“Okay.”
She heard the cops announce themselves downstairs. She couldn’t tell how many there were. At least two. They cleared the main floor, then separated, one going to the basement, the other coming upstairs. The cop announced herself as she came up the stairs.
Remi slipped out of her hidey-hole, leaving her laptop behind. She was getting to her feet as the cop came into the bedroom.
“What happened here?” the police officer asked, her hand on her weapon.
“I don’t know.” Remi folded her arms. “Some bikers just stormed the house.”
“Why your house? You friendly with them?”
“No.”
“You dealing drugs?”
“No.”
The cop looked skeptical. “Stay here while I check out the rest of the rooms up here.”
Remi nodded. The cop went through the other rooms, making a pass at any place it might be easy for a human to hide. Her partner was coming upstairs.
“Jack,” the cop said to her partner. “Let’s go downstairs and take her statement.”
Remi followed them and told them what she knew, tried to answer their questions. They took her statement, gave her their cards, and let her know a detective would be following up with her about the case.
“You going to be okay here, ma’am? We could give you a lift to a hotel.”
“I’ll be all right. I have a, um, friend coming over.”
Speak of the devil, he was walking up the path to her door. Her mind spun back through their hushed conversation while she was hiding. He moved like he owned the world, as if no enemy on earth could defeat him.
Who was he?
God, was he in partnership with the WKB? A good guy to their bad guys? Were they tag-teaming her? No. Not only did he and his friends not look like bikers, Christian Villalobo at the FBI had vouched for him, for what that was worth.
His eyes were intense. In a single sweep, he took in her appearance, the cops, the shambles of her living room, then returned to her as he stepped into her foyer and came right over to her. He put his arms around her, and she breathed the first full breath she’d had in hours.
“You okay?” he asked in a quiet voice as he rubbed her back.
She nodded. The cops left. Greer pushed the door after them—it was too banged up to shut properly. Greer sent a look around her place.
“Looks like your office.” He frowned at her. “You wanna tell me what’s goin’ on?”
She looked at him, then moved away, stepping into her living room. It wasn’t completely a shambles. The bikers hadn’t had more than a few minutes to wreak havoc.
“What are they looking for, Remi?” Greer faced her, his warm brown eyes sharp. “They didn’t find it at your office, so they came here. Did they get what they were after?”
Remi looked over to the broken secretary cabinet where she housed her fake computer setup. Soon enough, the WKB would know she hadn’t accessed that in more than a year. She’d put it there as a decoy.
“They took my computer.”
“So they got what they wanted.”
Greer was only a foot from her. Impatience rolled off his broad chest like heat off a hot tin roof. “Maybe,” she said.
He shoved a hand through his hair and perched on the arm of her sofa. “Talk to me, doc. I can’t help you if you keep secrets.”
Remi folded her hands together and pressed them to her lips. She paced away a few steps, then turned and looked back at Greer. “There’s nothing on the computer they took.” She drew a breath and faced him. “Except a screen that has a laughing clown and sends a virus over to their system, if it’s connected to a network when they access it, which it likely would be when they start it up.” She glanced at the broken cabinet it was in. “And even if it isn’t connected to their system when they attempt to copy the data, there’s an app that watches for a network connection and self-initializes.”
Greer laughed, then shook his head. “Jesus. I think I love you. What does the virus do?”
She lifted her shoulders. “I had a student write it for me. I told him I wanted it to email me as much info as it could about who opened my computer, where they were—anything that might be useful in tracking them down. I don’t know what else he might have put in it.”
“All right. If you get that email, don’t open it. You don’t know what hitchhikers they might be sending back to you. Can you tell me what they’re looking for?”
“I really don’t know.”
“You said you’d had pushback from groups you studied before.”
“I’m not sure what you know about me—”
“A whole bunch of flat facts that could use some connecting dots. I know you’re a professor of sociology at the University of Wyoming. I know your degrees. I know that, though it’s early in your career, you’re already making a name for yourself as an expert in the sociology of cults.” He lifted his brown eyes to her. “And I know that this year, you’re focusing on the Friendship Community.”
“Yeah. That’s me in a nutshell.” Hell, that was the whole summation of her life. “Sometimes, these cults have friends in the world outside their little community.”
“Can I look at your data?”
“No. I’m close to finishing a paper funded by a grant. I can’t have it messed with at this critical stage. I need to submit it for review at a journal as soon as possible.”
“Your paper isn’t going to get finished if you’re dead. And these goons aren’t going to stop until they get what they want. Killing you may be part of that plan.” He stood up. She wasn’t yet used to his height. “Pack up. I’ll take you someplace safe.”
“I have someplace to go to. And I’m not handing over my data. Besides, I’m not going anywhere until I get my doors fixed.”