He found himself laughing too. Rather than focus on what he would lose when he lost her, he would have to focus on the present moment and everything she added to his otherwise miserable, meager existence.
It was almost enough to make him wish the ride to headquarters was longer or that there was a more scenic route they could take. He could imagine traveling the entire country on the back of this motorcycle, with her behind him. Seeing the country together, admiring the landscape. It was something he’d always wanted to do but had never had the chance. He was a kid before he entered the service, and when he returned, he wasn’t exactly free to do what he wanted. There had never been a chance.
He had to stop thinking this way. He was losing focus.
Just then, the focus had to be on her, on what they were about to find when they reached their offices. If it was enough for Logan to think Aimee should bother to make the trip, that her presence wouldn’t set off alarms with her bosses, it had to be serious.
Only when they reached the office park and he slowed down was Aimee able to call out over the roar of the engine. “That was amazing!” she squealed, squeezing him a little tighter.
“I have to take you for a longer ride sometime,” he called back, and she squeezed him again in reply. For one crazy moment, he imagined running away with her, taking her some place far away where they could both live new lives. Together. They would build a life together.
But that was just fairytale stuff, the sort of thing a kid believed because they didn’t know any better. He was no kid. He knew all too well how impossible it would be to escape his life.
Besides, he had no idea whether she would even love him. It seemed like whenever they drew closer to each other, something happened to fling them apart. And unfortunately, most of the time it had to do with their personalities, their stubbornness. They were like oil and water.
If oil and water were combustible when mixed together. He most definitely got the feeling that if given the opportunity, they could be explosive.
He pulled up in front of the office and killed the engine. “I can’t lie,” Aimee giggled as she removed her helmet. “I don’t hate the engine vibrating between my legs.”
“Oh, so that’s what you were so excited about.” He couldn’t pretend to not be more than slightly turned on over something even that simple. He wanted her so bad he could practically taste it—and God knew his wolf wouldn’t shut up about her, panting and slobbering at the thought of being between her legs.
He’d show her a thing or two if she ever rode him.
“What took you so long?” Logan came outside, scowling when he found them standing together next to the motorcycle. “Come on, we have things to show you. You can’t exactly hang around out here.”
The two of them exchanged a concerned glance as they stepped into the building. This couldn’t be good. Aimee’s hand found his, and he held it tight as they walked through the secured door and into the command center.
She whistled, impressed. “This is nice,” she grinned, looking around. “Very nice. I always knew you guys must have something really top-of-the-line, but I couldn’t have imagined this.”
She looked up at the screen filled with images projected from numerous monitors. “Oh, my God,” she whispered.
He stood behind her, silently reminding her she wasn’t alone as he too studied what was up on that screen. Newspaper articles, mostly, written around the time Aimee’s mother disappeared.
She turned, looking for Val. Val approached them, a look of apology on her face. “Yeah, so, this is what we found.”
“How—” he started to ask, but Val cut him off.
“Hawk is already looking into it. We can only assume it’s our friendly hacker, back again. They’ve never gotten this far before. It’s like they’ve been testing us all along to see what we’re capable of. Now, we know they can plant things on our servers. I can’t imagine who could be good enough to do this—and you know it’s eating Hawk alive that they were able to do it.”
Either the person behind this was an absolute genius, or Hawk wasn’t nearly as good as he was supposed to be. Zane knew the latter wasn’t the case—the man was a genius. He could get them into any network they chose to enter, so he knew all the tricks. He knew what needed to be put in place to keep them hacker-proof.
At least, that was what they’d believed before this hacker, whoever they were, had chosen them as a pet project.
“No, that’s not the case,” he whispered to himself, staring up at the screen.
“What’s not the case?” Aimee asked.
“All this time, we thought they had chosen us at random. Right? We figured they either knew something about us and were threatening us, or they were somebody who felt like they had something to prove like they had to hack the unhackable. But now… It’s like they’re giving us this information for a reason. What are the odds that they just happen to know we’re involved with Aimee right now?”
He looked to Logan, whose presence he’d sensed entering the room. Logan shrugged, shaking his head. “Either they’re part of this group—which I’ve suspected all along—or they’re aware of them just like they’re aware of us, a third party sitting outside the action, giving us a little information now that we know they’re able to access our network.”
“They’re friend, not foe,” Aimee whispered, never taking her eyes from the screen. She trembled slightly like it pained her to come face-to-face with so many images. Her mother’s car abandoned on the shoulder of I-76. The driver’s side door open, the keys in the ignition. Even her purse was still sitting on the floor in front of the passenger’s seat.
As if she’d gotten out to maybe help a stranded motorist, then was kidnapped.
Or as if she’d walked away from her life.
“What makes you say that?” Logan asked, coming closer. He studied her the way Zane had when he’d first met her. Wondering if she meant half of what she said, whether she could be trusted. Logan hadn’t spent the sort of time with her that Zane had, so naturally, he’d be more reticent.
“They could’ve bombed you guys, for lack of a better word,” she murmured, shaking her head. “Right? I don’t know much about this kind of thing, but isn’t that true? They could’ve torn you guys up, wiped you out. Instead, they gave you something like a gift, something to show you they’re on your side. Maybe they can’t come right out and tell you why they think this information is significant.”
She turned to Zane. “Maybe it’s not significant at all. Maybe this is a way for them to say hey, I know you’re with this girl right now, here’s all the information about her mom’s disappearance as a clue that I’m onto your activities.”
“But how are they? That’s what I don’t get.”
“That’s what none of us gets,” Val muttered, bitter. She hated to see her man working himself to death, blaming himself for leaving them vulnerable.
“I think they’re trying to say they’re on your side. I really do,” Aimee insisted. “Though I can’t imagine where they found all this info.”
She went to the screen, pointing up to where her mother’s employment record was displayed. “Like this. She was a federal employee, but they managed to secure her files? That’s a big deal.”
“It’s not that hard if you know what you’re doing,” Val murmured.
“Okay, fine. If you know what you’re doing. But why? Why go to all the trouble? It’s one thing to pull up an article about a missing person, but running the risk of hacking federal employment records? What’s the point?”
She made sense—and opened more questions than ever before.
“Just what did your mother do for a living?” Zane whispered to himself, watching her as she skimmed the document’s contents.
And what did it have to do with them?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“It’s so weird seeing it all again.” Aimee wrapped her arms around herself, goosebumps rising over her arms and the back of her neck. It w
as like being thrust back into the past.
A past she didn’t particularly want to be part of. It was tough enough back then when it was happening.
Then again, back then, she’d been completely on her own, a teenager barely out of high school, now suddenly an orphan or as good as. She spent hours talking to the police being grilled over every little thing.
More than once she had wondered if they thought she had something to do with it. As if she’d orchestrated her mother’s disappearance. She knew the feeling of being looked at like she might be the enemy when she was someone who deserved pity and help and understanding.
It wasn’t exactly something she’d ever wanted to revisit.
Didn’t she know better by then? She could turn her back on the past, could ignore those terrible moments, those agonizing hours, but that didn’t mean they would go away. They’d happened, and nothing had ever been resolved.
“I wish I understood what they were trying to tell us with this.” Zane shook his head, arms folded, reviewing the files on a laptop at what he told her was his desk. He didn’t do a lot of work there; she could tell—there was a line of dust visible when she moved a stack of files aside. They’d been sitting there for a while, untouched. Of course, they did a lot of their work in the field protecting people. Not behind desks.
“Maybe they think she’s still alive?” she had to say, had to speak the words out loud. Words she hadn’t ever dared speak because she hadn’t dared hope for something that miraculous.
“I don’t know.” He looked up at her, his brow wrinkling as he frowned. “Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe this is too much for you.”
She knew his concern came from a good place, and on one hand, she was grateful for it. They’d come a long way, the two of them, and he didn’t need to be so caring, so thoughtful. She would never have imagined him being this way before, certainly, when he wanted to wring her neck and she would gladly have done the same to him.
Even so, she bristled. “I can handle this,” she assured him. “I’m not going to break down.”
“I never said I thought you would.”
She bit her tongue to hold back a sharp retort. There was no time to waste in a silly argument, and that was all she would be doing, wasting her time, distracting herself, even, from memories she was afraid to unearth. Maybe he was right. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea for her to be there.
No. She owed it to herself to be strong, to face what she’d buried so deep.
“Listen. I’m not saying I think she’s alive, and I didn’t blurt that out because I’m still hopeful. I let go of hope a long time ago,” she assured him. “I’m just saying there’s got to be a reason they thought it was important to give this to you. And I’m not going to lie; I always thought the police let go of the case a little too quickly. I mean, it doesn’t make any sense, doesn’t it?”
She leaned in, pointing to an image from one of the articles. How many times had she pored over those articles? Dissecting them, memorizing every detail of every photo taken of the inside of her mother’s car?
“See, she left everything. She didn’t take a single thing with her. They gave me her purse after they were finished going through it for clues. There was nothing missing inside—I can’t tell you how many times she sent me into her purse to grab five bucks to go down to the store. She always carried the same things. Her wallet, phone—that was in there too—and her planner. It was sort of an address book and a planner combined. That thing was her lifeline. She never would’ve gone without it.”
“Which is why they assumed somebody took her,” Zane mused, leaning back in his chair. “She left everything behind. Including you.”
“We’re not talking about me right now,” she reminded him, her throat tightening.
“But we are because this has to do with you too. It’s not just that she left everything behind in her car. She left you behind, too. No mother would leave her kid behind without so much as a word, and if she’d gone into witness protection—maybe after seeing something she shouldn’t have seen on the job—she would’ve taken you with her. They wouldn’t have advised her to walk away from you even if you were almost eighteen.”
She sat in an empty chair, her legs going weak. The pancakes and apples and hot chocolate that had seemed like such a good idea earlier in the morning went sour in her stomach. “I can’t tell you how many times I asked myself why she would leave me,” she admitted. “At the same time, who randomly takes a woman off the side of the road? Without taking her money or her car? They didn’t rob her. There weren’t even any foreign fingerprints on the purse, the steering wheel, any of it. Nobody had even touched her car besides her. It didn’t make sense then, and it doesn’t make sense now.”
“Maybe that’s what they’re trying to tell us, whoever this hacker is.” Val joined them, patting Aimee’s shoulder in passing. “Maybe they think it’s sketchy, too. Who knows? Maybe your mom uncovered something she wasn’t supposed to. I mean, I hate to say it like that,” she added, looking sympathetic.
“Believe me, there’s nothing you can say that I haven’t already considered,” Aimee assured her. “I had plenty of time to go over and over in my head. And yes, I asked myself if she found something she wasn’t supposed to see. God only knows—she was always working insane hours. The people she worked for had no sense of decency when it came to their employees, obviously. They didn’t believe in people taking time for family or even time for themselves. She worked like a dog.”
Val cleared her throat, and when Aimee glanced up at her, she found her shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “See, that’s where I have questions.”
“What do you mean? About what?” Aimee asked.
“You see, when you go to her employment history…” Val reached over Zane, taking control of the laptop without asking. “It doesn’t look like she was a secretary at all.”
Silence fell over the three of them, all of them leaning in to read what Val had just pulled up.
“She had top-secret security clearance,” Zane breathed, amazed. “Since when do secretaries have top-secret clearance?”
Aimee shook her head. “That’s got to be a mistake.”
She wished for all the world that Val didn’t look so sympathetic. “I don’t think these people make mistakes,” she murmured.
“Then somebody messed with this. They altered it somehow. I don’t know why, but they must have. She was nobody. She was an underling.”
“Are you so sure of that?” Val whispered. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to meddle or to get into things that aren’t my business, but there’s got to be a reason this was delivered to us. Somebody’s trying to tell us something about her, maybe thinking it has to do with you.”
“How did you live? I mean, what sort of life was it?” Zane asked, turning away from the laptop to face her.
“What are you talking about?” She felt the room starting to close in on her, perspiration breaking out on the back of her neck. It was like being interrogated, like she’d made a mistake in being discovered and now her cover was blown. She barely knew who to trust as these two otherwise helpful, friendly people stared at her. Her mouth went dry.
“You said she worked all the time.” It was clear Zane was trying to be gentle, cautious, like he was afraid she would explode.
“Yeah, she worked constantly. I told you all about that already.”
“Were you comfortable? Did you live a comfortable life?”
“Sure,” she shrugged. “Yeah, I was comfortable. More than comfortable.”
“Did you have a lot of, you know. Gadgets? Tech?”
“No more than any other kid. I had my computer. I had a phone—yeah, I was one of the first kids I knew to have one, but it was important. If I needed anything or if she needed to reach me, she wanted to be sure she could, so I had a cell phone.”
She slumped a little. “And a tablet, as soon as they first came out. Videogame systems. She let me shop online for things I n
eeded. She trusted that I wouldn’t go overboard, so I pretty much had free reign. We had a nice apartment, two bedrooms, two bathrooms. Plenty of space. A secure building. It was a nice area out on the Main Line outside Philly.”
Val blew a long, low whistle. “Sounds like a lot of money for a secretary,” she murmured. She pointed to the image still up on the screen, at the front of the room. “And that’s a nice car. A BMW.”
“Well, she worked there for a long time. She got raises, bonuses.” Her heart sank a little. “That’s what she always told me, anyway. From how this sounds, it seems like she was lying to me. I was too young to know any better, but I still don’t know what this has to do with me. How does it all tie together?”
“That’s what I would like to know too,” Zane admitted with a sigh. “I couldn’t say. I guess none of us can.”
Val made a choked sort of noise. “I have a theory,” she murmured, looking and sounding extremely uncomfortable.
“What is it?” Aimee asked.
“You might not want to hear it.”
Aimee couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Listen, I’ve been through everything. Nothing you can say right now is going to be something I haven’t come up with at one time or another.”
Still, Val looked like she’d just eaten something sour. “What if she was involved with them somehow?” And there was no need for her to say exactly who she was talking about.
“No. No way.” Aimee shot up out of her chair, trembling. She wasn’t exactly steady on her feet, but she had to move. Maybe she was going to explode, after all.
“It’s just a theory,” Zane murmured, his hand on her arm.
She shook him free. “Absolutely not. I’m willing to accept the idea that she had things in her past that she didn’t tell me about, that she knew things she wasn’t supposed to know. I can handle that. And I understand why she would want to keep it from me to keep me safe. But this is a whole other level!” She burst out laughing, though there was no humor in it. It was more the way a person laughed when they were sure they were about to lose their mind since everything around them had suddenly stopped making sense.
Wolf Shield Investigations: Boxset Page 94
