Chapter Nineteen

“Maybe I should stay home,” Colton said on Monday morning as Angel stretched and went to the kitchen for more coffee.

Not a chance. No way would she allow her presence to disrupt his life more than it already was. She knew it wouldn’t be easy to convince him it was safe to leave the house. He wanted to protect her. She understood that perfectly, because she wanted to protect him, too. So she went for a different angle.

“What? And let those little shits with the eggs get away with vandalism? What’s next for them? A little B and E? Maybe grand theft? You have to stop it before it starts. You have a chance to cut off crime before the criminal is even fully developed.”

Okay, so she was laying it on a little thick. But there was a lot of truth to her words.

Colton just let out a sigh and frowned.

She knew he was worried about her, but she knew he also had another concern. One that was all her fault.

When she’d left like a thief in the night, she’d undermined his trust for her.

“I’ll be here when you get back.” She repeated her promise, hoping it had a different response this time.

He nodded unconvincingly “I get home around four. I’d planned to make Mexican lasagna for dinner. Would that be okay?”

God bless him, he was so domesticated he actually planned out his meals. She generally ripped open a box of mac and cheese. Occasionally she even had enough time to allow the pasta to cook completely.

“Yeah. That sounds great.” It really did.

He paused in front of her, and for a brief moment she thought he might kiss her like every other husband who was leaving for work that morning.

But he just gave her a nod and told the dog to be good and keep watch.

She took her normal spot in the living room, and continued trolling the tech blogs and underground sites, looking for some clue as to who had that prototype.

Technology moved at the speed of light. Whoever had it would want to launch it before someone else developed something similar and took the wind out of their financial sails.

She’d already checked every major player, looking for a new patent or the beginnings of a press release.

Nothing.

If the person who stole it worked for a large company, there would be engineers and programmers already working on it. And those people would be talking about their new toy. They wouldn’t be able to help themselves.

Confidentiality agreements might keep them from sharing the details, but they would still be chatting about having the next best thing. Bragging rights on these sites were the main purpose of their existence.

Once she located a person, she could track them to their company and find out the details.

But no one was talking.

Which could only mean the person who stole it didn’t have a buyer already lined up.

Who would be so stupid as to try to move a piece of technology that was this hot, and connected to a murder? It wasn’t as if they could take out an ad.

She had to be missing something.

“Why would someone steal something so valuable if they had no plans to sell it?” she asked Pudge who cocked his head to the side, then licked her knee.

She wondered if Colton talked to the dog as much as she did.

Probably not.

Her computer dinged with an incoming email, making her jump. No one on her team would be stupid enough to send her an email. The FBI would be watching their communications, waiting for one of them to reach out.

But it wasn’t anyone from Task Force Phoenix. The email was from redgamer3 at a public email account. She opened it to find three lines in small type.

Welcome back.

It took you long enough.

Are you ready to play?

“Well, well, Redgamer3. Who might you be?”