Perpetua was harder, because Perpetua was better.

She had used Sennett as insulation precisely so that the trail would stop at him, and for a while it looked as though it might.

But Corinne’s forensic accounting was built for exactly this, and it did not stop where Perpetua wanted it to.

The shell structures moved larger sums than Sennett had ever controlled, and they led — through enough layers to fool a casual audit, but not a determined one — back to her.

When the FBI understood what they were looking at, Perpetua’s cold competence became the thing that damned her: it was too sophisticated to be anyone but the operator.

She ran, briefly.