Gramming disappeared. DeRicci must have gotten inside the building and found a way to shut down the deletions.

He hoped her techs weren"t good enough to trace this back to him.

"Dad!" Talia said again.

"It"s okay," he said. "I expected it. Don"t do anything."

Van Alen was still at the table. She watched with concern on her face.

Flint went through the back trace and deleted any evidence of the work he did to get to Gramming"s files. He did not delete the back trace, however. That would be suspicious. DeRicci knew he had figured out that Gramming had attacked Van Alen"s office. DeRicci would expect the back trace.

After a few minutes, he was through. He stood up. His back cracked.

"Well?" Van Alen asked. "Did you get the files?"

"I didn"t capture them," Flint said. "I had Talia run a standard deletion program for the moneyed accounts that Kinoy kept in his personal files. Then I got rid of all the names that he mentioned in the years we agreed on."

"If it"s standard, Dad," Talia said, "they can reconstruct it."

"No," he said. "That"s why I had you do it. I followed you in and cleaned up the remnants of the information. They won"t be able to find the information. They"ll just find that it existed once and got deleted."

"I hope you left enough to convict the b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Van Alen said. "Selling children."

"I did," Flint said. "The old accounts and the pending ones are still there."

He wiped a hand over his face. He hadn"t worked that hard on a computer program in years. "What about the kids?" Talia asked softly. "Are they going to be okay?"

He looked at his daughter. He could see more than concern on her face. She was afraid. "No one"ll find them," he said.

"I know," she said. "Is that going to be okay? I mean, did we make a mistake? Their parents paid for them."

Second thoughts were common after an operation of this size. He"d tell her that later, though. "It"s the best we could come up with on short notice," he said. "That"s all we can do." Van Alen was nodding. Talia sighed. Early lessons in adulthood. Flint hadn"t expected to do that. "What about-you know-the others?" Talia asked. "You saved that stuff, right?"

She was asking about the girls she called her sisters. The other clones of Emmeline. "No," he said. "I didn"t save anything."

Except their names. Kahlila El Alamen and Gita Havos. He had their names and their family"s names and where they were right now. And that information was in his memory, not in a network somewhere.

He would never forget any of that. He doubted Talia would, either. "What now?" Van Alen asked. "Do we find a new reporter?"

Flint shook his head. He was a little stunned that Van Alen could be so callous. Ki Bowles hadn"t even been dead for twelve hours. "I think Nyquist has a good case against Justinian Wagner, thanks to Talia, and I have a hunch all of this will be in the news-the phony adoptions and the embezzlement and the ties to Wagner. WSX as we know it is gone."

"Law firms don"t disappear," Van Alen said. "But they don"t recover from bad publicity, either. WSX won"t be the powerhouse that it once was," Flint said. "So we don"t need another reporter. I wouldn"t risk someone else"s life like that."

Including his own. And Talia"s. She was watching him. "What are we going to do, Dad?"

He walked over to her, took the notepad off her lap, and then helped her up. He put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.

"We shut down my office," he said. "And we find you a good school." "Dad," she said in a voice only a teenager could manage. "I mean you. What are you doing?"

"Nothing," he said. "I"m not taking new clients. I can"t handle the old ones right now. It"s too much of a risk."

Talia backed away from him and rolled her eyes. "Dad, you have to work. Besides, I can help now. You said I was good."

"You are," he said. And it frightened him. She was this good at thirteen. If he kept his office open, her whole life could be about illegal computer activity and the occasional encounter with someone dangerous. He didn"t want that for her.

He didn"t want it for either of them. "Tell you what," he said. "When you finish school, we"ll talk about opening the office again. If you"re interested then."

Talia frowned at him. "That"s five years from now." "Eight," he said. "College." "What if I don"t want to go to college?" she asked. He shrugged. "We"ll talk about it." She frowned at him. "You should work. You like being a Retrieval Artist."

He did. But he hadn"t done much of it in recent years. And it was better if he started anew. His office was too tainted with Paloma"s methods, Paloma"s systems.

He needed to clear his head.

He needed to see what other choices he had.

"I"ll be fine," he said.

"Dad," Talia said.

"You"re not going to settle it now," Van Alen said. "This whole case was a mistake. We have funerals to attend and lawsuits to file. We have some rea.s.sessing to do. All of us."

She looked pointedly at Flint.

He nodded. He found himself wondering whether Ki Bowles had anyone in Armstrong who was a close enough friend to plan a funeral for her.

He doubted it. He hadn"t found any connection like that in all the research he"d done today. Which meant he and Van Alen would have to do it. Two people who had worked with Bowles, and hadn"t really liked her.

Hadn"t liked her at all.

And if he had continued on the same path, working alone, alienating his friends, he would have ended up just like Bowles.

Instead, he had Talia. And Van Alen. And DeRicci. Not to mention Nyquist, who was probably wondering how Flint had found this stuff-and how to make Flint admit what he knew in a court of law. Too many connections, Paloma would have said.

But Paloma had been murdered by her own son. Her other son had claimed she hadn"t spent any time with them. She"d abandoned them.

She hadn"t loved them enough.

Flint wouldn"t make that mistake with Talia. She hadn"t had a father for the first thirteen years of her life. She would have one now.

"Dad," Talia said, "if you"re not working, we have time to find a better apartment."

He looked at her.

"One with, you know, a shower like the one in here."

He raised his eyebrows. He didn"t remember the shower here, although he remembered how luxurious the bathroom was.

"Are you gonna run away again?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I didn"t know the problems I"d cause for the other families." "What about me?" he asked. She frowned. "What about the problems you would have caused for me?"

"I wouldn"t cause problems for you," she said. "You could go back to your old life instead of give it up for me."

His breath caught. Was that what she thought? That he regretted finding her? "What if I want to give up my old life?"

She stared at him. "You don"t."

"If you"d asked me all those years ago, when Emmeline died and your mom left, if I wanted to be a successful businessman or if I wanted my family back, I would have asked for my family, every single time."

"But Mom"s dead, and I"m not Emmeline." "I know," he said. "But you"re my daughter. And you have no idea how lucky that makes me." Talia was frowning. Flint clapped his daughter on her back. "Come on," he said. "Let"s go to that apartment you don"t like and forget about all this." Talia looked at Van Alen, then at the notebook Flint had placed on the chair. "I"m not going to forget," Talia said. "I know," Flint said softly. He wouldn"t forget, either. Not now. Not ever.