Page 113 of Curvy Nerdy Omega

Typing up my report for Nicolette, I made sure to attach any evidence we had and why we were doing things in this weird, circular method.

Most detectives preferred to run down one lead at a time but it was inefficient. Doing things that way added time to the process – time that could erase other leads.

Frankie and I were a good team. We had very different strengths so we could cover a lot of ground very quickly and we could both multitask while doing it.

At least Nicolette wasn’t trying to manage things on the right side of the law. Cyber-crimes were always reported to the federal government which might delay Valor’s case. If they had a good enough lawyer, they could probably press charges for each crime committed instead of as a whole. I’d have to document whatever evidence I could obtain legally too just in case Valor decided to go public with any of this information.

Liam’s chin rested on my shoulder as he watched me work. He hadn’t said a word the whole time and I was starting to wonder if he’d fallen asleep.

I finished up my report and sent it off to Frankie for her to check. Then I made sure Gideon’s computer wasn’t connected to the internet in any way and booted it up.

This was the last thing I could do remotely.

If I wanted to find out what was being sent from the Valor servers and to where, I needed direct, physical access to the server room if I didn’t want to trigger any alerts to the wrong people by remotely accessing sensitive information.

Whoever was sending it was definitely someone with regular access to the servers as an employee or someone on the security team.

Not knowing who they were would make it really fucking difficult to avoid them.

I had no idea what was being deleted, but if what I’d seen on Liam’s office computer was any indication, I didn’t think it was data any normal person would be interested in. A legacy pack though…

If they weren’t above killing Gideon…I was nothing.

Whoever killed Gideon Valor wanted to make sure people knew he was dead and not missing – they’d ensured he was found in his own office, in a building his pack owned that was monitored by a security system owned by another member of that pack.

They also wanted this to look personal, especially since they’d been so very careful not to leave any clues at the crime scene other than a missing wedding ring.

In my opinion, that one choice was going to get them caught.

Why not kill him at his house if they wanted to frame Melinda? Or somewhere that she went to regularly? Melinda didn’t have the same access to Valor Enterprises that Cassius and Liam did. I’d checked her credentials to make sure.

Melinda was allowed into the skyscraper and she had access to all the amenities, but she didn’t have access to anything sensitive and did not associate with anyone who did.

If she hired an assassin…maybe. But there's still some kind of paper trail for that and her finances were clean.

She wasn’t the one hiding money or spending large sums of it. Melinda didn’t own any companies either. Her entire income came from her modeling career and her Valor allowance.

No, whoever had killed him took the wedding ring but murdered him in his office to scatter any attention they might garner. They’d ensured the police would suspect Melinda, and anyone who might inherit the chairman position next.

It was a solid plan. No one would think to watch the footage from Valor Enterprises before the night of the murder unless it was during any time Melinda, or a member of the Valor pack had been there.

But the Valor pack hadn’t left this up to the police. They’d called in a private company to investigate which meant I was the one looking for their mistakes.

As much as the killer wanted me to believe Melinda was the main suspect, I knew better. Even if Melinda was involved, she couldn’t have done this alone. Between the missing data and the secret phone…

There was definitely someone else involved. Someone who was just as good as me.

Or better.

I started going through Gideon’s computer and didn’t have to dig very deep to find something odd. Someone installed a program that cloned his entire computer and sent it somewhere every day at 3 in the morning before erasing any record of it.

I opened the command prompt and typed as fast as I could, feeling my heart start to race as I followed it all the way back to when it was installed on his computer. It looked innocent enough – something a company might have to monitor their employees but it had a weird name I’d never heard of before and it operated too much like malware for my liking.

My heart stopped when I saw how much had been deleted…just an hour after his death.

“Who has access to Gideon’s office computer?”

Liam placed his hand on my chest, just over my racing heart. “Does this have something to do with his other phone?”

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