Page 30 of Montana Rain

“Yeah,” Jude said. His voice was raw. “It is. And not just pictures. There are video files as well.”

Cole pushed off the wall. “How many?”

“Sixty-two. No guarantee there’s only one person per file.”

I stood, unable to keep myself still. I needed to move because I felt like I couldn’t breathe. “Why would they keep these? Of all the things? That mob boss, Thomas Peretti, is on trial. Why would they keep evidence that could put him away for more than one lifetime?”

“There are lots of reasons,” Cole said quietly. “The main one being blackmail. Peretti might be the mastermind behind all these killings, but I doubt he did them all personally. They could use this evidence to keep lieutenants in line. Or as a threat there’s more to come.”

Jude turned in his chair to face us, and thankfully, he didn’t leave any pictures open on the screen. “It also explains the encryption.”

“How did she get it? That woman. The one who ran into me?”

“Susan White,” Jude answered. “She was a reporter. I have no idea how she got her hands on this, but it was a brave fucking thing to do.”

I ran both hands through my hair, aware I probably looked like a drowned rat after being under the bed and out in the snow. “Why did they kill her?” I asked. “She didn’t have it anymore. She passed it on to me.” Logically, I knew why, but I had to verbalize the question.

“If they knew she had it, she already knew too much,” Lucas said.

“I think that’s why whoever was in your house didn’t look very hard for you,” Cole added. “You mentioned the security footage. I guarantee they’ve seen it too and know her hand went into your bag. But it doesn’t look like you’re aware, right?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I looked…startled, I guess.”

Cole leaned forward on the table. “What I’m about to say goes against our instincts, but the mafia, for all their reputation, don’t kill for fun. They kill for a purpose. If it’s clear you have the flash drive but are an innocent bystander, they want to retrieve it. Not to murder someone without a point.

“There’s a reason they didn’t identify themselves or attack you and make you tell them where the drive is. There’s a reason they didn’t look in the places where you put something if you’re intentionally trying to hide it. None of your cushions were torn. No pictures moved for safes. He didn’t look under the bed.” His eyes met mine intentionally. “Because they don’t think you know what you have.”

“I know now,” I breathed.

“There’s no reason they have to be made aware of that,” Daniel said. “We can get this back to them—or to the authorities.”

I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to resist the shudder that racked my body. “I want to give it to the authorities, because anyone who’s done these kinds of things deserves to rot in prison for the rest of their life. But if I do that, they’ll keep coming, right?”

No one spoke for a moment, and when I looked up, the men were looking at one another, like they could communicate without words. “What?”

“It’s tricky at this point,” Cole said. “Because as of this moment, there are a couple of paths. They either think you don’t have it, and it’s over. Or, they still think you have it, but that you don’t know what you have. If you give it back to them, you’re telling them you know what’s on it. Because in order for you to know who to give it back to, you need to know what’s on it.”

And my knowing what was on it put my life in danger. It put all our lives in danger. If they found out we all knew about it, they would come after everyone to clean up the mess. Daniel and Lucas were fathers now. The kids.

Not to mention Susan White, who’d died anyway, even though she tried. What could we do?

“I never should have brought it here,” I said. “Now all of you are involved. They’ll come after you too.”

“We’ll be okay, Rayne,” Lucas said. “After all this time? We’ve survived worse.”

Jude and Daniel laughed, but there wasn’t true humor in it.

I glared at him. “You’re a father. You’re married. All of you… Our entire…all our friends and family are here. And I might bring the people who did that right to our doors. If they come here, none of us will be all right.”

“For the moment,” Daniel said, spreading his hands wide, “we’re actually in the best position we could be in. Because they don’t have any proof you have this. I want you to stay here for the next few days while we watch anywhere else they could get to you, including your online presence. If they don’t touch anything, there’s a good chance they think you don’t have it. At which point we can anonymously get it to the FBI.”

Jude nodded. “I agree.”

I felt sick. Everything from the night was catching up to me, and it felt like the tethers that held my world together were detangling faster than the speed of light. Someone had been in my house.

God, it seemed silly for that to just be sinking in, but I was standing here, and there were photos of murdered people. For all I knew, I could have been one of them.

My office was in tatters, and so was my home. I knew I could stay here, but with this hanging over my head, dread spiraled through me. As a therapist, I, of all people, knew your reactions were what they were, even if they weren’t correct on the first try. Right now, it felt like I was losing everything, no matter that it wasn’t the case.

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