Chapter Forty-Four

“I’m so stupid,” Angel complained as she scrolled through Noah Zeller’s business emails. “Why didn’t I think to look closer?”

She’d checked him out in the first days after she acquired a computer, but saw nothing but the normal emails of a business operation. However, since last Friday, he’d been sending quite a lot of them regarding a missing shipment.

He wasn’t Redgamer3—at least not according to any account she had found—but he was involved somehow. And she was going to find out how.

Hacking into his phone proved more of a challenge, but soon she was seeing his texts in real time. Every few hours, Noah was writing to someone named Jim, asking when he was going to deliver his product. Quite the indecipherable code.

“He sounds desperate,” Colton said as he read over her shoulder.

After their little moment on the sofa, Thorne and Dane had left. Not before giving her an encrypted phone so they could keep in touch.

Angel should have been embarrassed that she’d let Colton comfort her. But she’d liked having his arms around her. She felt safe. For years she’d been taking care of herself, but with Colton she felt like she didn’t have to do everything alone. She was still a bit raw, having told him her gruesome tale. All those feelings had been churned up, and she couldn’t help but feel vulnerable.

Her talk with Dane still echoed in her head though. She knew from personal experience what happened when she allowed her emotions to make the decisions. She’d once thought she was in love with her first partner. But it turned out to be a huge mistake.

Not only had she missed the important clues that he was unstable, but she’d realized too late she couldn’t have loved him. Because she didn’t know him at all. Not only did he have a dark secret, but he’d even created another identity.

In the days after she’d killed him, she realized he had tricked her but she had not been paying attention. She’d been too naive and star-struck because the sexy marshal had taken her under his wing to show her the ropes.

When she’d pulled the trigger she’d known there was no other way to stop him. Lucas Stone had never truly existed. He was nothing but a reminder of what happened when she let her heart get involved.

As Colton set down a cup of tea next to her laptop, she knew it was far too late to stop her feelings for him. Her heart had brought her to his doorstep, and it was the reason she was still sitting in his living room.

She needed to find this Jim person, or better yet, Redgamer3, so she could move on. If she could just solve this case quickly so she could go back to work, she might have a chance of saving both Colton and herself from the pain that awaited them.

Turning back to her screen, she laughed wryly. “Noah actually thought Jim was going to deliver a billion-dollar piece of hardware after he’d done all the dirty work. Apparently, Noah didn’t get any of the smart genes.” She shook her head.

It was better to joke than to think too hard about how similar the situation was to her own. While she knew Noah wasn’t the actual killer, it seemed likely he had hired the person who was responsible for Heath’s death. He’d essentially killed his own brother, even if he hadn’t been in the room with the knife.

“Can you find this Jim, or find out if he’s Redgamer3?” Colton asked, hope and excitement in his voice. He’d mentioned how being a math teacher wasn’t all that exciting. She hadn’t realized how bored he must be.

“Not yet. Jim never emailed him back. Not once. I only see the message exit from Noah’s system. I don’t see it hitting a mailbox on the other end.”

“So no one ever read them?”

“I can’t be sure.” She rubbed her temples. She was trying too hard. When she got in too deep, she couldn’t see anything. She needed a distraction.

She looked at the man sitting next to her. His hazel eyes moved as he scanned the screen looking for some way to help her. His lips… God, she remembered those lips. Soft, yet firm and filled with naughty promises.

He’d kept all those promises.

It would be easy to lean into him, and let him take her away for a few minutes—no, hours. But she knew her story had only two possible endings—jail or back to her old life—and neither one of them would be fair to Colton.

She shoved down her lusty thoughts and brought up a different browser to finish something else she’d been working on when she couldn’t sleep.

“I have a surprise for you,” she said a few minutes later when she was finished. She turned the screen toward Colton, and heard his gasp of surprise.

“Is that—?”

“Yep. Your nephew.” She watched the smile spread across his face as he sat down next to her to stare at the photo. “Looks like he’s grown a lot in the last year.”

“I’ll say. He’s walking.” Colton pointed at the video as if she wasn’t looking. She was. “Where did you get this?”

“I hacked into your sister-in-law’s Facebook page. Here, you can scroll through the photos.” She moved the screen closer to him as she stood to go. She wanted to give him some privacy while he looked at the photos of the family life he was no longer a part of.

She hadn’t been sure whether or not it would be cruel to share the pictures, but she’d thought it over from his perspective, and decided he would want to see them.

She pointed at Pudge on the way out of the kitchen. “No more barking at strangers. If anyone else shows up, just eat them.”

Pudge barked in approval, and followed her outside where she threw a ball for him for fifteen minutes.

When she came back in, Colton was standing by a window with his back to her. She heard a sniff and saw him wipe his face with his arm. He didn’t turn toward her, though she knew he’d heard her come in with her jingling companion.

For a tough guy, Colton Williamson had a soft, gooey center.

She sat down at the computer to get back to work, and noticed something on the page. “What the hell?”

“What’s wrong?” Colton asked, his voice hoarse.

“Your sister-in-law, Robin, is friends with you on Facebook. Did you have an account before the shooting?” It didn’t seem likely, what with the dial-up and all.

He gave her a doubtful look. He wouldn’t have spent any time on a computer unless it was absolutely necessary.

“Right.” She clicked to go to the profile, and there was a photo of Colton with his brother, John. They looked like twins, but John was two years older than Colton. The cover photo was a muscle car.

“Any idea what the password would be?” she asked. “I can hack it, but that will take time.”

Colton studied the page and shrugged. “Try seventy-three Mach One. That’s what the car is. We bought it together and fixed it up.”

After a few variations, Angel hit on the one that worked, and opened the page.

“I’m in.”

“What is it?” Colton leaned over her to see his page.

“It looks like a memorial, of sorts. It’s a bunch of people sharing stories about you. And…” She tilted her head, taking in a younger, leaner Colton. He was probably about twenty. “Photos. Wow.” She flipped through proof that Colton had never suffered with adolescent awkwardness.

He squeezed in next to her. The side of his body pressed up against hers.

She’d already slept beside him, and allowed him to hold her. Sitting this close wasn’t going to change the path they were heading down.

He laughed and shared some of the stories as she continued to scroll through the comments.

“I miss these people,” he said quietly.

“It’s obvious they miss you. I’m sorry it worked out like this. Viktor Kulakov is still out there. Until they come up with a charge sticky enough to put him away for life, you are in danger. There is no statute of limitations on murder.” And without hard proof, the prosecutor was afraid the case would be dismissed. Viktor had lots of associates to pin things on if he came under suspicion. They only had Colton’s testimony, and the prosecutor wasn’t willing to show his cards.

“Weird, John never posted anything. He must not have an account,” Colton said.

“He does. He was also in Robin’s friends list.” Angel bit her lip, deciding whether or not she should share the story about meeting John at Colton’s funeral.

Rather than let the man think his brother had abandoned him, she let out a breath and faced the truth.

“He probably didn’t post anything because he knows you’re alive.”