Page 29 of Montana Rain

“Fair enough.”

Her suitcase was nestled on the floor of the bench seat, and I helped her up into the truck. Before I closed the door, she spoke. “Cole.”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for coming.”

Chapter 13

Rayne

“I’m sorry to wake you,” I said when Lucas came into the security office, the last one to arrive. Jude and Daniel were already here, and Daniel glared at me.

“It’s not a problem, Rayne. Don’t worry about that, please.”

Cole leaned against the wall, observing everything. He’d been steady and calm since he arrived at the house, never pushing, always making sure I was okay. It was comforting, even though I still wasn’t sure why he was the first person I’d called.

“Cole mentioned new information?”

“Yeah.” My throat scraped on the word, and I fished the flash drive out of my pocket and placed it on the table. “That was in my bag when I came back from Chicago. I didn’t think anything of it. I’ve gotten flash drives as swag before. But Cole made me think of it. I kept saying nothing was missing from my bag.”

“But maybe she left something instead,” Jude finished.

“Exactly.”

He held out his hand. “You haven’t opened it?”

“No.”

“Okay, then,” he said. “We’ll cross our fingers that it’s blank and all of this is a misunderstanding.”

No one in the room laughed or even smiled. Because we all knew there were too many coincidences for it to be blank. Or nothing. But I hoped all the same.

Jude uncapped the drive and plugged it in. “Encrypted,” he said, when a password box opened.

“Can you manage?” Daniel asked.

Jude shrugged. “Yeah, shouldn’t be a problem.” His fingers flew across the keys, windows popping up. I had no idea what he was doing or the full process of hacking into something encrypted, but I was grateful he had the skills.

“The intruder hacked her security system,” Cole said. “I checked the backup battery. It was still there.”

Lucas frowned and looked at me. “He cut the power?”

“Yeah.” I filled them in on the whole ordeal, watching each one grow more tense the longer I spoke. I knew I was lucky he hadn’t found me, but sitting here right now, I didn’t feel lucky.

“Got it,” Jude said.

It took a few seconds for it to open, but the window on the screen had folders. Lots of them. A whole screen’s worth of folders arrayed everywhere.

“I guess it’s not blank,” I said.

“No.”

Jude clicked on one, and the screen populated with pictures. Daniel swore, and I had to look away. Blood appeared on the screen. Not just blood, but someone bloodied. Clearly dead. Head smashed on the concrete beneath them and completely unrecognizable.

“Shit,” Lucas said. “That… Please tell me every folder on there isn’t a murder.”

I waited for the answer, looking at the wall.

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