Page 28 of Silver Fox
“He undid an entire roll of toilet paper, didn’t you Axi?”
Bryaxis ignores me, rubbing his cheek against Silas’s beard and continuing to purr.
A laugh burbles out of me. I let my head fall forward against Silas’s shoulder. “Why does my cat love you so much?” I giggle. “He’s obsessed.”
Silas’s voice is a low murmur against my ear, sending a shiver down my spine. “What can I say? I’m an expert with kitties of all shapes and sizes.”
And don’t I know it. Silas took me out to dinner last night, to some fancy restaurant I’d never set foot in before, and he couldn’t keep his hands off me when driving us home.
Thankfully, his car has a self-driving mode, leaving his hands free forother activities.
It’s then that I blink. I sit up straight, thoughts racing through my mind. “Your car,” I say. “The self-driving mode on it…”
Silas freezes, feeling the atmosphere change between us. “What about it?”
“It’s covered in cameras, right? I remember you saying when we went to my old apartment to pick up my stuff. It records everything around it.”
“Right,” Silas answers. “It has a twenty-four hour security system recording the car’s exterior.”
I remember the security recordings. Kenneth was often out in the parking lot, sitting on the bench…
The bench in front of Silas’s car. I could see him from the security camera in the reception, but only through the windows—too far away for the camera’s audio to pick him up. “Does it record audio as well?”
Silas follows my gaze, pulling in a quick breath when he realizes my train of thought. “It must do,” he answers.
I give Bryaxis an absent-minded stroke. “Because if it’s picked up Kenneth approving fraudulent invoices…”
“Then the police would have probable cause to obtain a warrant.” Silas pulls out his phone, flicking through it.
“Except…” I swallow. “Where is the footage? And how long is it stored for?”
It takes Silas more than an hour to figure that out, but eventually we discover where the dashcam footage is stored. We sift through it together. The first few hours are of the last couple weeks, and I can’t stop smiling as we rewind past our trips to the local natural history museum, as well as the concert he took me to the week before—and then there was the impromptu trip to the jewelry store after I said I’d never had a man buy me jewelry or flowers. Plus there’s what I missed before; Silas going to the florist the day after to pick up a trulygiganticbouquet of roses to surprise me when I woke up that morning.
Watching it all back makes me smile, and I lean over to kiss to Silas’s cheek.
Or his catnip-infused stubble, anyway.
The footage changes suddenly, and I recognize the gated parking lot at the Silver Mobility office. People race around on the accelerated footage, and I open up my phone, tracking my call history from Kenneth.
Silas hits pause, changing the speed back to normal. Kenneth slows down, his pace suddenly seeming glacial compared to what it was. Right on time, he pulls out his phone, and I hold my breath when his voice comes through the speakers, sharing an excited glance with Silas.
The beginning of whatever conversation I had with Kenneth is uninteresting, with him giving me tasks, but Silas pauses the footage again, looking over at me. “Did he talk to you like this the whole time?”
“Like I’m an idiot, you mean?” My eyebrow hitches. “Yes, the whole time.”
His lips thin, and he lets out a lengthy breath, taking my hand and bringing it to his lips. “Let’s find out if he’s going to get fired for embezzling or for being an asshole.”
Silas taps the ‘play’ button, and Kenneth unfreezes.
“One more thing—there’s an invoice that needs to be put through.” Kenneth says curtly. He taps onto his smart watch, and there’s a few seconds of silence before he recites the number. “Invoice #200386. Log into my account and approve it by two o’clock.”
I gasp, because since sorting through the footage I’ve looked over the fraudulent invoices enough to know them by heart now. “That’s it!”
“That fucking bastard,” Silas mutters, shaking his head and giving me a victorious grimace. He runs his finger under my chin, his eyes full of promise. “My clever girl.”
9
Silas
