Page 36 of Merciless Prince
“I had to use him for something, and…” She trailed off and waved a hand. “It’s a really long story. I don’t want to detract from your whole thing and make this all about me.”
“Okay, now youhaveto tell me before the curiosity kills me.”
She bit her bottom lip as she considered it. “Okay, fine. You know my stepdad?”
I nodded. Robert Lind was an influential political consultant. He’d been married to Cori’s mom for four years now.
“So, I went down to DC to visit him and Mom for a few days last year. While I was there, I went out for some reason, and I ended up spotting him in a restaurant. There was a young woman with him, and they looked super cozy together. She was totally gorgeous, too.”
“Yikes. Mistress?”
“That’s what I thought, and I was pissed as hell. Mom already got cheated on for eight years by my dad, so the last thing she needed was her second husband doing the same shit to her.” Cori was quiet for a beat. “Anyway, I sort of froze up and didn’t do anything at the time. When I got home, I decided to find the girl and see what was up with her. But I had no idea how. I didn’t know her name or anything about her. So I ended up doing a deep-dive on all these internet forums about stalking people.” Cori cut herself off for a second and lifted a hand. “I know that sounds crazy, but I really wanted to know what was going on.”
“Yeah, I get it.”
“Anyway, I found this guy who’s like, anamazinghacker. He does private investigation stuff. I gave him a few details, like the restaurant, the date, and the time of day, and you won’t believe what he came up with. He managed to access the restaurant’s CCTV system and get a decent photo of the girl with Robert. Then he used that photo in some facial recognition system to find her name and socials.”
“Wow.”
“He found her Instagram and hacked into it so he could see her messages. Then he sent me screenshots of all the relevant ones.”
My heart sank. “She was sleeping with Robert?”
“Nope. All the messages were between her and her friends,” Cori replied. “Turns out she’s a junior speechwriter, and Robert is her mentor, because he was a speechwriter at the start of his career. The girl told a few of her friends how excited she was to have scored someone like him to help her out, and on the day they had lunch together, she told her best friend how nice Robert was and how she was so glad that he wasn’t a typical DC sleaze who was only pretending to help her so he could try to get in her pants.”
“So he was really just giving her advice?”
“Yup. Apparently Robert is a huge feminist who does everything he can to support career advancement for women.” Cori let out a short sigh and flashed me a weak smile. “I should’ve known, really, because he’s always been so supportive of me and Mom.”
“At least now you know for sure. He’s one of the good guys.”
“Yeah.” She picked up her phone again, and her fingers flew over her keypad. “Anyway, about this hacker guy—all I have to do is send him Cooper’s name and a few other details. Then he can help us figure out what the fuck he’s up to.”
“Wait,what?” I stared at her, eyes wide with shock. “Did you sayCooper? As in Cooper Mickelberg?”
Cori nodded. “Isn’t he the guy you were talking about before?”
“No! Why would you think that?” I asked. “I thought you liked Cooper! He’s our friend!”
She lifted a shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “I don’t know. I mean, I liked him at first, but I’ve been getting a weird vibe from him lately. So when you said a guy was stalking you, he was the first one that popped into my head.”
“What do you mean by ‘weird vibe’?” I asked.
“It’s hard to explain.” Cori rubbed her chin. “It’s small stuff, but it all adds up and makes him seem kind of obsessed with you.”
I frowned. “I haven’t noticed anything.”
“Really? He’s always sucking up to you and offering to drive you around.”
“He offers you rides too.”
Cori scoffed. “Only when you’re around. Also, haven’t you noticed that he’s always looking at you? I catch him doing it all the time,” she said, raising her brows. “Oh, also, while you were gone over the last week, he literally didn’t shut up about you. He kept bringing you up in every conversation and asking all these questions about you. He even wanted us all to drive into the city and throw a surprise party for you to cheer you up. I told him what a shitty idea it was, obviously, because I knew you were hell-bent on exiling yourself to your old bedroom, but he wouldn’t stop going on about it.”
“Okay, so maybe Cooper has a little crush on me,” I said with a light shrug. “But he’s not a stalker.”
“Who is it, then?” Cori asked, brows puckering.
I set my lips in a grim line. “Killian Knight.”
