From Ashes of Scandal to His Embrace novel Chapter 69

Laurinda listened quietly while the officer finished the briefing. She took her time, eyes roaming over every clue, until something caught her attention—a string of numbers that most people would have missed.

“Can I get the computer?” she asked.

One of the techs, a woman, handed over a laptop right away and slid over to give Laurinda some room.

Laurinda booted it up, opened the editor, and typed in a command. Code filled the screen in a rush. She entered the numbers, hit enter, and watched as the monitor went black for a second. Then, a 3D map popped up, crisscrossed with red lines, all leading to a single glowing dot.

“That’s where the three officers are,” Laurinda announced.

Everyone in CID lit up with excitement. In a heartbeat, a bunch of them rushed out, eager to find their missing teammates and—maybe just as much—to see if Laurinda could really pull this off. They had searched for a whole day and night without any luck. Laurinda did what they couldn’t in less than twenty minutes.

Soon, the meeting room was almost empty, just Laurinda and the technician who’d given her the laptop left behind.

The technician smiled at her, kind and a little apologetic. “We just need you to wait a bit longer, until we're sure they’re found. Thanks for being patient.”

“No worries, I get it,” Laurinda said with a small shake of her head.

Her eyes drifted to the corner of the tech’s screen, where an icon blinked in a way that set off alarm bells in her mind. Laurinda sat down, tapped out a few lines of code, and just as she thought—the CID network was under attack.

She turned to the technician. “Hey, if it’s okay with you, I can help upgrade your firewall.”

The technician’s eyes went wide. This was basically her dream come true. She’d wanted to reinforce the firewall for ages, but their system was so specialized that nobody on staff could handle a real upgrade.

“That would be amazing. Thank you,” she said, practically glowing.

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