Page 82 of Once a Killer

Mel actually smiled. “That’s courtesy of my misspent youth in the CIA.”

Bree smiled back, and Jameson felt her relax. “Thank God for our misspent youths. I’ll talk to you soon, Mel,” she said as she closed the Zoom meeting.

As soon as the computer screen went dark, Bree slumped back in her chair and drew in a deep breath. Reached blindly for Jameson’s hand and twined her fingers with his. “Mel is very good at her job. She’ll get us useful information.”

“You’re very good at your job, too, Bree,” Jameson murmured, squeezing her hand. “I’m sure Mel’s good, but Iknowyou are. Which is why I trust your instincts on this. Do you think Larrimore and Kingsley are threats? To either of us?”

She stared at their joined hands for a long moment and finally nodded slowly. “Yeah,” she said, finally looking at him. “I do. The shock on their faces…” She shook her head. “They thought I was dead. As if they’d ordered someone to take me out. Or paid someone to kill me. And if that’s true, they’ll come after me again.”

He studied her for a long moment, then tightened his grip on her hand. “The way the Monster was shot up. You think they were after you, don’t you? Not me.”

“Yeah, I do,” she said. “They were shooting at the driver’s side of the car, and the tinting on the front seat windows isn’t dark enough to obscure who was driving. The shooter knew he was firing at me.”

“That was a pretty damn fast response,” he said. “Three days after they saw you, they had a sniper in place. Without those steel plates on the Monster, you’d be dead.”

“Yeah. I know,” Bree said. She reached for his hand and squeezed it. “I’m so glad you got that armor installed.”

“I am, too,” he said, gripping her more tightly. If he hadn’t done it, Bree would be lying in the morgue right now. And he’d be losing his mind.

He must have tightened his grip on her fingers even more, because she eased her hand away from his. “It’s okay,” she said softly, smoothing her fingertips over his cheek. “All that metal protected both of us. If you hadn’t had it installed, we’d probably both be dead.”

“And there would be a feeding frenzy over who gets my program,” he muttered.

“But we’re not dead, so let’s take a look at those trackers on your engineers’ computers,” she said. “Let’s see if we can figure out who’s after it.”

Working was the last thing he wanted to do. He needed to sweep Bree into his arms and carry her into his bedroom. Spend the rest of the night showing her how happy he was that she was alive.

She must have seen that on his face, because she elbowed him in the side. “Later, Ford. Plenty of time for that after we look at the data. Don’t you want to narrow it down before we strategize our next step?”

“Hell, no,” he responded immediately. “Right now, all I care about is that you’re alive and unhurt.”

Beside him, Bree stilled. Swallowed hard. “Thanks, Jameson,” she said after a long moment. “That… that means a lot to me.”

It was the truth, Jameson realized with a jolt. Bree meant more to him than the program. And that program had been his life for the last ten years.

To cover up his uneasiness at that realization, he said, “Yeah, let’s check those trackers. See what they show.”

“Right,” Bree said, her voice too bright. Without looking at him, she opened her computer to the tracking page she’d set up. As it loaded, she turned to Jameson. “Who do you want to look at first?”

“Hayley,” he said immediately. “She was the only one who went out of town. Her movements should be straightforward. If she was in Wisconsin all weekend, we can rule her out.”

“Coming right up,” Bree said as she typed.

A couple minutes later, she leaned back in her chair. “Huh. Take a look at that.”

Jameson leaned closer and stared at the tracking data. The tracking software registered its owner’s computer’s location every hour. According to the graph, Hayley had never left Chicago. She’d gone to the lab on Saturday and spent at least three hours there. Afterward, she’d gone to several locations in her neighborhood. She’d stayed home all-day Sunday. Unless she’d left her computer at home, she hadn’t been anywhere near Wisconsin.

“Huh,” Jameson said, his stomach clenching uncomfortably. “What do you make of that?”

“Same thing you make of it,” Bree said immediately, staring at the screen. “Hayley lied. She never left Chicago.”

“Unless she didn’t take her computer to Wisconsin.” Jameson stared at the screen as well, shock and anger roiling through him. “Since that’s unlikely but possible, we can’t rule her out.” He clenched his teeth together. “As a side note? She’s also really pissed off about the way women are disrespected in the tech world. Having her name on my program, not to mention the money she’d get for it, would force everyone to take her seriously. Respect her.”

“She might be at the top of the list,” Bree said, her voice grim. “Let’s see where the other three were.” Her fingers tensed on the touch pad. “Stu’s next.”

“He said he’d gone to a therapist,” Jameson said. “Got a prescription for an antidepressant drug.” He shook his head. “Remember? He showed me the bottle and told me he has another appointment with the therapist in a week. That he’ll keep going as long as necessary.”

“Easy to say,” Bree said.

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