“The lawyers?” The law firm of Gledon, McCloud, and Johnson had the floor below them.
“The complaint was about music being played at a high volume,” Jake explained. “Apparently a couple of the younger lawyers stayed late that night, and they had some complaints about the volume we were cranking the music at. The building manager is scared of Ian, so we hadn’t actually received a reprimand. This person says we played Guns N’ Roses over and over for an hour.”
A shiver went up Alex’s spine. Guns N’ Roses? “Sweet Child O’ Mine?”
It was what Ian had played every year, once a year, on the anniversary of Charlotte’s death. He played that one song about a thousand times and drank his weight in Scotch until he passed out and then ignored the problem for another year. What was the chance that someone breaking into their building would be listening to the same song?
Adam looked up. “Yeah. They were annoyed that it was the same song. Over and over.”
Sometimes in an investigation, little things came together, seemingly random events that knitted into a greater tapestry, a complete picture that hadn’t been there before. As Alex watched the tape, the world coalesced into something he understood.
The dark-haired figure walked into the copier room, but not before she turned, looked at the camera and winked. She blew the camera a kiss before disappearing into the copy room.
Oh yes, and they are so totally helpful when you want to get information but you don’t want anyone to know you have it. Really, it’s awesome. So the hard drive on a copy machine actually takes a picture of everything the copy machine scans.
Kristen had been thrilled to tell him how she’d pulled information off the machine.
Kristen knew everything about him and Eve and all the members of McKay-Taggart Security Services.
She’d put herself in front of him, taking a bullet meant for him, because someone wanted him alive. Someone she wanted to please.
Here. She’d put her hand over his, covering her heart. Since the day I set eyes on him. He’s been here. Tell him I did good. Tell him I was good. I was good for him. I was good. He can have a thousand other women, but I was his only true wife.
Kristen was the woman on the tape. She came back out of the room, dancing a little as she stuffed a thumb drive into her uniform. She looked up and winked and smiled. Somehow that smile was beneficent, as though what she was about to do would help the whole world.
Why do I love such an asshole?
He’d thought the asshole was Evans, but there was no tie between Kristen White and Evans. In fact, there was no tie between the woman they thought was Kristen and the real Kristen White. Days after he’d been shot, Alex had gotten the report. Kristen White was a nice forty-two-year-old with two kids. She had retired from journalism a year before. Her husband ran a software development company. She didn’t have red hair, but she told the story of a woman who had helped her out of a problem with the Russian mob who fit the description. She’d called her an angel.
This is so much worse than the first time. First time, he was here.
Kristen was smart enough to fake her death, strong enough to come back from it.
Had she spent the last five years trying to find a way to get her husband back?
“Why would someone break into our place?” Adam asked. “That’s Kris. I can see it with my own eyes. Why would she do that?”
Because she wanted to make up for her crimes.
Because she wanted her man back and she needed information. She’d taken information on all of them and decided on a plan of attack—or in her case, a plan to protect and give. They were her present to Ian. Alex and Eve. By bringing them back together, giving them their chance at justice, she’d been trying to prove herself to Ian.
He pulled his cell phone, his heart racing.
He dialed Ian’s number. Ian’s world had crumbled five years before. Maybe tonight, he would get it back.
He held Eve’s hand as he waited for Ian to answer. Sometimes the universe was kind and a man got a second chance.
His heart filled with love. His second chance pressed her body against his.
All was fucking right with the world.
Ian Taggart looked down at the screen of his computer, every cell in his body coming to life. He stared at it. Just a couple of lines that might mean the world. There he was. So fucking long he’d looked for Eli Nelson and there he was. At least he was pretty damn sure this was the line on the son of a bitch he’d been waiting for. Hoping for. Praying for.
No fucking way.