Page 60 of Tango
Which, in this case, might happen. Web Safe is desperate to get their hands on Alice. And I’m starting to believe it’s for a lot more than the fact that she was in that server room with Ramiro.
We have all of these questions and not enough answers.
Alice is out for a ride with Kennedy and Nova now, the three of them somewhere on the ranch. While I’m not thrilled that I’m not there too, I trust Nova to keep her safe. As a former detective and a member of our team, she’s more than capable.
Besides, the ranch is the only place where I can put some safe distance between us.
Around Alice, everything is jumbled. I barely know the woman, and she’s got me thinking about her every moment of every day. And not just because she’s a client.
No matter how badly I’d wanted to settle down at some point, that all changed when Dylan nearly died. He needs me, and I need to be present for him. So why does Alice have my head in such a mess? Why can’t I logically convince myself that jumping into anything with her would be a bad idea?
Tango gets to his feet, tail wagging, as my dad comes around the corner on foot. “Hey there, son. I thought I saw you out here.”
“Morning, Dad.” He takes a seat in the rocking chair beside me.
“Where’s Alice?”
“Out for a ride with Nova and Kennedy.”
“Aah, that’s right. I think Jemma said something about that earlier. She and your mother have become inseparable.” He laughs.
“How about you and Fred?”
“He’s a good man. At the house working right now.”
“They do seem like good people.”
“I agree.” He shifts his gaze out toward the ranch. “Things have always felt so simple here. Sure, there’s a lot to do, but everything has its place. The animals have a routine, and every day is the same. When it comes to the ranch anyway.” He winks at me. “Throw other people and situations like the ones you and your brothers deal with into the mix, and things get a lot more complicated.”
“You can say that again.”
Dad turns toward me. “What’s complicating things for you today?”
“Why do you think anything is?”
“It’s all over your face.”
I set my mug aside and cross my arms. “This case is tangled. We have a video showing Alice shooting Ramiro, only it’s not Alice or Ramiro in it. We have a dead man found at his computer and no concrete leads to follow. I’ve been trying to get into Web Safe’s documents since we got back first thing this morning, so I can figure out what information they believe was taken. But I’ve hit wall after wall. Apparently, they’ve upped their security since the last time I broke into it.”
“Is that something Alice can help with?”
“I doubt it. She told me that they have so much security in place, the important information isn’t even stored online. It’s in the server room with backups that are stored on site.” I take a deep breath. “She’s right though. We’ve been so focused on proving her innocence that I worry we’re losing sight of what the real threat is.”
“Whatever data Ramiro said they were trying to leak.”
“Exactly,” I reply. “But I don’t see how I get to it without being inside Web Safe.”
“Do you have anyone inside of Web Safe you can trust?”
“Nope. We have no idea how far up the chain the corruption goes. My guess is Kara has already told whoever is behind this that Alice is with us too, so there’s no going in pretending we’re just trying to help. I’m actually surprised a SWAT team hasn’t shown up already.”
He laughs. “That would certainly be a complication.”
“Isn’t that the truth?” I smile at him. “Dad, can I ask you something?”
“Sure. Anything, you know that.”
“If you made a promise to yourself, but now you aren’t sure that you want to keep it—” I trail off because I have no idea where I’m going from there. “Never mind. I’m overthinking.”
