At 2:40 on a Thursday afternoon, I walked into my living room and found six toddlers asleep on colorful mats. None of them belonged to me. I only have one child, a fourteen-year-old daughter, and nobody in my family was supposed to be running a daycare.

At 4:15 PM, the living room was filled with the sounds of toddlers waking up and gathering their small backpacks. Kristen was at the front desk area, shuffling paper receipts.

Mark stepped into the room. "Kristen, can you help me in the basement for a second? The main water heater is leaking near the lower supply crates."

Kristen groaned. "Can't it wait? Parents are coming in fifteen minutes!"

"It's flooding near the extra diapers," Mark lied convincingly, pulling on an old pair of work gloves. "If the boxes get soaked, we lose five hundred dollars in inventory."

Kristen scowled, set her master laptop down on the counter, and followed Mark down the basement stairs.

The moment the basement door clicked shut, I moved.

I rushed to Kristen’s laptop. It was locked with a password. I pulled out a flash drive loaded with a password-bypass script I had downloaded during my lunch hour. I plugged it in. The progress bar crept forward: 20%... 50%... 80%...

Outside, tires crunching on gravel announced an early arrival. I glanced out the window. It was Vance’s black SUV. He was early.

"Come on..." I whispered, watching the laptop screen.

ACCESS GRANTED.

I instantly began transferring Kristen’s hidden directories—containing wire transfer logs, text messages with Vance, and blackmail dossiers on the city officials—onto my encrypted flash drive.

10 seconds left.

The front door unlocked. Vance walked in, carrying a leather briefcase.

I slammed the laptop lid down, grabbed my own tablet, and turned around just as Vance stepped into the foyer.

"Mrs. Mercer," Vance said, his eyes scanning the room. "Where is Kristen?"

"She’s in the basement with Mark, checking a pipe leak," I said smoothly, sliding the flash drive into my pocket.

Vance’s gaze fell on Kristen’s closed laptop. Then he looked at me. His eyes narrowed. He walked slowly toward the counter, reaching out his hand to touch the top of the laptop.

It was warm.

Vance’s face darkened instantly. "You were just on her computer."

"I was checking the client roster," I said, keeping my tone flat.

Vance reached into his jacket. But before he could pull anything out, the basement door burst open.

Mark stepped out, but he wasn't alone. He was holding Kristen by her arm, and Kristen was looking terrified.

"Nora!" Mark yelled. "She has a second ledger! She’s been double-crossing Vance and us! She was stealing half the cash before Vance even got his cut!"

Vance froze. He slowly turned his head to glare at Kristen. The fragile criminal alliance inside my house exploded in an instant.

"What did you say?" Vance whispered, his voice dangerously low.