“Internet,” Denver grunted. He glanced up from pounding on his keyboard, his hair ruffled and his blue eyes slowly focusing. A bandage peeked from his open collar, covering a minor bullet wound. He’d been shot the week before while chasing down a guy who owed child support. “Got some furniture for you, too.”
Ryker cut Heath a glance. “Is he pregnant?”
“Shut up.” Denver threw a brass paperweight at him, and he caught it.
“He has a paperweight,” Ryker whispered to Heath.
Heath chuckled. “I told you. Nesting.”
“Receptionist?” Denver asked.
“No,” Ryker and Heath said in unison.
Ryker tossed the paperweight onto the desk, where it clattered. “We’re not exactly working within the law here, guys. A receptionist would just complicate things.”
Denver leaned back to rub his scruffy jaw. A wide oil painting of the Rocky Mountains spread across the entire wall behind him, its vibrant hues of pink and green adding even more warmth to the area. “The phone?”
“We can take turns. Hopefully it won’t ring much. Keep in mind we’re setting down temporary roots just to catch this nutjob killing redheads,” Ryker said. “We need a virtual redhead to be dating one of us. Somebody just on paper, not real, that will draw the killer in. Then we get him as he tries to find her.”
Heath nodded. “We do have to look like we’re relocating here for good. It has to look natural, or the asshole killer won’t go for it.” His fingers drummed impatiently on his jeans. “We’re fighting a ticking clock. The bastard already knows his next victim, I’m sure.”
True. Frustration for the innocent victims made Ryker’s hands clench, and he purposefully relaxed them. He glanced at all the wood. “Please tell me my furniture doesn’t look like a ninety-year-old lawyer uses it.”
“I like cherrywood, and, no, your office fits your personality,” Denver muttered, tapping the long scar along his jaw, which he’d gotten in a knife fight years ago. It was a habit he resorted to when he became irritated.
“What’s going on, Den?” Ryker asked.
“We got hacked.” Denver glanced over at the computer. “Our files, our backgrounds, and the encrypted stuff. Even the stuff on the dark web that allows people who need a job done quietly to find us.”
Ryker frowned, and his shoulders shot back. That was two entire sentences from Denver at once. The guy was pissed off. “Even the encrypted stuff?”
“Yeah.” Denver rolled his neck. “I’m good, but this guy hacked through my levels of protection like a buzz saw through butter. Kicked the door wide open and left a calling card.” He flipped the screen around to show a picture of a hand giving the bird.
Ryker coughed out a laugh. “What a dick.”
“Yeah.” Denver sighed.
“Did he spend extra time in any of the files?” Heath asked.
Denver nodded. “Yes. The files of our last three cases. He read through them and downloaded copies of everything.”
“Do you think it’s the serial killer?” Ryker asked, his fingers tapping restlessly on his thighs.
Denver shook his head. “No.”
Heath nodded. “That doesn’t feel right. Mainly the picture flipping us off—it’s too immature. The killer is methodical, psycho, and determined. I think this hacker is somebody else entirely. Maybe it’s somebody looking to hire us. Folks usually find us on the dark web.”
“That’s not all,” Denver said.
The hair on the back of Ryker’s neck rose. “What?”
“He left this, too.” Denver pointed to a URL.
“Where does the link go?” Ryker asked, his instincts kicking in hard.
Denver clicked his mouse, and a newspaper article came up: LOST SPRINGS HOME FOR BOYS BURNS DOWN: TWO DIE.
Ryker read the headline twice before the words made sense and he could concentrate. His chest compressed. “Well, fuck. Looks like somebody knows who we are.”
“How?” Heath asked, tension cutting lines on either side of his mouth. “How in the hell?”
“Dunno,” Denver said, shoving the sleeves of his long T-shirt up his muscled arms.
Ryker fleetingly wished for another bottle of booze. “Can he trace us here?”
“No. I used false identifications to create a series of corporations that own the building as well as the business. If the three of us walk away, again, nobody can trace us,” Denver said.
“We didn’t have to leave Alaska,” Heath muttered. “It was your choice to leave Noni there.”
Ryker blew out air. “Sheriff Cobb was closing in again, and there’s no statute of limitation on murder, boys. Leaving her might’ve been the best thing for her.” Someday they were going to get caught. Could he leave Zara? He might have to flee if this hacker discovered their location.
Denver tapped his scar. “Leaving Noni was my decision, and I’ve asked you not to say her fucking name. So stop saying her fucking name.”
Ryker studied the newspaper picture on the screen of a younger Sheriff Cobb, strong and tall, standing in front of a smoldering pile of rubble, his hand on his nightstick. Ryker had felt the pain of that damn thing more times than he could count, and looking at it now made his gut ache. “He’ll never stop coming for us.”
“We could put him down,” Denver said darkly.