Page 19 of The Last Love Song
Erin hugged their mother and then, when Remy moved to do the same, Erin whispered in Heather’s ear.
“Thank you for staying last night.” Erin squeezed her hand. “I know you’re anxious to get to Charlotte and I’m excited for you, but it was really nice having at least one of my sisters here all weekend.”
Guilt pinched at the reminder since she’d been so close to leaving town last night. Would have, if she’d been smart enough to fill the gas tank.
“I had fun.” She walked downstairs with Erin while Remy got the last of their suitcases for the trip. “Have you heard from Sarah? Did she and Lucas make it back to school okay?”
Remy’s daughter and her boyfriend attended college in Louisiana near where Sarah grew up.
“Yes. But she’ll be back for Thanksgiving, so I want to make sure I have her room ready.” Erin grabbed two bottled waters from the fridge before they headed out the front door. “And I forgot to tell you goodbye from Zach. He left with Sam Reyes a few minutes after he talked to you and they both looked superserious.”
“Really?” She remembered the sheriff had needed to speak to Zach privately. “Must have been police business.”
“Maybe.” Erin backed toward the car, where Remy secured the last bag in the trunk. “A cow got out of Harlan’s pen again, maybe. Or our one traffic light went out. You can hear about it at the Tastee-Freez tomorrow, I’m sure.” The local ice-cream shop with outdoor picnic tables was a good spot for gossip from spring through fall. “But as for me, I’ll be sleepinglate.”
Heather hoped Erin was right and whatever Sheriff Reyes had wanted wasn’t a big deal. She’d see him tomorrow since she’d told him she would let him know before she left town. And as luck would have it, she’d gotten a text from TJ earlier saying her car would be ready Tuesday morning.
That meant tomorrow would be her last day in Heartache for—she hoped—a long time.
Chapter Five
Lulled by thescroll of data files across his computer screen, Zach was straining to keep his eyes open, when his cell phone rang.
“Ellie?” he answered at the same time he processed his sister’s name on the caller ID, brain moving slow after a long night of work. “What are you doing up so late?”
Tipping back in his leather chair, he closed gritty eyes and pushed back from the desk. He’d set up his office in the basement of the house where he’d spent his high school years, another facet of his father’s ruined world that Zach had felt compelled to reclaim.
“Late? Zachary, it’s seven o’clock in the morning. Do you feel okay?” His sister immediately went into maternal mode even though she lived on the West Coast, almost two thousand miles away.
“I’m fine.” He straightened, though, needing to check his agenda for the day. He had a ribbon-cutting ceremony today and he had told Sam he’d check in after he went through the old city computers for any hint of unusual bookkeeping. “Just lost track of time after pulling an all-nighter.”
The basement office made a great place to work—he kept it temperature controlled, with high-tech security in place to protect his clients’ sensitive information. But the lack of windows made it tough to tell day from night.
“Really?” Her voice shifted, a hint of pleasure chasing away the worry. “Well, I can’t thank you enough for helping me put the finishing touches on the victim-support website last week. We’re gaining a really strong sense of community online already and it’s so good to see. Especially for the women who remain at risk from stalkers, Zach. It’s scary to think I have friends still living that nightmare.”
“It scares the hell out of me every day.” Switching off the computer screen, he let the program continue to run on the copy he’d made of the former mayor’s hard drive. “And I’m sorry I didn’t follow up to see how the launch went, but something came up in town?—”
“Heartache.” The word was sharp with the animosity she felt for the town, the house they’d once lived in and the world she’d left behind. “I will never understand why you have the need to help out that godforsaken little map-dot.”
He couldn’t explain what had drawn him back to Heartache, especially after so many things had gone wrong in the little town. Maybe it was the charm of rural Tennessee.
“I sleep better at night listening to crickets instead of the traffic on US 101.” He climbed the stairs to the main floor two at a time. Stepping into the kitchen, he opened a cabinet over the coffee bar and pulled down a mug. The stainless-steel coffee machine required no warm-up. He pressed a button and the scent of dark roast wafted in the air.
“If you say so,” Ellie said. “But the analytics tracker you gave me shows we’re reaching a lot more people than I’d imagined with the website.”
Zach smiled. Ellie headed up a large movement online to draw awareness to cyberbullying and cyberstalking, using an anonymous identity, which he’d insisted upon in order to protect her privacy. The site she’d designed gave potential victims tools for protecting themselves from cybercrime. “I can’t wait until we launch the portion of the site where users can create an account and document harassment.”
In the background, he could hear the wind-flute music she favored for her morning yoga workouts. He pictured her relaxing on the roof of her condo, which had been built to look like a brownstone. She ran a public garden up there, too—or at least, public in that she’d opened it to everyone in the building.
With her legally changed name, Ellie was as safe as she could be in California on her own. Zach had made sure she lived in the most secure building, fortified with another layer of cybersecurity to keep her protected online.
“We have to ensure the security on your site is rock solid since the criminals we’re going up against are naturally tech-savvy consumers.” He gulped his coffee too fast, in a hurry to get his brain in gear.
“Right. They are committing digital crimes by using the internet and texting to intimidate their victims. I understand that much.”
“So we need to protect the data our users collect as they log it in the systems. Because if we create more tools that a stalker can use to harass and intimidate them…” Zach knew he was being excessively cautious, but he kept imagining some scared teenage girl trying to use the site’s tracking system and then having her account hacked. Her stalker would know that she had collected evidence to mount a case against him. What if an incident like that actually propelled a stalker to take action?
He drained his coffee, then left the mug in the kitchen and searched the pantry for something edible.
