Page 10 of Last Resort

“I’m just going to look this over one more time and then I’ll leave.” The brothers didn’t respond to him with anything but eye rolls. If he had it his way, Chance would stay at the table until his body gave out or he found a solution. They knew better than to argue with him.

“You head out too, Maci. We’ll help clean up this mess in the morning,” Brax said with a mock glare and a wave.

Despite Brax’s words, as soon as the door locked behind them, she started gathering up the cups from the conference room. If she cleaned it up, they’d be able to think clearer. Starting again fresh tomorrow was a good idea.

“You’re exhausted. You should go home too,” she said when Chance threw down the pictures Luke had been looking through.

It was the first time she caught a good glimpse of Stella LeBlanc, and she stopped in shock.

Holy hell, the woman could have been Maci’s twin.

Stella had slightly longer hair in a more elaborate style, and her fashion and makeup were much more complex than what Maci wore, but they could easily have been sisters.

It was almost creepy how similar they looked.

“Yeah, I know I need to go home.” Chance scrubbed a hand down his face. “But this car accident doesn’t make sense. For so long, the stalker didn’t change his tactics. When they stopped working, he just found new ways to get his messages to Stella. He could’ve gotten dangerous much sooner...so why now? What caused him to attack her like that? And in a way that’s not terribly personal or inventive.”

Maci forced herself to look away from the photos of Stella. “Could the stalker have been upset about something? Maybe it was a warning.”

She stacked the cups and took them to the office’s small kitchen sink. She was rinsing them out, startled when she found Chance just behind her. She hadn’t heard him follow her—the man could be so damned silent when he wanted to be.

But he’d followed her into the kitchen to continue talking to her. That was something.

He sat down at the small table in the middle of the room. Her entire body was aware of how close he was.

“What the stalker did doesn’t feel like an emotional response. It feels like something else.”

She shut off the water and dried her hands. “Like what?” She gave in to her urges and stepped closer.

As if her hand was being powered by someone else’s brain, she ran her fingers through his soft hair. Chance tensed, and for a moment she thought he’d pull away. Then he relaxed into her touch, letting his head fall back to rest against her stomach. She nearly groaned, having forgotten how good it felt to touch Chance casually. The soft sigh as she scratched his scalp was enough for her to keep going.

“I don’t know. If the motive was profit, the stalker would’ve taken her and tried for a ransom. He—and I use that pronoun because statistically that’s the case, not because we know for sure—seems to want to get close to Stella, but not too close.”

“Could revenge on Nicholas LeBlanc be a motive?”

“Possibly, but if so, he’s moved very slowly over the past few weeks. Maybe the stalker is just toying with her.”

“That’s not generally the case, right?” Maci didn’t know much about stalking, but she did know that stalkers who did it just to toy with their victims were the minority.

He let out a sigh and leaned more fully against her. “Yeah. Generally, stalkers crave the emotional response the invasions of privacy forces on their victims. Someone doing it just to mess with Stella or Nicholas would be much more unpredictable.”

“Maybe it’s jealousy. She’s successful in her own right as an influencer, so maybe someone’s coming after her for that. Or they could feel slighted that she doesn’t see their support for her or something. A fan who has gone a little over the edge.”

Chance didn’t answer, but Maci could tell he was thinking, so she didn’t push. She just let him think.

“Maybe.” He pulled away, then turned to look at her. “How are you doing?”

She looked down at him, brows furrowed. “Me? You’re the one who hasn’t slept in days.”

Chance stood and cupped her cheek, running a thumb under her eye. “That may be true, but you haven’t been feeling well lately either. Are you okay?”

She knew she’d pay for it later but she let herself lean into Chance’s touch. Even in the middle of the week’s chaos, and with things so strained between them, he’d been watching. Checking on her. “Maybe we’re both working too hard.”

His eyes tracked over her, cataloging everything from her limp hair to her baggy clothes. She really hadn’t been feeling great, and her look was definitely more casual than usual. She almost apologized, but he shook his head. “You should go home, Maci. Get some rest.”

“I will if you will,” she joked, poking him in the stomach. When he pulled her into his arms unexpectedly, she knew she should pull away, but couldn’t force herself to do so. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d held her, and even though her brain was screaming at her to take a step back, to walk away, she couldn’t deny how well they fit together.

Of course, fitting together physically had never been their problem.

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