Page 128 of Undercover Billionaire

“Inside, then. Let’s see what’s so valuable.”

I hefted the purse before closing the trunk and ushering her back inside.

“Why are you interested in these?” she asked.

“They’re probably evidence someone wants to destroy. It’s so obvious now. Your purse was stolen to get these, and your house was searched when they weren’t in the purse you took to work.”

Her hand went to her mouth. “My God. But the detective said it was kids who broke into my house.”

“It wasn’t kids. I just didn’t want you to worry.”

Her eyes turned cold. “How can I trust anything you say? You wanted me to be honest with you, but it doesn’t go both ways?”

She was pissed for good reason. I moved to take her shoulder.

She backed away.

“I was trying to protect you, and I’m sorry.”

“So you blow up at me if I’m not as open as you want, but when you lie to me, you just say you’re sorry and that fixes it?”

“What else can I do to make it up to you? I knew you wouldn’t be able to sleep if we told you how professional the job looked.”

Her stance hadn’t softened one bit. “You owe me a favor, I’d say.” The girl was a stickup artist, quid pro quo for letting me off the hook I’d hung myself on.

I sighed. “Name it.” There was no other good way out of this.

She came to me and kissed my cheek. “I’ll save it for later.” In a second flat her demeanor had shifted to amused satisfaction. “Let’s figure this out.” She set the purse down on the table.

I’d been played. That was something about her I’d have to remember for next time. The girl could shift on a dime into actress mode, and I’d fallen for it. But I did deserve it.

Spilling the contents of the envelope onto the table, I sifted through them to see if I could find anything out of the ordinary.

She pointed at the little pieces of plastic. “What are you looking for?”

“Anything besides SIM cards that might have been slipped into the envelope.”

“I’m the one who filled the envelope. You won’t find anything else.”

With this many cards, there had to be tens of thousands of images, and even if I could look through all of them, how would I know what I was looking for? It could be something as ordinary as the wrong person in the background of a shot.

“If this is what he wants, we should get another message. Check the email. Use my laptop on the counter.”

Her face scrunched up in disapproval.

“Please,” I added.

She trundled off to check. “You need to find the two you lost. I’m still responsible for those.”

I started pulling items out of the bottomless pit: hair brushes, curling iron, makeup, eyelash curler, first aid kit, and a million other things. Eventually the table was full and the purse was empty. The two offending SIM cards had slid into a corner.

The bottom of the bag was oddly lumpy.

“Found a message,” she called out from the counter. “He wants them.”

I located a tear in the lining and pulled out what had gotten lost between the lining and the bottom. “Hey, Kells, come over here.”

“No, you come over here to read it.”

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