Page 14 of Undercover Billionaire

I turned right out of the garage and moved a hand briefly to her shoulder. “Be strong. I’ll keep you safe. I promise.” When I looked over, she was smiling.

“Thank you.”

I returned my hand to the wheel and navigated toward her house. “Tell me what you know about the Brooks case.”

“Melinda got a note just like the one I got, telling her to change the door code, except it referenced Daya Patel, the previous victim, and then Melinda ended up dead. That’s all I know.”

The note had been turned in a month after the murder, and hadn’t provided us any forensic evidence. “Did she really get it on Halloween?” I asked.

“I told them when I brought it in, she never said anything to me.”

“When did you get your note?”

“Like I told Ashley, it was on my desk this morning. What do you think this is about—I mean, the door code part?”

I had to be honest. “I would think it’s a test.”

“And Melinda refused?”

I turned left and sucked in a breath. “I don’t know if she thought it was a joke or refused. Either way, she disappeared two days after Halloween.”

She wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m not sure I can do this.”

Chapter 4

Kelly

Adam pulledthe car over and put his hand on my shoulder again. “It’s okay to be scared. It’s your choice, but it’s one you have to make by tomorrow.”

I turned to him. “What can I do? He has to know where I live.”

He took my hand in his. The strength and warmth were comforting. “You can leave town. If you do, you’ll be safe. Patel didn’t help him, so he picked Brooks. When she didn’t help him…”

I finished the sentence he left off. “He picked me. Why me?”

“We’ve got no idea. But he still wants something, and he needs your help.”

“If I leave, you think I’ll be safe?”

“Yes. If you leave, you won’t be of any use to him, or a threat either. So he’ll probably…”

I sniffed. “He’ll pick someone else in my building, won’t he?”

“That’s likely.”

The wordlikelywas meant to soften the blow, but it didn’t.

I shivered. “I don’t have a choice, then, do I?”

He squeezed my hand. “Yes, you do. You can choose to do this or not, and nobody’s going to judge you.”

Even in the limited light from the street lamps, it was clear he meant it.

I took a breath. “If I stay, how do we do this?”

“You have until tomorrow afternoon to make up your mind. That’s when he expects you to reset the door. If we do this, you have to commit to following my instructions completely.”

I nodded. “I think I want to do it.”

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