22
HALLIE
Nearly two months later…
There was frost on the ground when I landed in Oregon on a crisp January morning.
After the Thanksgiving turkey debacle, Christmas had been a comparatively subdued affair with only eleven Christmas trees at Riverley—I’d counted—and a minor incident when the power to the ice-skating rink failed and we ended up with a very shallow swimming pool instead.
Plus Emmy had found the time to hunt stolen antiquities in Egypt, but that was a whole other story. Sometimes, I thought she was a cyborg. She never stopped. Throughout December, the cyber team had also been working overtime, including tiptoeing their way carefully through the security loopholes of various hospitals and other related organisations while chomping on sugar cookies and nibbling mince pies.
