Maggie K. Black - Christmas Witness Protection

He went back to typing.

Holly opened her eyes and sat up, as if a new thought had suddenly hit her. She looked at Noah. “Seth just said they’d be looking for Hildegard Asher. Which makes sense, since only my closest friends call me Holly. So, why did you?”

Noah gestured to Seth. “He told me to.”

“So, it’s out there online?” she asked.

“Nope.” Seth flashed a grin at her over his shoulder. “Fellow army brat. We went to the same school for a year, even though we weren’t in the same grade and didn’t have any classes together. My brain’s always had a pretty big hard drive and the fact that I heard your birthday was on Christmas made you interesting. We’ve just got to hope that the Imposters are stopped before they dig too deep.”

Holly lay back and closed her eyes again. Seth kept typing. Noah’s phone began to ring again. It was Anne, and this was the third time she’d tried to reach him. He whispered a prayer under his breath and answered.

“Hey, Anne,” he said. “What’s up? Is everything okay?”

“Noah, hi!” The doctor’s voice was anxious, but not panicked. “Do you have a minute? I just wanted to talk to you about Caleb and the gym.”

That would be Bros Gym, the business he’d invested his entire inheritance and savings in, alongside the money his parents had generously left Caleb in their will, only to watch his foster brother run it into the ground. And why Noah applying for higher level security clearance would mean investigators poking around all the ins and outs of Caleb’s gambling addiction, bad decisions and wreck of a life.

“I’ve found a buyer,” Anne continued. “I can’t take living in limbo any longer. Caleb’s never here anymore. He doesn’t want anything to do with the gym. And our son, Drew, has been accepted to a really prestigious film school program for creature design and special effects, and could use the money from the sale.”

Yeah, and untangling his finances from Caleb would get rid of the only impediment to Noah getting a higher security clearance. But it wasn’t that simple. It would also mean Caleb getting a sudden windfall of money, thanks to the fact that the inheritance Noah’s parents had left Caleb had made up Caleb’s share of the investment. And Anne, of all people, knew why that was a very bad idea.

“Hey, Noah?” Seth’s voice floated at the edge of his consciousness.

Noah held up a finger. “Just one second.”

“It’s important,” Seth said.

Yes, but so was talking to Anne.

“Just give me one moment.”

“No!” Seth’s voice rose. “Now.”

Noah glanced at him. The hacker’s face was as gray as the slush outside.

“Sorry, Anne, I’m just in the middle of something,” Noah said quickly. “I’ll have to call you back.” He hung up. “What is it?”

“I figured out what the Imposters were after,” Seth said. “Elias’s laptop and phone. Somehow they used them to bypass encryption and hack into the RCMP witness protection system’s database. My guess is they targeted him because he was the oldest active cop in the program. They might’ve thought his device would be easiest to hack.”

But why hack the witness protection database? The sweeping pile of data was filled with information about the names, locations and identities of hundreds of vulnerable whistle-blowers, witnesses and victims whom the RCMP had hidden and protected over the years.

Noah took three steps toward him, feeling dread drag on him with every one. “Whose secret identity and location were they after?”

“Everyone’s,” Seth said. “Absolutely everyone. They’re putting them up for sale on the dark web. On Christmas Eve, the name, identity and location of everyone in the RCMP witness protection database will be auctioned off online to the highest bidder. We’ve got six days to stop these criminals, or hundreds of witnesses could die.”

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