Avery refreshed every news site in the world, again and again, waiting for the photo.
*The Halden Wire.* Refresh. The business papers. Refresh. The gossip accounts, the celebrity blogs, the anonymous forums where people still argued about whether he was three accountants in a trench coat. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.
Nothing.
He sat at his desk on Floor 88 with three screens open and his coffee going cold beside him, and the nothing went on and on, a long white silence that felt worse than any headline.
Somewhere out there was a photograph of him and Alina walking out of a forest at dawn. Barefoot. Wrapped in jackets. Her hair full of pine needles. His hand in hers.
And whoever had taken it was sitting on it.
*Waiting,* Nimor said quietly. *She's waiting. Like a cat with a mouse under
