Page 49 of Gentle Fox

“I can’t be sure but I remember one of our Sunday dinners being extremely tense after Seraphina mentioned him. My father got this weird look and said they wouldn’t be discussing it now. That wasn’t like him. He never snapped at my stepmother, no matter how many times I thought he should, but I never gave it much thought. Then he showed up to the funeral, so I figured maybe I was just imagining things. Plus, he’s tried checking in since my father died.”

I was suddenly on alert.

“Walter has tried to contact you since you’ve been here?”

Annalee nodded her head yes. “He’s sent me a few emails, just like my father’s lawyer has, but unlike the lawyer, I’ve refused to answer Walter. I haven’t had it in me to talk to him about what’s going on.”

“Do you mind if I see those emails?”

She shrugged and pushed back in the chair before getting up. “I don’t care. You’ll have to come out to my desk though. They come to my private email account, but since I didn’t bring my laptop with me, I’ve been using the computer here.”

I followed her out and it took only a minute of searching to realize how they found her. “Son of a bitch!” I slapped my hand down on her desk.

Annalee wasn’t going to like what I had to say.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Annalee

I watched over Owen’s shoulder as he opened up the last message Walter sent me. It was nothing personal. Just a simpleplease let me know if there is anything I can do to help you through this difficult time.

To be honest, I had been surprised when I read it. Walter had never been that friendly to me. He was never outright rude, and especially never in front of my father, but I always had the feeling he didn’t like kids, and the older I got, the more he stayed away. I didn’t complain because I much preferred it that way, so to see him reaching out now was just strange. It was also why I didn’t bother to respond.

“Son of a bitch!” Owen’s hiss and the slam of his hand on my desk had me jumping back.

“What is it?”

I couldn’t remember there being anything about the email that should’ve had him reacting that way.

Owen sighed. “I know how they tracked you.”

Well, that didn’t sound good. “Care to tell me, or do you plan to make me guess?”

My first thought was the article that was posted in the local newspaper, but based on Owen’s reaction, I was starting to think that wasn’t the case. But I didn’t know what else it could be. I had done everything I could to stay hidden in this small town.

“The second you opened the email, it sent your location to the sender.”

“What thefuck?” I pushed Owen out of the way and it didn’t go unnoticed by me that I would never have been able to move him if he didn’t allow it. Owen wasn’t a small guy and I certainly didn’t have the muscle mass to go against him. “How the hell do you know that?”

I was looking at the same email he was and there was nothing different about it from the hundreds of others I had received over the years. An email was an email.

“I’m no expert with computers like Nolen, but there’s an encrypted code written into it that allows the sender to gain access to your location as soon as you click on it.” He tried to show me where the code was but it looked like a foreign language to me. “I’m going to have Nolen look this over. He knows how it works better than I do. I just know to look for it.”

I still had no idea what Owen was attempting to show me, but if he said it was there, then I trusted him. He had yet to give me a reason not to, and just like I got a weird feeling around Walter, I felt completely safe around Owen. I couldn’t explain it.

I stared at the screen like maybe it could give me the answers I was looking for. It didn’t. I barely heard Owen on the phone calling Nolen and I didn’t listen to what he was saying. All I could think about was how none of this made sense. I couldn’t figure out what Walter had to do with Dennis, or what happened with him and my father before his death.

There were so many pieces of the puzzle and together they were a jumbled mess, but something in the back of my mind was telling me it all fit together. I just needed a few more pieces and then I would be able to see the big picture.

I was still staring at the screen when Nolen pushed my chair aside gently. I wasn’t sure how long I sat there; it could’ve been minutes or hours, but was likely only a few seconds. Hendrix was now here as well with that water I asked for. I had completely forgotten about it until he all but shoved it in my hands. These guys probably thought there was something mentally wrong with me. I was just sitting here, zoned out, not bothering to pay attention to what was happening around me.

My brain was operating in slow motion. There was definitely a delay in information being received and what I was comprehending.

“Annalee?” I recognized that voice and the touch that went along with it. “Are you okay? I called your name several times.”

I shook myself out of the stupor. “Yeah, I’m good. All the technical speak is going right over my head.”

Nolen laughed. “Don’t worry, it goes over everyone else’s as well. All you need to know is that I’m fixing the problem. I had firewalls in place for our network emails but I never thought about personal ones. We all knew from the beginning not to access them, but I forgot to mention that when Maverick brought you on.”

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