“Okay, I’ve got to get going. I’m due for a consultation in the south end of the county in—” Mia checked her watch. “—forty-five minutes, and I still need to swing by the office to print off extra copies of the elevations.”
“Date night tonight,” Brax declared. “Maybe a movie. I don’t even know what’s playing. Or Brandon was telling me about the live music at Jam Night, up at the… what’d he call it? Old Mill?”
“That would be the Old Mill that’s now the new Stone County Artisan Guild and Education Center. Which everybody still calls the Old Mill because that’s what we renovated,” Mia explained. “Welcome to the South. Anyway, that sounds awesome, but I don’t know what time I’ll be through.”
“Dinner then, if nothing else. We can do that whenever. Let me know when you think you’ll wrap, and I can come pick you up.”
Mia’s eyes sparkled as she grinned up at him. “What a novel concept.”
She’d been so delighted by his efforts to date her over the past couple of weeks, Brax regretted not finding more ways to do it when they’d first been married, even with their limited budget. He vowed to do things differently this time, now that the lion’s share of their focus wasn’t on meeting their basic needs.
“I can still surprise you.”
“That you can.” She rose to her toes, brushing her lips against his in a kiss that had her crew ooooing like the middle school girls she’d accused them of being. And Brax counted that as yet another step toward her being comfortable being a them again. Everybody knew they were together, and she wasn’t trying to hide it anymore. If they were all curious about the plans for their divorce, nobody was brave enough to bring it up directly.
Rolling her eyes, she cheerfully flipped the crew off. “Get back to work, you ingrates!” But she was smiling. “See you tonight.” She blew Brax one more kiss and headed for her truck.
He was still grinning when he turned to catch Luca’s familiar glower. Not prepared for the other man to ruin his good mood, Brax opted to handle him point blank. “You got something you want to say?”
“I’ve got plenty. But out of respect for Mia, I’m keeping it to myself.”
“Alright then.” Leaving it at that, Brax got back to work himself.
Most of the crew was working outside today, attaching the furring strips to the cinder block walls in preparation for putting up the Hardie board siding. The new roofline was framed, and once the wrap-around porch was framed in, they’d put on a tin roof. He and the guys were still debating paint colors for the exterior, but it was gratifying to see the building really changing and becoming something new.
Brax headed to what would be their new, expanded kitchen. He’d gotten a line on some used commercial ovens down in Nashville, and he needed to do some measuring to see where they’d fit. Some elements of the kitchen, like the prep sinks, simply were where they were. It hadn’t been worth the additional expense to reroute the plumbing. But electrical was easier, and he’d volunteered to work up some prospective layouts for them all to go over later.
If he’d thought about it ahead of time, he could’ve gotten Mia’s drawings that already had the dimensions of everything. But he also knew the measurements on the blueprints didn’t always exactly match reality, so he set about drawing out the kitchen himself. In the end, they’d rejected the idea of a fully open concept, as none of them had been too keen on being stared at like animals in a zoo while they worked. But they’d also recognized the need to be able to monitor the front if any of them were here working alone, so they’d gone with a large pass-thru with a roll-down door. It hadn’t come in yet, but Brax kept it in mind as he considered placement of worktables, racks, and the other tools of their trade.
It was as he bent to measure the range they’d inherited that he caught sight of something that didn’t belong. A tiny black dot on the wall outlet where none should have been. If he hadn’t been looking closely, he might’ve assumed it was just a speck of dirt or paint. But it was too symmetrical. He bent lower, scanning the floor below, and found fine plastic shavings. As if someone had drilled a hole in the socket cover. Was that really what he thought it was?
Needing a second opinion, he kept his face neutral and headed outside. Jonah stood admiring the first couple of rows of siding that had been attached to the west wall.
“Gonna make a hell of a difference in how this place looks.” When Brax only grunted, Jonah arched his brows. “Something up?”
Brax kept his voice low. “I need you to go take a look at the power outlet beside the range in the kitchen. But don’t look like you’re looking at it. Pretend like you’re helping me measure.”
“Well, that’s cryptic.” But he did as asked.
They stretched out the tape measure, and Jonah hunkered down. Brax knew the moment he spotted the oddity and that he hadn’t been wrong about what it was.
Holt wandered in. “Is it that hard to decide where those ovens are gonna go?”
“Lots of things to consider,” Jonah said. Nothing in his tone would’ve alerted anyone who didn’t know him. “Like, should we move the range? We’d need to put in another 220 plug here. Take a look.”
Brax saw Holt’s posture shift as he recognized something was going on. He crossed over, examined the wall. Stood up. “You two wanna skip out to go get some lunch? I’m starved. We can discuss layouts over lunch.”
Jonah looked up from his phone, where he’d been simulating texting, while probably taking photos and video. “I could eat. Brax, you coming?”
With little fuss, they piled into Jonah’s truck. Via a series of hand signals, they agreed to keep quiet until they made it into town. The Tavern wasn’t likely to be bugged. Their vehicles might not be, either, but it was better to be safe than sorry until they could verify that fact.
Fifteen minutes later, they accepted menus from the busty blonde waitress who flirted with any and every guy under the age of forty. As soon as she walked away, Jonah kicked back.
“It’s a high-end wireless camera. Digital. Used to be you couldn’t get anything that small anywhere but black-market dealers, but these days there’s more and more available for regular consumers.”
“Which begs multiple questions.” Brax ticked them off. “Why the hell would someone be putting a camera in our building? For that matter, there has to be more than one. What the hell would anybody be able to see from that spot between the range and wall? Is it video only or audio, too?”
“We thought the break in was about casing the place prior to the supply theft. But maybe nothing was taken because something else was left behind,” Holt suggested.
Trish came back with their drinks. “What can I get you fine gentlemen?”
“Cheeseburgers all around. The works,” Jonah said.
“No lettuce on mine,” Brax added.
“Skipping out on your vegetables?” Holt asked.
“Salad does not belong on a burger.”
“You got it, boys.”
After she strolled away again, Holt leaned closer. “We going to bring Xander in on this?”
“That none of us have immediately suggested that we should probably says a lot.” Jonah sipped at his sweet tea. “Xander’s a good cop, and at the end of the day, we might end up taking it to him. But I feel like we need a bit more information first. Black market surveillance equipment isn’t exactly part of his usual wheelhouse.”
Holt stroked his beard. “Who the hell in Stone County would be into that kind of shit? And what could they possibly hope to gain by surveilling our renovation?”
Brax thought of what Mia had told him about her past. She’d said nothing had happened in the ten years since her father had been killed. But what if the people who’d done it had somehow found her here? The idea of it made his blood run cold. He’d just found her again. He sure as hell wasn’t going to lose her now.
“You think of something?” Jonah prompted.
“Maybe. Do either of you have any contacts you can get up with who might be able to trace the camera to a source? Either to see where the signal’s streaming to or where it might’ve come from?”
Holt nodded. “I know a guy. Cash Grantham. Old Army buddy. He’s in private security now, with a heavy interest in cyber security. If you’ll send me those photos and the video you took of it, I’ll pass it on to him, see if he can get started on it. He’ll probably be able to do more if we can actually get him the camera.”
“Then tonight, after the crew leaves, we go over the place with a fine-toothed comb.” If this did have something to do with Mia, he wanted to get to the bottom of it ASAP. “Pull out anything and everything we can find. It goes without saying, we tell the crew nothing.”
“We might want to pick up something to jam their signal, so they don’t immediately realize their setup has been compromised,” Holt considered. “I think I can borrow something from Ty.”
Jonah arched a brow. “He has a signal jammer?”
“His wife was the victim of a stalker, so he’s got a justified paranoia. He’d loan it to me without asking too many questions.”
“He’s a deputy. You think he’ll keep quiet about this?” Brax asked.
“Out of respect from one Ranger to another. Yeah.”
“Then make whatever calls need making. I want answers.”
Mia spent the day itching to be done with work. So, of course, the Universe laughed in her face. Her client meeting ran long, with every idea she presented being shot down, and entirely new requests being made that meant going back to the drawing board. From there, she got pulled in on a plumbing disaster on a residential job that required a quick change from her meeting attire into work clothes. Once that hemorrhage had been stopped, she’d gotten stuck on the phone arguing with one of their suppliers, who’d sold the custom-order tile she’d requested weeks ago to some yahoo who’d walked in off the street. She understood mistakes happened, but waiting on a new order was going to throw the entire job off by weeks, which put a monkey wrench in the schedule for all the other jobs they were juggling. By the time she’d finished with that, she really wasn’t in the mood for a date. At least, not one that didn’t involve a beer in the shower and a bottle of Excedrin. So, when Brax texted, asking if she could swing by the guys’ house instead of him picking her up, she figured it was just par for the course. There’d probably been some kind of problem on that job that they wanted to discuss with her directly, away from the crew.
Just perfect.
At least she’d been able to carve out time for that shower beer and a change of clothes first. She was prepared to get through this meeting and make a bid for takeout pizza at home. Then Brax opened the door, and she immediately understood that her night was about to get worse.
“What happened?” she demanded.
“Come on in. We’ll talk about it.”
Tension lodged between her shoulder blades as she followed him into the living room, where Holt and Jonah were huddled over something on the table.
“Please tell me there wasn’t another theft.” Surely not. No one had contacted her. And if something else had been stolen, surely they’d be asking her to meet at the site, not here.
“Not a theft.” Jonah straightened and gestured to the table.
Multiple outlet covers were piled in the center. Something small and black was attached to the back of each.
Mia frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“You should sit,” Brax urged.
She wanted to run and didn’t even know why. Their sober expressions were freaking her out. But she sat.
Jonah picked up one of the little black dots. “We found these hidden all over the building.”
Some inner instinct kept her from picking any of them up to examine. “What are they?”
“Surveillance equipment. Wireless cameras. Bugs,” Holt explained.
Blinking at him, she played the words over in her head but couldn’t make any sense of them. “What the hell? Like… spy shit?”
Holt nodded.
“Why would someone bug the building?”
Brax took her hand. “I think it might be because of you.”
Mia’s head spun as all the blood drained out of her face. Panic skated down her spine, both at the implication, and the fact that he’d just brought this up in front of his friends. Everything in her recoiled, shouting, Don’t tell! Don’t tell! Don’t tell!
She yanked her hand away. “You told them?”
He didn’t bat an eye at the accusation in her tone. “No. I was hoping you’d do that.”
That he hadn’t betrayed her trust mollified some of the outrage. But how could he ask this of her? Didn’t he understand what it meant for her to have told him after all this time? She was already shaking her head, curling in on herself at one end of the sofa.
Eyes impossibly gentle, Brax knelt in front of her. “Baby, I trust both of them with my life.”
Mia swallowed, willing her voice not to shake. “Do you trust them with mine?”
Holt stepped into her line of sight. “He’s ours, and you’re his, so that makes you ours, too.”
“And, for what it’s worth,” Jonah added, “we’ve all spent considerable time running covert operations, so we understand discretion and how to keep our mouths shut. Which is why we haven’t gone to the police.”
She pressed her lips together and surveyed the lot of them. Each looked steady and unruffled. Capable. And they wanted to help. If this really was about her, she couldn’t handle it by herself.
“You need to understand that what I’m about to tell you has colored almost my whole life. I’ve been alone with all of it since I was twelve years old, and continually had it pounded into my head that doing anything but keeping the secret put anyone who knew in danger. That included Brax until a few weeks ago. If I bring you in on this, I don’t know what it might mean for you.”
“With all due respect, we’re in a good position to take care of ourselves, and you, if it comes to any sort of threat,” Jonah promised.
“The potential risk is understood,” Holt added. “Please, go ahead.”
So, she told them. It was a little easier than it had been telling Brax. Not having her marriage on the line helped. By the time she’d finished, even the terminally unruffled Holt had gone brows up.
“Who did your dad work for?”
“I don’t know.”
“Your mom or the Marshal never said?” Jonah prompted.
“No. The less information I had, the better. You have to understand, I spent my life trained to hide. I’ve never even googled my real name or that of any of the family I remember, because somebody, somewhere, could have an alert set that could get triggered.”
Brax took her hand again, stroking his thumb over the knuckles. “What was your real name?”
She took a breath and let it out slowly. “Maria. Maria Isabella Ramirez.” The feel of it in her mouth, spoken like the melodic Spanish she’d been taught from birth, was strange after all these years. “My grandfather had had a stroke, and he couldn’t wrap his tongue around the whole thing. He was the one who called me Mia, so when I had to pick something new, I chose that.”
“Do you know why your dad wanted to see you?” Jonah asked. “What he wanted to tell you that day?”
“No. We were both shot almost immediately. It wasn’t like he’d passed me a jump drive or the key to a safe deposit box or something. As far as I knew, he just wanted to see me, not share some kind of secret.”
“We could maybe do a search on your dad. See what comes up around the shooting,” Holt mused. “We’ve got ways to circumvent any kind of alarms set around that.”
“Even if an alarm gets triggered, it seems the horse is already out of the barn, as it were, if someone’s already been here setting up surveillance,” Jonah said. “Somebody already knows you’re here.”
“The question is how? I’ve just been living my life since I got shot. It’s been ten years. If this is about me, why now?”
“Maybe when I called to check on our marital status in Washington, it triggered something. That’s the big thing that’s changed lately, right? I came back into your life.”
She thought back to the phone call. “It’s not the only thing that changed. Curt’s dead. Heart attack just before all this started.”
“You sure about that?” Jonah asked.
“It’s what I was told.” She relayed the rest of the brief conversation.
“That seems convenient, is all. He drops dead. You’re cut loose by someone you don’t know. And suddenly, after all this time, weird shit starts happening?”
“You’re suggesting someone took him out? To what end? I’m nobody. I wasn’t important enough to actually enroll in WITSEC. Curt stuck his neck out because I could’ve been used as leverage with my father. But my father’s been dead for a decade. Why would anyone bother with me?”
“Somebody who doesn’t like loose ends,” Holt mused. “If whoever did the drive-by that killed your dad was meant to kill you both, and you weren’t just collateral damage, then you represent a job unfinished.”
“Then why not just finish it?” she demanded. “They didn’t have any trouble just cutting me down before.”
Brax growled, hauling her against him. “I really wish you weren’t just casually talking about being shot again.”
“I’m not saying it to upset you. But there’s no dressing this up to be nicer.”
Jonah tapped his chin. “Eden’s Ridge isn’t the kind of place where a homicide would be easily covered up. We haven’t had a murder in Stone County in over forty years. Not since Wynette Burton found out her husband was cheating on her and shot him and his mistress in bed.”
“Jesus,” Brax muttered.
“My point,” Jonah continued, “is it would make all kinds of waves, and seems like these people—whoever they are—don’t want to do that.”
“I think you’re missing another possibility. The guy on the phone told her they considered the project closed. What if it’s somebody trying to clean up what they perceive as Curt Savage’s messes? If he was operating at the fringes of the rules, could be he pissed some people off. Maybe the surveillance is to see what she does on her own,” Brax suggested.
Holt folded his arms. “If that’s the case, chances are her house is also wired.”
“Oh my God.” Mia felt whatever blood had returned to her head drain out again.
“We’ll sweep it,” Brax promised. “Although I’d be willing to guess there’s nothing there, courtesy of Leno. You and I know he’s a teddy bear, but he’s an intimidating dog, and I don’t expect he’d just stand by while somebody went all through your house.”
A little of the anxiety faded. “That’s true. He’s not good with strangers unless I introduce them.”
“We’ll still sweep it,” he assured her. “Should probably do your office, too. As for the rest, we don’t know when they were planted.”
“Had to be after demolition. After the wiring was checked,” Mia said. “I don’t know where all you found them, but I went over the entire system with a fine-toothed comb. Nothing like this was there then.”
“After the theft,” Holt said. “We were all off site for nearly three days, waiting on more supplies. Plenty of time for somebody to come in and wire the place up.”
“So, the theft could’ve been a cover-up, rather than tied to the other supply thefts around the county.” Jonah nodded. “Gets everybody out of the way and casts suspicion elsewhere.”
“Who would’ve had access to plant all of them?” Brax asked. “Someone on the crew?”
“Why would someone on my crew plant surveillance on this job? They see me all the time, all over the place.”
“Well, we don’t know that it’s just this job,” Brax pointed out. “But for sake of argument, let’s assume it is. For the first few weeks, it’s where you were spending all your time.”
“Somebody new to the crew?” Jonah suggested.
“We don’t have anybody new to the crew.”
Brax fixed her with a look. “There’s Luca.”
Mia scowled at him. “Okay, now you’re just pissing me off.”
“Think about it. He got here just before this job started. He’s Italian.”
“Oh, for the love of—” She pinched the bridge of her nose and struggled not to throttle her husband. “You’re overlooking the very salient fact that we’ve been best friends for nearly ten years. Him being Italian does not automatically mean he has ties to organized crime. The mob did not plant him in my life for that long on some off chance that I knew something. Which I don’t. I know you two don’t like each other, but you’re both going to have to get the hell over it.”
“What does he know about your past?” Holt asked.
“Pieces. He knows I was shot. I was still healing when we met. But so far as he knows, I was just the victim of a random act of violence. Wrong place, wrong time. He doesn’t know anything about where I come from, who my father was, or who he might have been working for.”
“Okay, kids, let’s dial it back.” Jonah kicked back in his chair. “It’s safe to say, for now, that we really have no idea who might be behind this. It might or might not have something to do with Mia—although there are enough possibilities on that front that it seems a solid theory for consideration. We used a signal jammer while we were pulling everything out, but whoever did plant stuff is going to know it’s been found. Chances are, they’ll try something else. Until we know more, it seems sensible that Mia not be left alone.”
“I’ll be moving in.”
Mia opened her mouth to protest, but Brax just rolled on.
“I’m spending most nights there, anyway. I don’t think you want either of these two jokers as roommates. This makes the most sense.”
He wasn’t wrong. And it wasn’t as if she didn’t want Brax there. But she wished this was happening because it was the next logical step in rebuilding their marriage, not because it was a safety issue. Still, she wasn’t about to argue.
“I guess you’d better pack your stuff.”
“Jammer is live,” Holt confirmed. “Go ahead and unlock everything.”
Body tensed and ready for action, Brax waited, his favorite Glock 19 a familiar weight in his hand. Jonah and Holt, similarly armed, took flanking positions. Overkill? Maybe. But they’d decided it was better to be safe than sorry.
Mia shot an apprehensive look at the three of them before opening the door to the Mountainview Construction offices. The moment she turned off the alarm, Brax and his friends moved inside as a unit. It didn’t matter that they’d never run a military op together. They moved in sync, a different kind of team, as they cleared the building with silent efficiency.
“Clear.” Brax slid the Glock back into its holster and flipped on the lights for his first proper look at the office. The building wasn’t large. A couple of offices, a small conference room, a bathroom, kitchenette, and a little reception area. The whole thing was a quiet showplace of Mountainview’s capabilities, with framed elevations lining the walls, and an assortment of plants adding life to the place.
“You have warehouse space out back?” Jonah asked.
“Yes. We keep equipment, tools, and supplies out there. It’s fenced and has a separate alarm system.”
“We’ll check there once we’re done in here.”
“If you’ll point me to your computer, I’ll get my buddy started scoping for any sort of spyware on your network.” Holt paused, considering. “I should probably check Porter’s computer as well. Do you know his login?”
Mia scrubbed a hand down her face and shook her head.
“Eh, no big deal. Cash can crack it either way.”
He headed into the office she indicated, trailed by Jonah, who immediately started removing outlet covers in the search for more surveillance equipment.
Hating the strain he saw around Mia’s eyes and mouth, Brax crossed over. “Hey, how you holding up?”
She lifted her hands and dropped them again. “I don’t even know how to answer that question. The three of you just essentially tossed my house. I’m grateful you didn’t find anything, but this is all so overwhelming. I thought I was safe. I’ve been following the rules. And now…”
Unable to take the worry inspired by all the things she hadn’t said, he stepped close, wrapping around her, as much as a shield as for comfort. “You are safe. I’m not letting anybody get to you. Not again. Neither will Holt or Jonah. And we don’t know for sure that this is about you.” Not that they had any good alternative explanations, but it seemed worth mentioning, if only to put her more at ease.
“Actually…”
They turned to see Jonah, with the handset of one of the office phones opened up.
He plucked something out of the receiver. “Got another one.”
“Fuck,” Brax muttered.
The front door to the office opened. Without conscious thought, Brax pivoted to put himself between Mia and the threat and whipped out his Glock.
Porter stopped in the doorway, hands raised, eyes wide. “What the actual hell?”
He lowered his weapon immediately, sliding it back into its holster. “Sorry.”
“Jesus, Brax.” Mia scooted out from behind him. “Sorry, Porter.”
A muscle jumped in the other man’s jaw. “I’m going to assume you have an excellent reason for pointing a gun in the vicinity of my wife.”
Wincing, Brax lifted his empty hands in placation and shifted his gaze to Maggie. “Again, apologies. Truly. It’s been a tense few hours. We’re a little on edge.”
Porter’s gaze slid to Mia, then beyond them both to where Jonah and Holt were going through Mia’s office. Jonah had the grace to look sheepish at the partly disassembled phone in his hand, but he didn’t make any effort to explain. They all looked at Mia. This was her show. Her secret. Brax could see her weighing her options, struggling with the knowledge that there really was no way around bringing them into the circle.
At last, she blew out a shaky breath. “You may as well come in. This prospectively impacts you.”
The two of them stepped inside. Brax immediately locked the door to stop anyone else from strolling in.
Maggie laid a hand on Mia’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”
A humorless laugh escaped. “Oh, not even a little bit. What are you doing here, anyway?”
Porter closed ranks from the other side. “My phone gave the alert that the alarm had been disabled. We were on our way home from Jam Night, and I wanted to swing by to check on you. I know how you like to work when you can’t sleep. What the hell is going on?”
Brax liked seeing how they flanked her, making a protective unit. She’d made connections here. People who cared about her. People who looked out for her. It didn’t make up for all the years he hadn’t been there, but it made him feel a little better that she hadn’t been alone for all of it, and that there was someone other than Luca.
“Holt, is the jammer still up?” Mia called.
“Yup.”
“Brax, Jonah, can you clear the conference room?”
Jonah abandoned the phone. “On it.”
“Clear the conference room of what? What are they looking for?” Porter asked.
“Just… wait until they’re through.”
They made quick work of it, finding nothing in the outlets, behind the vents, beneath the conference table, or hidden in any of the myriad of plants. It was possible they missed something, without fully dumping the flora, but so far, none of the equipment had been that thoroughly hidden. Someone who’d known what they were doing had been in and out quickly.
“It’s clear.” Brax skimmed a hand down Mia’s arm to link his fingers with hers. “You want me in there for this?”
She nodded, and the four of them filed into the room, shutting the door while Holt and Jonah continued the search.
Maggie arched one cool blonde brow. “I’m guessing this has something to do with that thing you aren’t at liberty to discuss.”
“Yeah, well, it seems that thing is rearing up to bite me in the ass, so it’s time I let you in on some things.”
Mia held tight to his hand as she told the story again. Her words were halting, as if she had to force them out. She’d spent so long hiding, so long keeping the secret. Did this hurt? Or was there relief in finally bringing others into her confidence?
Her eyes glittered with unshed tears by the time she finished. “I’m sorry. If I’d had any idea this would follow me here, I never would’ve come. I’d never knowingly put anyone in danger.”
Maggie shoved up from her chair, circling the table to wrap Mia in a tight hug. “I know what it is to keep a secret from everyone you care about. I can’t imagine having to live with this one. Whatever happens, none of this is your fault.”
Mia hiccupped once and tucked her head against Maggie’s shoulder. “Thanks.”
Porter reached out to clasp her other hand. “I knew we were lucky with our foster situation. Anybody who spends any time in the system hears stories. I’m sorry y’all weren’t. And I’m sorry that whatever this is has encroached on what you’ve built here. What can we do to help?”
It wasn’t until he saw the stunned disbelief on her face that Brax realized she’d expected to lose everything. And hadn’t that been the case for her all along? She’d lost her mother, her name, her father, even him. Why wouldn’t she think the friends and the life she’d made here would be the next casualties?
Holt knocked on the door. “We’re finished.”
“What did you find?” Brax needed to know what they were up against, so they could figure out a plan of action and make Mia feel safe again.
Holt came in, taking one of the other chairs at the table. “Nothing to the extent we pulled out of the job site. Just the one bug in the phone and some spyware on the computers. Since this isn’t where you spend the lion’s share of your time, it makes sense they didn’t put too much effort in here.”
Jonah dropped into the last seat. “What all do you do from the computer here?”
Mia considered the question. “Um, work schedules. Budgets. Email. Contracts. Invoicing. All the stuff we need to run the business.”
“Do you handle any personal correspondence from either of these computers?”
Mia shook her head. “No. I mean, who the hell would I correspond with? I’ve isolated myself most of my life, and the few people I keep up with, I’d just call or text.”
Brax squeezed her hand. “Whoever planted this wouldn’t know that, though. Do either of you remember noticing anything out of the ordinary around here? The alarm being off, or something not being locked when it should’ve been?”
Porter straightened. “Yeah. I came in a few weeks back and found the door unlocked and the alarm not set. But it was right after Brax showed up. You kinda had a lot going on, so I just thought it had slipped your mind. I didn’t think anything about it because nothing looked disturbed.”
Maggie crossed her legs. “Y’all have removed surveillance equipment here and at the job site. Presumably, whoever put it there will want to know what happened and might go check on it. Shouldn’t we notify the police so someone’s watching the place?”
“We put our own surveillance on the bakery,” Jonah explained. “Anybody comes out since we left today, we’ll know about it. But we probably should loop Xander in on all this.”
Mia whimpered and dropped her head to the table. This whole thing had to be like emotionally going ten rounds with Mike Tyson.
Brax laid a hand on her back. “I think Mia’s had enough for the night. I don’t see that there’s anything the police can do tonight that we haven’t already done. If you two want to loop him in tonight to get somebody physically sitting on site, fine, but tomorrow’s soon enough for her to have to go through this shit again.”
“Works for me,” Jonah agreed. “And I think it goes without saying that, even when we do read him in, we keep all of this on the down low. It’ll be to our advantage if our guy, whoever he is, doesn’t know who knows. Everything needs to be business as usual. Can you do that, Mia?”
She straightened. “I’ve spent my whole life acting. What’s another day?”