Chapter Fourteen

Rule for success number fourteen:

Lead from the front.

WHAT do you think they’re talking about?” Karis whispered next to the refrigerator, glancing back at the men.

Who’s trying to kill me. “They obviously didn’t want us in on it, but whatever. It’s been a long damn day already. I’m opening a bottle of wine.”

She didn’t wait for her sister’s reply, just found an unopened box of wheat crackers in the pantry and snagged two glasses from a nearby cupboard. It wasn’t gourmet but it might settle her shaky nerves.

“Merlot okay?” Jolie sauntered to the wine cabinet.

“Um . . . it’s two o’clock in the afternoon. The business day isn’t over.”

“I don’t care.” She’d awakened earlier this morning in a gorgeous hotel room in Vegas as a newlywed. She’d started her morning as a bride, supposedly starting her fantastic life with the man of her dreams. This afternoon, if things had gone differently, she would have ended her day on a cold slab in the morgue. Adding stink to the pile of shit was the fact that if she didn’t find a new investor soon, her business would be gobbled up by her asshole of a father. So wine sounded great about now. “Are you drinking or not?

Karis shrugged. “If you’re game, sure.”

Jolie gripped the wine bottle with her left hand and with the other rummaged around in a nearby drawer for the corkscrew.

Her younger sister gasped, staring at her finger. “Oh my . . . You didn’t. Did you?” Karis darted toward the men, stopping to stare down at Heath’s hand. “Oh my god. You did!”

Jolie closed her eyes. Damn. After the shooter had shaken her and chaos had ensued, she hadn’t had the chance to sit Karis down and spill the news.

“We did.” Jolie crossed the room. “Heath and I went to Vegas over the weekend and got married.”

Karis grabbed her wrist and dragged her back to the kitchen, away from the men. “I’m happy for you, but would it have hurt you to call me? To call any of the family who loves you and ask . . . oh, I don’t know, maybe if we’d like to be there to share your special day?”

No. She tried to picture Karis standing beside her at the altar, wearing a simple but lovely bridesmaid’s dress, her mother dabbing at tears in the front pew of a simple church. A pang of regret twisted her chest if she’d hurt anyone’s feelings, but she and Heath hadn’t wanted pomp and ceremony.

“I understand but we did this for us. Because we were ready to be happy together.”

With a shrug, her sister conceded the point. “Sorry. That was the selfish part of me talking. I wanted to be important enough to you to share your momentous day with me.”

“You are. We didn’t elope to prevent anyone from attending our wedding, KK. We just didn’t want to wait. If it makes you happy, you can plan us a reception around Thanksgiving. Austin will be home then,” she said of their brother, who lived in Los Angeles. “It’ll be great.”

“Sure.” Karis still looked confused. “But . . . why rush to get married. You’ve always told me that if someone cares about you enough, they’ll wait until you’re sure. I mean, I just never thought you’d leap so quickly after all the times Mom has.”

Jolie didn’t know how to explain to her sister that she’d simply known marrying Heath was right. She’d use all the words and phrases her mother did every time she wound up with a new man who would eventually treat her like dirt and break her heart.

“I never thought I would, either,” she said softly. “That should explain to you how I feel. He’s amazing, supportive, kind, sexy, smart.”

A bit of envy crossed Karis’s young face. “Hell, I’d settle for sane, showered, and steadily employed right now.”

“You have time,” Jolie promised. “Someone will come along. The right someone . . . Still nothing between you and Cutter?”

“No.” She leaned against the kitchen counter. “I’ve overheard snatches of his phone calls. It sounds like he’s embroiled in some love triangle. Whoever she is, he loves her terribly.”

Now Karis sounded downright wistful. Jolie took her hands. “It’ll happen. In the meantime, focus on you. Figure out what you want out of life so when he enters the picture, you’ll know whether or not he fits in the frame.”

Her sister sighed. “You’re right. Should we call Mom and give her the good news?”

Jolie hated to talk about getting married when Diana was in the middle of a divorce but . . . “Let’s do it.”

***

THE doorbell rang about an hour later. A lean stranger with buzzed hair, ink coloring his bountiful muscles, and a dangerous look stood at the portal, carrying her computer. Arthur lingered beside him, holding a box.

Her husband turned. “Jolie, meet Stone Sutter. He’s an amazing tech expert who will finish installing the database logs so we can launch your office security system. I’d also like him to take a look at your computer, see if we can upgrade those defenses as well.”

“Stone, Jolie is my wife. We got married yesterday.”

“Congratulations, man!” Stone stuck out his hand. “As a guy who recently joined the marital state, it’s bliss. Enjoy . . .”

“How is Lily, then?” Heath asked, letting the men into the house.

“Great. She’s started a support group for teen victims of rape and their families. She’s really glad to be making a difference. We’re trying to get pregnant. She’s ready, so . . . good times.” He raised two thumbs.

“Excellent. Give her my regards.”

“Why am I here?” Arthur asked, standing awkwardly in the entryway, holding a battered cardboard box with a chemical company’s logo emblazoned across the top, held together with two kinds of tape.

“Because I asked Stone to bring you,” Heath supplied. “Why are you holding that box?”

“It mysteriously appeared in one of the cubicles earlier. It didn’t look like anything the FedEx guy had dropped off because someone had ordered cool stuff online.”

Stone was right. It looked patched together, battered, maybe even dangerous.

“Everyone else at the office seemed afraid the box might be suspicious.” Stone shrugged. “So I brought it out here. I figured we’re more equipped to handle it than the web developer, the crazy Frenchman, and your sobbing receptionist.”

So Wisteria and her boyfriend were already off again? Jolie sighed.

Heath turned to Arthur. “Was that on Karis’s desk?”

He swallowed. “I . . . um, yeah. I wasn’t there, so no idea who left it.”

“Of course not,” Heath quipped caustically. “Let’s try this again, shall we? You left Karis this box—and all the other recent gifts.”

Arthur paled. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Rubbish. You do.” Heath cocked a brow. “It would be better for all if you confessed now.”

The accountant huffed, risking a glance at Karis before jerking his gaze away. “All right, damn it! I intended to talk to Jolie about the policy that didn’t allow me to date coworkers, but after what happened in the file room last week, I wondered if the policy was even relevant anymore. You two are married now? I guess that answers my question.”

Jolie wished she had handled her relationship with Heath better around the office but she didn’t regret a moment of her time with him.

“You’re the one who’s been leaving me gifts?” Karis gaped. “The tulips?”

“Of course. I’d hoped they would convey what I was too tongue-tied to say face-to-face. Why you thought he gave them to you, I can’t imagine.” Arthur gestured toward Heath.

“About that, you and I are equally perplexed, I assure you,” Heath returned. “The candy?”

“Yes.”

“The candle, too?” Karis asked.

Jolie wondered if he knew that he wasn’t her sister’s type. Karis liked them buff and slick and full of charisma, just like their mother.

“Who else would it have been?” Arthur implored. “I’ve been paying attention to your likes and dislikes. When you and Ben split up a while back, I thought . . . maybe, here’s my chance. So I studied you for weeks. I wanted to show you that I’m more than a number cruncher and a gaming geek. I can be thoughtful and romantic.” With a tsk, he turned back to Heath and Jolie. “But you two kept reading the most menacing meanings into my notes.”

“They all but threatened Jolie, so yes. We were concerned.” Heath sized him up. “The rock through her window Saturday with ‘bitch’ painted in red letters?”

Arthur paused, lips pressed together in a stubborn line. Then regret furrowed his brow. “I was angry. I’m sorry. I’ll pay for the damages. It’s just . . . I could have been spending the weekend with Karis. My worry that she would never love me might already be over if you had simply talked to me about the policy.”

“You’re right, and I regret that I didn’t take time for you.” Jolie frowned. “But you made me believe someone was out to do me bodily harm.”

“No. You two decided that. If I didn’t know otherwise, I’d say you’re unromantic people.”

“Why didn’t you even try to ask me out?” Karis asked.

“I wanted to.” He looked away. “I’m not always good with words.”

“You spent all this time getting to know me, and I’m flattered. But how was I supposed to fall in love with you if you never let me know you?”

Arthur looked at Karis as if that had never occurred to him. “It’s . . . I, um— I guess I hoped you might give me a try if you knew I could be caring.”

Karis shook her head. “Buttering me up won’t do you any good. All my life, I’ve watched my mom fall for the wrong men. And it always ends horribly. Ben was the last guy I let sweet-talk me. I woke up one day to find him sexting someone else while I was lying right beside him. I let myself feel heartbroken for a while. When the burglar had me cornered in the office the other night and I worried I could die, I decided it was time to be more like my older sister than my mother. I resolved to get my life together.” She turned to Jolie. “Yesterday, I enrolled in college. I start after the holidays. I’ll be attending classes at night. I’m ready to make something of my life. And someday, my Prince Charming will come. But I won’t need him to complete me. I’ll be a complete person all on my own.”

Jolie swelled with pride. It was weirdly maternal but also like the thrill she’d feel for a good friend.

“I’m so proud of you.” She grabbed her sister into a big bear hug and felt her eyes sting with tears.

“I really am sorry about everything,” Arthur offered. “I thought I was being smart but . . . I see your point. Can we start over, Karis? Maybe go to dinner? That is, if our boss will lift the anti-dating policy and I still have a job.”

The old her would have fired him on the spot. The new her had a vastly different approach. “Everyone is human. We make mistakes. Consider this your second—and last chance. You’re on probation for ninety days. But if there are no more problems, mysterious boxes in the office, or rocks through my window, then you’re still employed. You’re a great asset, and I’d hate to lose you. Whatever happens between you and my sister is up to you two.”

Karis hesitated. “Maybe we’ll start as friends, see where it leads.”

It wasn’t the answer Arthur wanted to hear but he accepted it with grace. “I’d like that.”

***

A few hours later, Karis and Arthur had disappeared into a theater room with a big screen and hooked up his console so the accountant could introduce her to the postapocalyptic world he gamed in. No one had seen them for hours, so Heath guessed they were hitting it off. Jolie worked quietly at the kitchen table with her pad of paper and her mobile, making one phone call after another, beating the bushes for a new investor.

Heath focused on his job—keeping her alive. Arthur had owned up to everything except the two most troublesome events: the break-in and the attempted shooting. If Heath couldn’t point the finger at the accountant for those, he wasn’t sure where else to cast his suspicion.

Stone tapped away on Jolie’s computer, the grooves bracketing his frown growing deeper with every moment. “Okay, this is bad.”

“What?” Heath really didn’t want more bad news. He simply wanted to take his wife to their bed, shut the door, and forget about the rest of the world.

“Last Wednesday evening, someone got onto your wife’s system and started installing a whole bunch of data mining software and tracking cookies. Basically, they wanted to know her every keystroke and query.” Stone shook his head. “Whoever started the download didn’t finish, though.”

“We interrupted them. When Jolie and I first approached during the break-in, we beat the police there. Karis was inside, by herself.”

“She was scared,” Cutter supplied. “She told me.”

“Absolutely. Jolie was afraid for her, and I promised to get Karis out alive. But when we arrived, we found a man typing on her computer. We interrupted him, so he tried to steal the machine.”

“There’s something on here that he wants badly.”

Heath paced, teeth gritted. “We have no idea what. At first we assumed something business related but—”

“I’m not sure about that.” Stone tapped a few more keys. Then a couple more. His confusion turned to concern. “He seems most interested in her browsing history for the seven-day period before and after Wednesday. She searched for something on the Internet and he seems focused on those queries.”

“Such as?” Fabrics? Trends? Loans? Investment advice?

Stone leveled a hard glance at him. “The most searched item during that period of time was you.”

Cutter grunted. “I hate to say I told you so . . .”

Heath tried to absorb that news but it didn’t make sense. Yes, Karis had apparently used her sister’s computer to make inquiries about him but who was left to care? Anna’s parents probably had the most legitimate reason to hate him. He’d failed to protect their only daughter. But they had died before she had. His only other suspect, Kensforth, was gone, too. Hell, he would even suspect Myles . . . except the man was a continent away, trying to get on with his life. Of course he had the connections to hire someone to kill Jolie but why her? Why now? He’d lost even more than Heath had that day and still seemed to be grieving in his own way.

Who did that leave?

The mastermind of the attacks that killed Anna and Lucy. That nameless, faceless shadow of a figure who seemed more elusive than smoke. Heath cursed. He had to solve this mystery—for himself, for Anna, for his future with Jolie—before it was too late.

“Can you get anything else from the computer that might give us more information? How the burglar intended to watch Jolie’s Internet searches? Any hint of affiliation or identity or—”

“No, sorry. Like I said, he started the work. He didn’t finish it. There’s not enough here for me to go on, just a few files he downloaded from a known hacker site using Jolie’s own Wi-Fi.”

So no cyber fingerprints, as it were. The noose of fate and panic twisted together, slowly strangling him. “Thank you for trying.”

Stone tossed down a couple of business cards. “Call me if you think of anything else or have more questions.”

“Thanks. Any other suggestions?”

“Yeah, load your guns. I have a bad feeling about this.”

Heath did, too. “I’m going to follow up with Sean on the one loose end I’ve got. The burglar who broke into Betti escaped on foot. But we’re still waiting to hear from the city about any traffic cam footage they may have captured.

“I’m sure he’s had his hands full with the baby. They came home from the hospital yesterday,” Stone said.

“Callie texted me pictures,” Jolie supplied. “He’s precious. I hope I can visit them soon.”

Once this case was solved and the danger had come to an end? “Of course. In the meantime, I’ll put a call into Sean tonight and see if he’s learned anything new.”

But he got Sean’s voicemail before the device even rang.

With a sigh, he hung up and figured they’d start fresh tomorrow. His stomach was rumbling from lack of lunch. Jolie hunched over her mobile, her eyes squinting as if they’d become strained. Regardless of how tired they were or what else was going on, his need to hold her had risen slowly throughout the day. He had to have her, like air, like food.

Like love.

When Stone departed, dragging Arthur with him, Karis and Cutter retired to separate bedrooms upstairs. Heath approached Jolie, took her hand, and eased her to her feet. “Come with me, wife.”