Anna climbed out of Derik's car and stood next to me in his driveway. The California heat clung to us with the help of the sun's relentless rays as we stared up at the vaguely familiar two-story, Spanish colonial. The only difference now was that this was our new home.

I looked at Anna who seemed unsure. I took her hand.

"Hey, look on the bright side..." I said. "You get your own bedroom."

She wanted to be happy but her eleven-year-old mind was confused. She had been for a while, and now that mom was off at rehab, it was just her and I.

I led her into the house and up the stairs where the two extra bedrooms were. She followed tentatively.

Her room was basically empty. A bed with a plain white comforter and sheets stood in the middle, two very boring looking lamps on each bed-side table and a dresser on the far wall.

"Like a blank canvas," I encouraged. "You can do whatever you want."

We stepped inside and set our bags down. I watched her pace over to her bed and run her hand along the comforter. Then she looked back at me.

"What about mom?" she wondered. "When she comes back?"

"We'll figure it out," I reassured.

Honestly, I hadn't had the chance to think that far ahead.

She sat on the bed. Her tangled brown hair fell over her childish shoulders as her sad hazel eyes stared down at her pink converse, one of which was untied.

"What if you have to leave too?" Her voice was small and fragile. "Will I have to stay here alone?"

I rushed to kneel in front of my sister. Our gazes met.

"I'm not ever gonna leave you, Anna," I promised. "Never. You understand?"

Finally, a small smile broke through her pout.

"Okay," she whispered.

"Alexa?"

I snapped out of my memory and focused back on the road. The burning in my eyes clouded my sight, but I blinked away the haze. Now wasn't the time.

Melissa's hand slipped into my free one that sat on the center console.

"You okay?" she asked.

She was worried about me losing focus before we stepped into the NIA building. I couldn't blame her. We were about to break the law. Again. I needed a level head when the time came.

"Yeah," I lied. "Just thinking."

It was such a generic response, but by now Melissa was used to it. Her hand squeezed mine as I felt the guilt choke me.

I parked down the street where one of the streetlights were out and exited the safety of the car. The dark colored Hyundai Derik had given me was hidden well in the night. We paced quickly down the street and towards the employee entrance.

Melissa cut down the dark alley and jogged up the stairs. I followed silently.

She swiped the card in front of the censor and the bright red light turned green. A quiet click indicated we were free to enter.

It was a ghost town. Silent and serene. It was creepy how quiet it was, but that meant we were alone. At least for now.

"We'll go to Anna's case room first," Melissa said once we were in the elevator. "We'll get what we need from there, then look for the external-drive."

"You think that key card can get us into any office?" I wondered.

"It should."

The elevator doors opened to a floor I hadn't had the chance to tour as Melissa led the way. We stepped cautiously through the halls, making sure if someone was here, we wouldn't be seen. I was sure it wasn't uncommon for agents to stay late working on cases, so we had to be careful.

Then we were staring at a door. There was a label that read: Anna Cortez: Kidnapping - Ongoing, which indicated we had arrived at our first destination.

Melissa swiped the key card and opened the door.

I don't know what I had expected, but it surely wasn't this. There was a board, just like mine I had back at Melissa's, except this one was much, much bigger. There was paperwork scattered all over the giant table, showing me that they were, in fact, looking for my sister. But they wouldn't find her unless Paige wanted her to be found.

Melissa must've noticed I was distracted, so she searched for my long-lost cellphone. I, on the other hand, couldn't stop staring at the picture of my sister on the motivation board.

Words like Revenge and Vengeance stuck out as I traced the red yarn with one of my fingers. They certainly got that part right.

Then I saw a picture of a face I hadn't seen since the job in Pasadena.

Dave Stanley. The whole reason Paige had apparently wanted to kill me in the first place. And his arrest probably had a hand in the kidnapping of my sister.

According to the information here, Dave was serving his sentence over at the Avenal State Prison, which was about three hours north of here. I wondered if it would be appropriate to pay him a visit. Maybe he could tell me why his daughter was insane.

"Alexa," Melissa said.

I pulled my gaze off the board and walked over to her. She had found my cellphone, but my eyes caught something else.

Anna's jacket. The one with the ripped right arm. I could feel the bile rise up my throat at the sight. My hand glided over the plastic bag before I removed it completely.

I could hear Melissa putting the cellphone in the bag she had brought, but my eyes were trained on the red jacket. I couldn't stop myself from holding it to my chest.

It still smelled like her.

My fingers traced over the rip in the fabric as I tried not to visualize what had gone down in the parking lot of that grocery store.

Had Anna reached into the truck, only to have her arm yanked like she was nothing but a rag doll? Had Paige threatened her with a gun? Told her she would shoot her dead if she yelled? What had Anna felt in that moment? She had to have felt alone. Scared. Absolutely terrified.

And I wasn't there for her when she needed me most.

I shoved the jacket back into the plastic evidence bag before I locked eyes with Melissa.

"Let's go find this external-drive."

She just nodded before leading me out of Anna's case room.

"There's an evidence room that it should be in," Melissa stated. "We could check there first."

"And if it's not there?" I asked.

She scanned the card. "Then we check Agent McLaren's office."

This room was much different than the room Anna's case was in. It was organized and everything seemed to have a place. The thought of how much important evidence could be in here wowed me.

As we quietly searched for whatever the hell Alvin needed from us, I couldn't help but wonder what this thing even looked like.

"Do you know what we should be looking for?" I asked Melissa.

She opened a drawer. "If Agent McLaren had any evidence to process, it would be in here."

I stood next to her and watched as she rummaged through the deep drawer. There were documents, but no drive. My brow furrowed in confusion.

I looked at her. "Are you sure it was McLaren?"

"Yes," she answered. "But it should be here, and it's not."

She closed the drawer and started pacing to the door to leave. I followed her in a state of confusion.

"We have to find that drive or Al won't help with my cellphone," I protested.

"I know." She led me to the elevator. "Agent McLaren's office is on the floor above us. Maybe he's keeping it in there."

"Why wouldn't he keep it in the designated room?" I wondered.

"Maybe he's keeping it off the books," she suggested. "Maybe he's a double agent. At this point, who knows?"

I tilted my head in thought. Now that was a thought.

We made it to his office and Melissa wasted no time scanning Chapman's card, granting us access.

I opened a file cabinet. "How do you think he knew about the drive in the first place?"

"The people from the GIB weren't the only ones looking for Victoria," Melissa said. "Everyone here was too..." Then she mumbled a small "ah-ha" as she tugged on a locked desk drawer. "McLaren could've acted on a hunch. Maybe he had followed Derik to Victoria's and caught a glimpse of her. Maybe the only way to prove that it was Victoria was to steal and open up this drive."

Melissa worked her magic on his desk drawer and opened it up. She moved more paperwork and manila folders, which revealed a bulky piece of equipment underneath. This had to be it.

She picked it up. "What I'm wondering is, why didn't McLaren tell anyone about this drive he confiscated and how did he get a warrant to confiscate it without a judge's consent?"

"You think he lied about having a warrant?" I asked.

"Definitely." Melissa shoved the external-drive into her bag. "I never liked him, anyway. He always gave me weird vibes."

I stood as she closed his desk drawer and made sure everything looked untouched. It wouldn't take McLaren and whoever else we had stolen from to realize someone had been in here. But hopefully by the time they did notice, Melissa and I would be far away from Los Angeles.

We made it to our last destination, which was Chapman's floor. The elevator doors opened and we paced up to the office. Once we returned the key card and left the decoded message, we could get the hell out of here. For good, this time.

Melissa opened the door and searched for the light on the wall. I stepped into the room and waited.

But when she flipped on the light, Chapman was already there, sitting at his desk.

"Jesus Chapman!" I hissed as I clutched my chest.

He eyed me. "You two are so lucky that I'm the Director now and not Fallon. She would have your heads after all the shit you've pulled."

Melissa stood on my right as I tried not to panic that Chapman had caught us. Was he going to take back everything we had stolen? Did he even know we had stolen anything? It was possible he didn't...

"How'd you know it was us?" Melissa asked.

"Well, when my key card went missing after the Oscar-worthy show Alexa put on earlier today, I put two and two together." He stood from his desk. "Figured you were gonna use it to snoop around afterhours, so I came here to wait."

We were silent.

"So," he sneered. "Did you at least find what you were looking for?"

Melissa gave me a side-glance.

"No," I lied. "But we have something for you."

I reached into the bag on Melissa's back and pulled out the decoded message and set it on his desk.

"This was sent to my computer after I got home," I claimed. "It's from Victoria."

He looked up. "Victoria sent you this?"

"I'm almost one-hundred percent positive." I pointed to the word Victress. "That's Victoria's hacker name."

"And you know this how?"

Shit. Don't tell him about Alvin...

"I just do."

"You just do?"

I nodded stiffly.

He didn't seem convinced.

"I mean, do you have anything else to go off of?" I jabbed. "From what I've heard, you haven't found shit in months."

My language seemed to put him in his place. He clenched his jaw as he looked down at the message.

"Fine. We'll look into it." He stood from his chair. "Now give me my damn card back."

Melissa tossed his card onto the wooden desk.

"Don't bother coming in tomorrow," Chapman told Melissa. "You're done here."

Melissa didn't seem to care.

"And you..." Chapman looked at me. "I wanted you to prove to me that you could work with your head and not your heart, but you obviously can't."

I laughed. "That's because I have a heart, Chapman."

Then I turned to leave.

The fact that he had let us walk out proved he had no clue what we had done. Once he found out, shit would hit the fan. I knew it. I just didn't know what he would do about it. It's not like we stole anything that important, right?

"Well," Melissa said as we entered the elevator. "I'm actually relieved."

"You're relieved that you just got fired?"

She nodded. "It was a pain in the ass working for him."

"Really?"

"The only reason I was working for him was so I could keep tabs on Anna's case," she revealed. "I never really wanted to be an agent anyway."

Icouldn't help but laugh as we finally escaped the headquarters, and for whatseemed like the last time.