"What's going on?" I ask Martina. She looks absolutely distraught. "Is someone hurt? Did something happen to my grandmother?"

Her panic is contagious.

"No, no, nothing like that." She takes a deep breath, seems to calm herself. "Hadley, all your files on the art gallery work you've been doing for Max are gone."

I stare at her, not comprehending.

"What do you mean, gone? I don't even have hard copies of most of -"

"No, not paper files," she says, interrupting as she paces in my office. "The computer files on the firm shared directory. Everything is just deleted. IT is working now to try to recover it, but apparently whoever did it knew exactly what they were doing."

"I don't understand. This must be s some kind of a glitch," I say, even as my mind screams Dylan. "Are any other files missing for anyone else? What about all my criminal cases?"

"Hang on." Martina goes out to her desk to retrieve her laptop, and brings it in, sitting on the edge of one of my visitors' chairs with the laptop on my desk, and me looking over her shoulder. "Let me check."

She starts clicking on different client files, opening. "It looks like it's all . . . wait a minute." She has the Delroy file up on the screen. "Didn't you have a hearing last week in this case?"

"Yes, we entered into a plea deal."

"That's what I thought, but I don't see the copy of the order here." She opens another matter, scrolls through. "And here, your notes are missing from the stand your ground hearing you had last week on that domestic violence case. You know, the one where the guy tried to run down his son-in-law on his riding lawn mower."

"This is weird." I go around my desk and open my own laptop and look at other files. All the client folders are still there - with the exception of the art gallery ones that are just completely gone - but nothing I've done in the past week is in any of those files.

I look up at Martina. "Why? I can't figure out why anyone would do this? I mean, anyone would have to know that the documents for the art gallery would have been emailed back and forth so these weren't the only copies. Plus, IT can probably recover the data. And deleting everything I saved to any of the files for the past week? Also easy to recreate from the court records, and my own notes. What's the point?"

"I know," Martina says, "Unless the point is just to upset you. Like a prank."

"Hacking into a law firm's files is more than just a prank. It's a crime. Confidential client information could've been compromised."

"What are we going to do?"

"Just wait for IT to report back, I guess. Meanwhile I need to discuss it with my grandfather, just to let him know about the security risk. IT probably alerted him already."

"You know who I think it is," Martina says.

"Dylan? Yeah, that was my first thought."

"Well, he's the one we caught snooping around in your office that time. But I can't figure out why he would do this. What point would there be in deleting files?"

"I know. If it was just someone hacking in to copy files, I'd suspect the FBI."

Martina's eyes widen. "Are they allowed to do that?"

"Not without a warrant, and it's almost impossible to get a warrant to monitor a lawyer's files because of attorney-client confidentiality. But that guy, Agent Williams, seems to have a vendetta against Max's whole family. I wouldn't put it past him to do some illegal surveillance and just not use it in any prosecution."

"What good would that do?"

"If he found something, then he could try to uncover it by legitimate means. He'd know what he was looking for and just have to figure out another way to get it."

Martina frowns. "But there'd be no reason for the FBI to erase your files. That's just alerting you that someone has been hacking your files. Why do that?"

"Exactly. Unless the whole point is for someone to make me feel threatened. Vulnerable. To think not even my legal files are safe, despite all the IT security measures we have here."

"You think someone would go to all this trouble just to scare you?"

"I have no idea. But it's the only explanation that even kind of makes sense."

"Maybe it's not Dylan or the FBI. But then who?"

I shrug. "It could be someone who knows about Max doing business with Gino, and is trying to interfere with that. I really don't know." And I guess I'm going to have to talk to Max about this. After all, he is the client whose files have been tampered with.

"It seems like every time I think I won't be seeing Max anymore, something throws us back together." I realize I just spoke this thought out loud.

Martina is smiling at me.

"Did you ever think maybe it's just the universe telling you that you and Max belong together?"

I just shake my head, then pick up my phone and call my grandfather's extension.

"Hadley? I was just about to ask you to come see me. I have IT here in my office."

"I'll be right there."

* * *

My grandfather and a guy named Steve, the head of IT, both look up as I enter.

"Hadley," Andrew says, "good. You know about this?"

"Martina just filled me in." I glance over at Steve. "How could this happen?"

"Someone has either got some very high-level skills, or inside knowledge of our IT system. Possibly both."

"Before Hadley came in," my grandfather says, "I was asking whether you've had any luck tracing it."

"Yes and no."

"What does that mean?" I ask.

"You need to give me your laptop," Steve says. "Someone either did this on your laptop, or went through your laptop, accessing it remotely."

"I keep my laptop locked up if it's not with me."

My grandfather looks up in surprise. "You mean you lock your office door?"

"That, plus I put it in a locked drawer in my desk."

He looks like he wants to ask me why the extra security, then apparently decides to wait until Steve is not here. He's probably thinking that I do it to protect information about Max, which isn't completely wrong. But it's not the reason I started being extra careful.

"It's possible that someone got physical access to your laptop and downloaded a program that lets them access it remotely."

"Wouldn't our security protocols have caught it?" Andrew asks.

"It should have, and that really concerns me. That's also why I'm leaning toward someone physically accessing your laptop and installing a program."

And my mind goes immediately to Dylan, and the day Martina and I surprised him in my office.

"Can you think of anyone who could've had access?" Steve asks me.

I shake my head slowly. "Not off-hand, but I'll give it serious thought. And I'll be extra vigilant." I can sense my grandfather studying me, and wonder if he suspects I know more than I'm saying.

"Were any other files deleted besides mine?" I ask Steve.

"No. It seems like this was targeted specifically at you." He turns back toward my grandfather. "I'll head down to Hadley's office right now and pick up her laptop from Martina. I'll let you both know what I find. And meanwhile," he says to me, "I'll have one of my team drop off another laptop you can use while we're going over yours."

He frowns. "Did you notice anything unusual with your laptop recently?"

"Like what?"

"Like operating slower, or unusual pop-ups on the screen?"

I shake my head. "No. Everything seemed normal."

Steve nods. "Ok then. If there's nothing else, I'll get moving on this."

"Thank you, Steve," Andrew says. "Please keep us updated."

As soon as he leaves, closing the door behind him, my grandfather turns to me.

"What aren't you telling me, Hadley?"

I sigh, and sit down in the visitor's chair across from him.

"I think I know who did this, but I didn't want to make an accusation in front of Steve."

"Who is it? Someone in the firm?"

"Dylan Barclay."

"Dylan? Why would he be deleting your files?"

"I'm not sure," I say honestly. Then I tell him about the time Martina and I doubled back before going to lunch and caught him in my office, at my desk, with my computer open.

My grandfather's eyes flash with anger and I have a glimpse of what he's like in the courtroom or at the negotiating table.

"Let's get him in here right now and get to the bottom of this," he says, reaching for his phone.

"No, I don't want to do that."

"Why not? I've found that the best approach is to confront someone directly."

"He's just going to give the same lame explanation he did for being in my office, and there's no way to prove it's not true. Plus, I just found out today that he's been spreading some nasty rumors around the firm about me, and he's been telling people that I didn't want you to hire him in the first place - which is true, I didn't - and that I've been trying to get him fired ever since. If we confront him with this allegation, it will just play right into his narrative."

My grandfather frowns. "What you've told me is enough for me to just call him in here and fire him."

"He'll just make up a sad story about how he's being victimized. Do you know he's been telling people in the firm that I have it in for him because I tried to pick him up in a club and I'm mad he wasn't interested? When he was the one who hit on me and was so persistent security got involved."

The crease in my grandfather's forehead deepens. "I'm sorry, Hadley. I should have taken your advice and not hired him in the first place. It wasn't too late to stop the process."

"You didn't really know me then."

"That's true. But I should have taken your concerns more seriously. Lesson learned."

I appreciate him saying this. I know it takes a lot for this proud man to admit when he was wrong. But what's done is done, and we just have to move forward.

"So what do we do now?" I ask him.

"We keep a close eye on Dylan Barclay, that's what we do. People like that usually trip themselves up if you give them enough rope."

There's a light tap on the door.

"Yes? Come in," Andrew says.

The door opens and Martina steps in, closing it behind her.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Reese, Had-Ms. Jones."

My grandfather sighs. "You can call her Hadley, Martina, here in the office. Just not in front of clients. I know the two of you are friends."

I make a note to myself to talk to my grandfather about abolishing the outdated rule that has the staff addressing the lawyers so formally. Back when I was with the PD's office, everyone was on a first name basis. But we have more pressing things to discuss now, judging from the look on Martina's face.

"What is it Martina?" I ask her. "What's wrong?"