Ryker waited until Zara had fled into the master bathroom, insanely grateful he’d purchased bath towels the previous week, and then he went out into the hallway.
Heath leaned against the door to his own apartment, ankles crossed. Exhaustion had turned his eyes bloodshot. After Zara’s accident, he’d stayed in town and been on the phone or computer, still obsessed with the serial killer case. “She’s pretty.”
“Yeah, she is,” Ryker said.
“You can’t be seen publicly with her, Ryker. I know she’s not a redhead, but she could still be in danger by being close to us.”
Ryker breathed out heavily. “She might be in her own set of danger, so I can’t leave her alone. I’ll stay under the radar with her, so when our good old serial killer comes knocking, he won’t know anything about her. Any luck with her medical or financial records?” Ryker kept his voice low in case she finished showering.
“Not yet, but Denver is working on it.” Heath drew in air. “Why don’t you just ask her?”
Ryker nodded. “I’m planning on it, but considering she’s been keeping secrets, I’d rather know the truth before asking.”
Heath snorted. “That is not how trust works, brother.”
Yeah. Good point. Ryker reached into his back pocket. “The guy who hacked our system came into the office earlier and wants to hire us for a job.”
Heath shoved off the wall. “Really?”
Denver pushed open the door to the stairwell and stepped inside, his gaze going from one to the other. “We’re meeting here?”
“Yeah. I was just telling Heath that I met the person who hacked into our system. We need to scout the security cameras and see where he went next.” Ryker slowly unfolded the paper Greg had given him.
Denver sighed. “An external source wiped the security cameras. The hacker is good.”
That fuckin’ kid seriously knew his electronics. “The hacker is about twelve years old, named Greg.”
Denver’s eyebrows drew down. “Twelve?”
“You could’ve done it as a teenager,” Heath said slowly.
Denver nodded. “Yeah, but we’re not normal.”
“Amen to that,” Ryker said. “I’m thinkin’ maybe this kid isn’t normal, either.” He handed over the picture of Sylvia Daniels.
Denver took it silently and handed it to Heath.
“Greg wants to hire us to find her. Says her name is Dr. Isobel Madison and that she’s part of some covert governmental agency,” Ryker said.
Heath shook his head, his eyes firing. “No way.”
Ryker kept a wince off his face. The woman had shown up at the boys home periodically through the years to test their scholastic and physical abilities. For a while, she’d claimed she was leading a governmental study about kids raised as orphans, but once Ryker had learned to discern a lie, he knew that was untrue. Why she’d studied them, he still didn’t know. “It’s not a coincidence this kid wants to find her.”
Heath’s chest lifted with a huge breath, and he blew it out through his nose. “I thought we were done with that witch.”
“Me too,” Denver said, staring down at the picture.
Heath growled. “Is the kid messing with us? I mean, he did hack our files. Maybe this is just another ‘Fuck you.’”
Ryker replayed the entire meeting in his head, his heart hurting for Greg. “I don’t think so. He’s almost desperate to find her, to the point where I could smell it on him.”
“Wait a minute. If he’s good enough to hack us, then why doesn’t he just find her himself?” Heath asked slowly, his hand shaking a little.
“Says he can’t.” Ryker rubbed his chin. “Says he read our files and saw how we find people nobody else can.” With skills they shouldn’t have, really. “Greg said he couldn’t find her but thinks that we can.”
“He knows about us?” Denver asked, his head going back.
That was good. That Denver was still speaking in complete sentences when talking about the past was a good sign.
Ryker shook his head. “There’s no way for Greg to know much about us, but he suspects we’re able to do something most folks can’t. He can’t understand the rest of it.” Unless the kid had his own special gifts. “It’s not a coincidence that Sylvia—or rather, Isobel Madison—studied and taught us…and this special kid, the best hacker we’ve ever found, is looking for her.”
“We cannot open that fucking can of worms,” Heath snapped, his eyes wild. “Everything will unravel, and we just got to safety. Of a sorts.”
“I know,” Ryker said. “But what choice do we have? If we don’t help the kid, he’s going to turn us in to Sheriff Cobb.”
Heath scrubbed both hands down his face. “Damn it, I know. Even if the little shit wasn’t blackmailing us, we have to figure out what’s going on. I’ve always wondered about Sylvia, and it appears there’s more to her than we thought. Maybe—”