“That’s what Andrew used to tell me when I worried about the dangers of his job. Didn’t make me feel better, though. I knew it only took one bullet, one witness interview or suspect apprehension gone awry to negate all the desk work in the world.”
He cut a silent but meaningful glance her way, then turning back to the computer and continuing to scroll he muttered, “And then it proved to be his partner that did him in. Not a suspect’s bullet at all.”
She huffed a sigh. “I shouldn’t have brought him up.”
“Andrew will always be a factor between us.”
She ignored that truth, saying, “Are you now claiming responsibility for his death? I thought that whole speech you gave me earlier today was to shift blame away from you.”
His eyebrows drew together, and his jaw hardened. “Oh, I take responsibility, all right.” He paused a beat as he clicked through a few of her father’s files, then added, “It just wasn’t murder.”
Penelope glanced down at her lap. She spun her wedding ring on her finger without really seeing or realizing what she was doing as she sorted through the tug-of-war of emotions stringing her as tight as a hunter’s bow. A few hours ago, when Reid had made the same claim regarding Andrew’s death, she hadn’t wanted to hear it. She’d clung to the idea that he was to blame so she had a target for her anger and her dismay over the unfairness of her loss.
Now she felt a pluck of sympathy for Reid, for the guilt he lived with. Her anger had shifted inside her. She was angry with the shooter who’d tried to kill them today, necessitating that her life and her son’s be disrupted and that they hide out like cowards. But the lion’s share of her fury and confusion and hurt focused on her father. If even a portion of their initial suspicions proved true, her father had been living a lie for years. Had he gotten wind of Andrew’s investigation of him? Could her father be the one to blame for the agony she’d suffered in recent months?
She raised her attention back to Reid’s laptop, where lists of files scrolled up the screen. When she groaned softly, he chuckled and cast a side glance at her. “What? You were thinking he’d have a file labeled Incriminating Evidence or Proof of My Illegal Activity?”
She snorted her derision. “Oh, no. My father would never be that cooperative. I’m just wondering how we’re supposed to process all this. Where do we start?”
“After I make a backup of the whole thumb drive,” he said, even as he dug another memory stick out of a desk drawer, “I usually make a first cursory pass through, scanning file names and types. I sort out what appears useless and what might prove helpful and make new folders. As I finish with a file I move it to a folder for reviewed items, but I preserve the integrity of the original material. A lot of times, all the information that incriminates a person is saved in the same place.”
“Sounds time-consuming.”
He arched an eyebrow and curled up a corner of his mouth. “Going somewhere?”
She opened her mouth to tell him how busy her schedule was, then snapped it closed again as it fully dawned on her what being sequestered in his lake house meant. She was essentially a captive. Until the threat to her and to Nicholas was removed, she didn’t dare go anywhere near her usual haunts. Her shoulders drooped. “Oh. Right.”
He selected a folder titled Family Photos and began opening files.
“Um...” Penelope frowned her curiosity at him. “Strange place to start. You’re thinking our Christmas photos from years past hide some encrypted secrets?”
“If you had something you didn’t want anyone else to run across accidentally would you save it in a file called Private or called Summer Vacation Photos?”
“Your theory being a file called Private or Personal screams juicy reading and invites invasion.”
“Exactly.”
“While Family Photos—” she watched him click through a series of humdrum stilted pictures of holiday dinners, awards presentations and ski trips taken before her mother got sick “—are every bit as boring as the cliché.”
He scrolled a bit further through the pictures before closing the file. “Well, that appears to be what it claims, so we’ll save the walk down memory lane for later.”
She stood and stretched her back. “Surely there is something else I can be doing to help besides hovering over your shoulder.”
He spun his chair to face her, the lines bracketing his deep blue eyes giving a clue to his own fatigue. “Truthfully, Pen, I think the best thing for you is to try to get some sleep. We’ll have plenty of time tomorrow to search files and read documents.”
“Does that mean you’re going to bed soon, too? Because I don’t want to be pushed aside on this. He is my father. I was shot at today, too. And Andrew was my husband. If my dad had anything to do with Andrew’s death, if there’s any connection to what happened to us today...” She squared her shoulders, firming her resolve. “I have a right to be part of bringing him to justice.”
Chapter 11
Morning came early for Pen the next day. Nicholas woke before sunrise and, finding himself in an unfamiliar bed, called out for her rather than falling back asleep as he usually did. She hurried to reassure him before his cries woke Reid. After changing his diaper, she brought him into the twin bed she’d been sleeping in and cuddled him close. She tried to encourage him to fall back asleep, which he finally did about thirty minutes later. By then, she was wide-awake and her thoughts were spinning. Her body ached, especially her head, no doubt thanks to the knock it took when Reid shoved her out of the line of fire yesterday.
A quiver rolled through her, though she couldn’t say for sure if it was from the winter-morning chill in the room, the reminder of the shooting or the idea of being sequestered with Reid Colton. Probably a combination of the three.