Page 86 of The Huntress and Her Hound

I nod, agreeing with her. “I carry burners. You can have one. It should prevent anyone from tracking you—other than me, of course.” I wink at her and lead the way back to the spare room. At the desk, she pauses.

“What were you doing with my phone?”

“Pulling everything off it to try and find...” My voice trails off as she picks up the other device. The one she shouldn’t know I have. Something on my face must’ve given me away.

“What’s on this?” she asks, popping out a hip.

“Nothing that you need to worry about,” I tell her carefully as I hold my hand out. “I don’t want you to look at it.”

“Why?” She holds the power button.

“Cher, I mean it,” I grab for it just as her picture pops up on the welcome screen. The color drains from her face, but she does let me take it, stumbling backward.

“Where did you get that, Jude?” Her voice is shaky, and as much as I hate that she’s found it, it might be helpful.

“Some random guy walked up and acted like I had dropped it,” I explain slowly, waving the mouse on my computer. “Obviously, I hadn’t, and the guy who handed it to me was too young to be the right one. I’ll show you.” I navigate to the CCTV footage from the street, pulling up the image of the guy bringing me the phone—and then scrolling back to the alley he appeared from. He shoves bills in his pocket, and then chases me down.

Cher stares at the screen. “Did you...Did you look at what was on it?”

I reach out to her, grabbing her hand and squeezing it. “Kind of. Once I saw the nature of it, I pulled the transcript so that I could search for the person responsible.”

“So you knew what happened to me?” She turns, her face riddled with confusion. “And you just what? Pretended like you didn’t so I wouldn’t feel bad?”

“What happened to you doesn’t change how I feel about you,” I urge. “I was trying to find him before you asked me to help you...But I haven’t been able to find his name.”

“Dr. Christopher Nile,” she says quietly. “But I don’t know where he’s been or where he’s at. He taught at the school for years after I graduated—and I thought that was the end of it all for me.”

I nod, immediately doing a search for him. “It’s going to take me time. Hopefully, not a lot of it though.” The screen fills with articles of accolades and pictures, but I exit out of the screen before Cher can see too much. I don’t want to trigger her. I can wade through it all, find him, and then deliver him to her. She won’t have to lift a fucking finger.

“I need to get back,” she sighs.

Cocking a brow at her, I have to press. “And tell Henry about us?”

She hesitates. “No.”

My jaw tenses. “Okay, then I’ll come with you to tell him. I don’t want to put it off. You quit your job, we’re working to find this guy, and you’re going to be with me until we find him so I can keep you safe.”

She bristles. “I don’t need you to keep me safe, and for the record, I’m not ready to tell my brother. I want to take care of him first.”

I run my hands over my face. “Why? Why does it matter?”

“Because he’s going to freak the fuck out over us,” she snaps at me. “I can’t fucking deal with him and this, okay?”

“I can handle him,” I shoot back at her.

“Never said that you couldn’t.” She shakes her head as I grab one of the burner phones and hand it to her.

“My number is already in there.”

“Of course it is.”

“That’s the only number you’ll need,” I level with her. “Now let me take you back to your brother—and do my best to refrain from telling him how fucking good your ass felt this morning.”

“I’ll murder you,” she growls, glaring at me.

“Oh, I have no doubt about that,” I snort, chuckling as I put the computer to sleep and slip past her. Her face flashes with a brief moment of panic, and I love the way she thinks there’s any fucking way I haven’t figured it out by now. “By the way, your purse is right there,” I gesture to the black crossbody bag in the corner.

She goes for it, picking it up and slinging it across her. “Thanks.” If she’s worried about me having found what’s in there, she doesn’t show it.

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