Demonic Pornstar System novel Chapter 944

Chapter 944: Sniffing Around

Midnight passed over the compound without anyone noticing, and in the command tent beside the half-built main building, the counter-investigation stopped being an evening activity and became a night shift.

Nyx had the routing sheet spread under the lamp with her annotations spidering off every desk the order had crossed. It was the first federal document she had ever dissected in her life, a fact she was managing by treating it like a puzzle somebody had been rude enough to publish unsolved.

"Okay, professionals. Check my homework." She turned the sheet around and slid it across to Doug.

"Two people touched this who shouldn’t have. I think. A scheduling clerk who moved a six-week queue in one afternoon, and the review desk that waved it past without a single question. Everyone else just did their jobs. Right, or am I seeing ghosts?"

Doug read down her annotations once, then read them again, slower, which from him was applause.

"Right on both counts. The clerk earns a government salary, and the review desk belongs to a man four years from a government pension. Neither profile takes risk for free."

"So somebody paid retail~"

"Twenty bucks still says it’s the sperm donor," Luna offered from her cot, eyes closed, arms crossed like a mummy with opinions.

"That’s the part I can’t check." Nyx pulled the sheet back and tapped the shell company’s name.

"This thing that paid the clerk rents by the month. Single officer, no history, no other footprint anywhere. It reads disposable to me, but I’ve never bought one."

She looked over at the map table. "Shadow Mommy. Who rents something like this?"

"Someone cheap," Vespera said.

The word cheap, in her mouth, sounded like a sentence being passed.

Behind Nyx, Kira had quietly abandoned her own timeline dashboard and was reading over the pink head’s shoulder instead, mouthing timestamps as fast as they were being annotated.

"May I ask something, Miss Cosmos?" Doug’s tone stayed professional, and curiosity got into it anyway. "Where did you learn to read such things? This is trade work."

"Detective novels." Nyx didn’t look up from the sheet. "I read every one in the library growing up. Twice."

"Novels." Doug considered the routing sheet under her hand, buried in annotations. "I don’t recall the genre spending many pages on federal queue procedure."

"Sure it does. There’s always a Chapter where the boring paper comes out, the ledgers, the land registry, the shipping manifests, and the author knows you’ll skip it, so that’s where he hides the answer."

Doug grinned, wry, and went back to his tablet.

’So this is what being born talented looks like,’ he mused, and no resentment managed to find room in it.

He had spent his years mastering this trade one filing cabinet and one ruined weekend at a time, and the pink-haired girl across the table was strolling through the same country like a tourist who happened to speak the language.

"How long until the receipts talk?" Kaiden asked.

Nyx glanced at Doug first and collected a small nod from him before answering.

"Give me a day."

"A day is realistic, so long as we call in a few favors," Doug agreed. "Amateurs leave fingerprints on their fingerprints."

...

Twelve floors up in Skyline’s tower on the other side of the city, that same midnight found Mercer reading the same message for the fourth time, his tie coiled on the desk beside an empty glass.

’Report filed this evening. Zero actionable findings. Compound ruled compliant. Balance due regardless, per terms.’

Per terms. He mouthed the words and poured himself another finger of scotch, which had stopped tasting like anything two hours ago.

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