Page 94 of Offside Bride

“Correct.”

Siobhan bites her lip, her brow furrowed in concentration. “So, it must be something he picked up while he was being held captive by the Italians. It must be some kind of code.”

“Yeah, that makes more sense than hockey jersey numbers. What about ‘Bribe the judge’? That’s not exactly subtle.”

“Right? Like, which judge, and why do they need to bribe him?”

My mind is racing with possibilities. "Okay, so we’ve got a judge who’s potentially on the take and a string of numbers that could be anything from a locker combination to next week’s lottery numbers. What’s our next move?”

Siobhan’s eyes light up with that familiar gleam—the one that usually precedes some sort of mind-blowing scientific breakthrough like building a robot that can make the perfect latte. “Well, I’m heading back to Boston in a couple of days. I’ll do some digging, see if I can sniff out which judge the Italians have in their pocket.”

“And how exactly do you plan on doing that?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. “Are you going to hack into the judicial system’s mainframe or something?”

She grins mischievously. “Please, that’s child’s play. I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve. Did you know that with the right algorithm, you can predict judicial decisions with seventy-nine percent accuracy? I developed a machine learning model that?—”

“Whoa, whoa,” I interrupt, holding up my hands. “English, please. Some of us didn’t graduate from MIT at twelve.”

Siobhan rolls her eyes, but there’s affection in her voice when she says, “Let’s just say I’ve got ways of narrowing down our suspect pool. I developed software that cross-references financial transactions, social media activity, and public records to flag suspicious behavior. I originally designed it to catch cheating boyfriends, but it works for corrupt judges too.”

I blow out an impressed whistle. “Genius.”

“Trust me, by the time I’m done, we’ll know more about these judges than their own mothers do.”

“You’re kind of scary sometimes, you know that?”

She winks. “I prefer the term ‘efficiently brilliant.’ Anyway, I’ll work on those numbers Otto is repeating, too. If it’s a code, we’ll crack it.”

I pause, considering. “And if it’s not?”

“Then we’ll have a really confusing set of lottery numbers.” She shrugs. “Either way, it’s a start.”

“Is there anything I can do on my end?” I offer, although I don’t have a whole lot of skills besides writing romance novels and making whacky jewelry art.

“Just keep my brother happy.”

My thoughts turn to all the different ways Sawyer makes me happy when there’s a knock at the door.

“Maggie? You in there?” Sawyer’s deep voice rumbles through the wood.

Siobhan raises her eyes to the ceiling. “Well, your husband’s here. Better answer, wifey.”

I open the door to find Sawyer leaning against the frame, looking unfairly handsome in a crisp white shirt and dark jeans. His eyes rake over me, a slow smile spreading across his face, and my heart does a little flip.

“Hey there, beautiful,” he says, his voice low and warm. “Miss me?”

“What are you doing here? I thought you had practice.”

He steps closer, his voice dropping to a low murmur. “Finished early. Couldn’t stay away from my favorite author.”

Siobhan slips under her brother’s arm, mumbling something about the chocolate mini cakes, and sneaks away.

“So,” Sawyer says, in that deep, gravelly timbre I love. “Want to tell me why you and Siobhan were having a secret pow-wow in Patricia’s powder room?”

I blink innocently up at him. “What? Can’t a girl gossip with her sister-in-law in peace?”

Sawyer’s eyes darken as he pushes me against the bathroom doorway, his lips crashing into mine with an urgency that makes my toes curl.

Okay, then…

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