Reece
“IT WAS HERE.” Sam turned in a tight circle, jabbing her finger at the floor. “A white lily.”
Sam had barrelled into the loft, screaming at him to follow her. Startled, he’d run after her in his bare feet. She’d yanked open the door to the back staircase and pointed at the landing.
There was nothing there.
They hadn’t passed anyone in the hall, but Reece craned his neck down the staircase. No fleeing footfalls against the lower stairs. The building was quiet.
Her face was pale and the finger she aimed at the floor shook. “She left a lily.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know,” she yelled. “A woman’s been following me.”
“What?”
Shrewdness narrowed her eyes and she pursed her lips together. “She parked on a side street near Lutz’s house and took a different route here. That’s why I didn’t see her.”
“What were you doing at Incubus’s house?” he asked.
“She snuck into the building, put the lily on the landing, and hid.” Sam’s voice rose to a feverish pitch. “Don’t you see? She’s his accomplice. She took the lily so you’d think I was delusional.”
Reece’s bewilderment turned to concern. “I believe you,” he said in a soothing tone.
She dropped to her hands and knees and ran her fingers across the ceramic tiles. “There should be dust from the anther.”
“From the what?”
“The orange things that top the filaments,” she yelled.
Residents were popping their heads out their doors to see what the commotion was. Reece reached down and took Sam’s elbow. “Let’s go inside.”
Her eyes brimmed with tears. “You don’t believe me.”
“I do.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, alarmed by how thin she was.
In their loft, Reece led her to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair. Her body twitched with involuntary spasms. A vein in her forehead pulsed and her eyes darted from side to side.
He knelt between her legs. “When did you sleep last?”
“Whoever is following me put Incubus’s calling card on the landing.” Her voice cracked and tears spilled down her sunken cheeks.
“When did you notice someone following you?” he asked.
“She was standing outside the loft the night I went to Lisa’s house. No… It was before that.” Sam jumped to her feet. “I took her picture.”
She thrust her laptop into his hands. “She was wearing a red parka and a pompom toque. I thought it was Eli’s sister but now I’m not sure. Why would she be at Incubus’s abandoned house?”
Reece scrolled through photos from their godson’s christening, Christmas at Lisa’s house, and pictures of Kira at a fire station. Those were the most recent.
Sam grew very still.
“Could it be on your phone?” Reece picked up her cell and opened the gallery. It was empty.
“I’m positive I took a picture.”
“Maybe you didn’t tap the screen in the right spot,” Reece said.
“Someone deleted it,” she insisted, glaring at him as if he might be the culprit.
He held out his hand. “You need sleep.”
“Stop acting like I’m delusional,” she yelled. “She did follow me and I did take her picture.”
“Hush now,” Reece said. “We’ll figure it out in the morning.”
Her jaw tightened into a rigid line of stubbornness. “If you’re tired, go to bed. I’m staying up.”
Arguing was pointless. Reece scooped Brandy into his arms. “Who wants a cuddle?” he murmured to the old dog, hoping to tempt Sam upstairs.
She didn’t move.
Reece settled their dog onto the king-sized bed and leaned down the stairs. “Can you bring up one of her pain pills and a piece of cheese?”
Sam came upstairs and dropped her laptop on the bed. She fed Brandy a wedge of cheddar with the white pill hidden inside and patted the lethargic dog.
Reece stripped to his underwear and got under the covers, picking up his eReader from his bedside table.
Sam massaged Brandy’s hindquarters. “Her arthritis is acting up.”
Reece didn’t believe that was the only problem. “I’ll make a vet appointment tomorrow. I have early classes but I’m free all afternoon.”
“She’s okay, right?”
Her desperate need for reassurance wounded Reece but it would be cruel to lie to her and give her false hope.
“We’ll talk with the vet,” he said. “You want to get ready for bed?”
She opened her laptop. “I’m going to work on my thesis,” she muttered.
Go to sleep, he wanted to scream.
From the side of his eye, Reece read what Sam was typing. It was gibberish, riddled with spelling errors, run-on sentences, and missing punctuation. She worked away, oblivious to the nonsense she was creating. After an hour, Reece couldn’t take it any longer.
He got out of bed. “How about hot chocolate?”
“A sweet would be good.” She didn’t look up from her keyboard.
Reece went into the bathroom and opened a drawer in the vanity. He held a prescription bottle, struggling to rationalize the ethical ambiguity of drugging his exhausted fiancée without her knowledge. Her paranoia and conspiracy theories were symptoms of sleep deprivation. One little pill would solve the problem.
Reece removed a tablet from the bottle and went downstairs.
As he melted chocolate and steamed milk, he tried to ignore the immorality of his actions. He placed the pill on the countertop and used the back of a teaspoon to crush it. Reece poured the chocolate and frothed milk into a mug, stirred in the white powder, and added a dash of cinnamon.
Upstairs, he handed her the mug.
She sipped her drug-laced cocoa. “Yummy. Thanks.”
His stomach lurched and self-disgust made him lightheaded.
Twenty minutes later, she was asleep with her body curled around Brandy. Little snores emanated from the back of Sam’s throat and her foot twitched. She mumbled in her sleep, something about Joyce, a lily, and blood.
Reece put on a pair of track pants and a sweatshirt. In the kitchen, he washed the mug, scrubbing away the evidence of his deception.
His cell rang. “Hash,” he answered.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with your woman, but I’m done. I told her so tonight and now I’m telling you.”
Reece wasn’t in the mood to mollify their temperamental hacker. “Can we talk about this tomorrow?”
“Work with Hybrid going forward. I’m done,” Behoo said with self-righteous indignation.
Hybrid had helped Behoo to stop a vicious cyberattack against them last year, but Reece had never met the hacker. “I don’t know who Hybrid is or how to reach him.”
“You hired Elijah Watson.”
“So?”
“So get him to do your hacking,” Behoo retorted.
“Eli is Hybrid?” Reece was livid. “He’s a hacker on the deep web and he never told me?”
“Not him,” Behoo said impatiently. “His sister, Danielle. She’s a computer engineer with mad skills.” He paused. “Hey, man, didn’t Eli tell you?”
“No.”
Either Eli was a pathological liar or he had a hidden agenda. And Reece had convinced Sam to hire him. If the little worm had ulterior motives for joining their firm, it was Reece’s own fault.
“I did them a solid and kept my mouth shut,” Behoo said. “But I flipped out on Eli tonight because we had an agreement.”
“Kept your mouth shut?” Reece repeated.
“Sam got up in my business because I didn’t give her a detailed report about Eli. I told Eli he had to tell you or I would. He said he explained and you were cool.”
Cold dread tightened around Reece’s heart. “What didn’t you tell us about him?”
“About his father.” Behoo paused. “Or Danny’s father. I’m not sure which one is related to the guy because Danny did a solid job hiding everything. If I didn’t know her from school, I wouldn’t know anything. But I think it’s Eli’s father because he figured you wouldn’t hire him if you knew the truth about the old man.”
“What about him?”
“He’s a con, serving serious time in some high-security federal pen,” Behoo said.
The air rushed from Reece’s lungs. “Get me a number for Eli’s foster father,” he said.
“I—”
“Find me a damn number for Dr. Watson. Now,” Reece yelled.
“Chill out,” Behoo muttered. “Give me a sec.”
A few moments later, he recited a number and hung up.
Reece dialled and an authoritative male voice answered.
“Dr. Watson, this is Reece Hash in Toronto.”
“Mr. Hash… Is Eli okay?”
“Your foster son lied to us and I want answers,” Reece said. “Who is Eli’s father?”
There was a heavy pause before the man sighed. “I warned him not to lie but Eli marches to his own drummer.”
“Who is his father?” Reece repeated.
“A dangerous man,” Dr. Watson said. “He’s responsible for the scars on Eli’s face and the cigarette burns on his forearms. He’s in prison, serving twenty years.”
“Convicted of what?” Reece asked.
“Eli believes that his father murdered his mother, but the court convicted him of armed robbery. The man is eligible for parole this year.” There was fear in the doctor’s voice. “It’s imperative that he doesn’t get out.”
“Why?”
“He’s forcing Eli to do something,” Dr. Watson said. “He has disreputable friends inside and outside of prison. Everything Eli is doing is to protect Danny. Millhaven can’t release his father.”
Reece couldn’t believe he’d been so gullible. “Eli’s father is at Millhaven with Incubus.” Before the doctor could respond, Reece disconnected.
Pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. Sam wasn’t deluded. Lutz was playing some sort of sick game with her. But for his manipulation to work, Incubus needed help from people outside the prison.
And Eli and his hacker sister had access to every aspect of Sam’s life, including her phone, containing evidence of the woman following her.