“It’s not.” Who was she, anymore? He was the one thing she didn’t have any doubts about, in this whole big mess.
He couldn’t even go out and shoot video, because the FBI had all his camera equipment. The only not-tragic thing about that was that he didn’t turn over any of the X-rated footage he had of Fiona. He never kept that with his other videos, and he’d decided there was no reason to even mention the clips existed, unless the Feds had a warrant for everything.
Not that he’d have a long leash anyway. He and Fiona were watched even when they went down to the lobby for an afternoon sugar fix from the gift shop.
All of their food was delivered, and the drivers had to drop it at a nearby room, where the agent on duty would bring it over.
“What are you up to?” Fiona asked.
He’d offered to give her space, to work, but apparently that wasn’t happening for either of them. “I was browsing exotic locales to visit. Thinking I’ve still never made it to Red Square in the spring. Wondering if I could get a Russian visa and what the odds were I could broadcast from there.”
Better than of them walking out of here before Wyatt’s arraignment without a human shadow. “I’m in. How do we make it happen?” she said.
“Is your work saved?”
Fiona nodded.
Parker took her laptop and switched to a browser window. He opened YouTube and frowned. “You’ve got a unique browsing history.”
It wasn’t odd, though, as far as she was concerned. The countless nights, filled with dreams of Tim coming for her again, were the perfect reason to watch as many videos of his legal proceedings as she could.
“I’m sad that he succeeded.” Parker’s comment was soft.
“In what?”
“Making sure you never forget him.”
Right. Another thing Fiona hated—living in fear, even before the bombings, always looking over her shoulder.
Something caught her eye in one of the thumbnails, as Parker hit Search.
“Stop. Go back.” She reached over him and clicked to return to the previous screen. “It can’t be.” She was tired. Her mind was playing tricks. She was going stir crazy. The clip was gone, though.
She grabbed her computer back. “Where is it?”
“Red?”
She didn’t dare say, because it couldn’t be real. She would have seen it before now. What was the scene? The courthouse before Tim’s arraignment. In the crowds. She typed in a search phrase and scanned thumbnails.
None of them were right. She typed another one.
“Fiona? Talk to me.”
“Yeah. It’s fine. Hang on.” She flew threw five more combinations of words, and none of them produced the right results.
Fiona is a liar. The phrase flowed through her fingers before her mind registered the meaning. She’d been so tired the last time she typed that. The day Wyatt was arrested. When Ms. Passion made her last competition video.
The browser whirred, and results were returned. Her heart dropped into her stomach. She didn’t even need to hit Play. There it was, right in front of her. She set the image to full screen and pointed.
Parker leaned over her shoulder. “No shit.”
It was the guy who had picked a fight with Parker in Atlanta. He stood on the courthouse steps, at the fringes of the handful of media, as Tim was led inside.
“Coincidence?” Half of Fiona wanted it to be, and the other half needed this to mean something.
Parker shook his head. “Nothing about this has been coincidence. Are there more shots of him? Maybe from other days?”
Fiona would have noticed them.
That wasn’t true. She was focused on Tim, not background players. “I don’t know.”
They spent the next couple of hours poring through every video they could find around Tim’s trial. Not that there was a lot of footage from the actual event. The only people who cared about it, outside of family, were the vloggers and their followers, who were either pro- or anti-Fiona.
But that meant there were a lot of clips of people talking to neighbors. Photos collected from yearbooks, social media, and anyplace that might allow the video maker to claim Exclusive.
So many of them were young Tim. No one else.
There was one someone had supposedly stripped from an old cached version of a webpage. A wedding photo.
“Was he married?” Parker asked.
Not as far as Fiona knew. Not that it would have made a difference in his actions. But it was one of those pieces of information people dug into. “He’s next to the groom.” She squinted.
“Holy shit.” Parker squeezed her knee. “That’s him, isn't it?”
The groom was the guy from Atlanta. And the bride looked familiar too. “If she was blonde instead of brunette...”
Parker leaned in to study the screen, his head next to Fiona’s. “Ms. Passion,” he said.
“Caption says Mr. and Mrs. Gregory and Maxine Simmons. He’s Tim’s brother.”
“Which makes Ms. Passion—Maxine—his sister in law. How did no one notice this?”
Fiona didn’t know. “The video only has ten views. Start-up channel, trying to get in on the keywords and missing their mark?”
“I suppose. Wow.”
Fiona didn’t have any better words for it than that. So many possibilities, almost all of them pointing back to why Ms. Passion had a personal grudge against her.
“Do you think she accused me of the bombing because of this?” It was a reasonable next step in the logic, except that there were pieces missing.
Parker sighed. “She had a vendetta. But she also surrendered a multi-million subscriber channel to come after you. That’s willingly throwing away a six-figure income, to twist the knife.”
There was still a piece of the puzzle missing, but Fiona couldn't figure out what it was. A tiny voice in the back of her head screamed that Ms. Passion and her husband were behind the bombings.
That made even less sense than accusing Fiona of being responsible. That would mean they’d framed Wyatt. If they knew about him, it would have been a lot easier to expose the affair with Fiona, than blow up several packages and possibly people.
Especially since Fiona was inconvenienced right now, but not in jail.
“Is your brain going nuts with conspiracy theories too?” Parker asked.
“Absolutely insane. But it doesn’t matter; they’re all so implausible, they don’t make sense.”
“Nothing about this does,” Parker said.
“What if the bombs really are just a coincidence? You and I can’t be the only people who were in all three of those cities when the explosions happened.”
“Wyatt was in two. Devin was in at least one.” Parker scrubbed his face. “Why does it feel like the answer is right there?”
If Fiona knew that, maybe they wouldn’t be stuck in a hotel room, with the FBI watching half their moves and one of the men she loved sitting in a jail cell for someone else’s crime.
Love. She should recoil from the thought. Reprimand herself for being naive about Wyatt. Like she’d been doing for weeks.
She was tired of lying to herself, though. She hoped they hadn’t lost their chance to see if love led to more.
PARKER DIDN’T KNOW what to do with the new information about Ms. Passion beyond something. When Fiona got a call, he tried to use the break to take a step back from the situation and realign his brain.
“It’s for you.” She handed him the phone. “Chloe.”
He was only mildly surprised. The FBI had all his electronics, so he’d put in a request to miss a few more days of competition filming, and included Fiona’s number if there were any questions. “Hello,” he said.
“You really know how to push the limits of good faith and a working relationship.”
Parker was startled by the edge in Chloe’s words. He had so many other things to worry about, though. “I followed the processes laid out in the rules, to notify of a lapse in coverage.”
He definitely wasn’t in the mood for this. “I don’t have any cameras. Fiona might as well be under house arrest—”
“Fiona. Not you. Replacing broken or lost equipment is part of the contract. I get it. This is an unusual situation. The issue is you weren’t making quota before it happened. I can’t make exceptions for you that no one else has access to.”
“So boot me.” Panic and a general sense of what the fuck am I doing spilled through him. But when his brain caught up, relief smothered the doubt.
Chloe’s sigh was loud. “I’d like to think you’re being sarcastic, but I don’t even know anymore.”
Did he mean it? A voice screamed in his head to stop, apologize, and beg for a chance to make things right. And the notion soured in his gut. “I’m being serious. In fact, consider this my resignation.”
“You have to follow the rules for that, too. And I’m going to remind you that dropping out early means you lose access to any monetization options from us for the next year.”
That would hurt. Not as much as some things, but it would leave a dent in his wallet. And he’d been struggling with revenue before this whole thing started. But he’d also set out on this journey to do what he enjoyed. If that wasn’t happening anymore, he was better off taking a normal job. If it came down to it. “I understand. I’ll issue my resignation video this afternoon, and you’ll have my notice in writing shortly thereafter.”
“What happened to all my equipment was confiscated?”
“I’ll use Fiona’s phone.”
“All right.” Chloe’s voice was tight. “It’ll will be a shame to lose you, but I understand. Best of luck in your future endeavors.”
“Thanks.” He disconnected, and turned back to face Fiona.
She was watching him with wide eyes. “I’d ask what that was, but I think I heard the important details.”
“Yeah. It’s done. I’m out of the competition.” Each time he said it, it got easier.
Fiona’s shock melted to a frown. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s better this way.”
He was free of the restraints and could go back to doing this the way he loved.
He had no idea how he’d handle the loss of income. He’d have to surrender sponsorships he’d picked up for the competition. Quitting this way was the equivalent of cutting his paycheck down by three-quarters.
As the numbers rolled through his thoughts and reality sank in, the decision didn’t feel so good after all. Had he made a huge mistake?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
WYATT WAS BACK IN A questioning room, waiting for Agent Landry. He didn’t suspect he’d be kept for hours this time. He’d opened his request with, “I’m ready to talk about everything. I’m waiving my right to have my attorney present.”
He’d had days to think. An unoccupied brain could run off on a lot of tangents. One of the conclusions he arrived at was that he couldn’t bullshit a bullshitter. Not that he’d been lying to Landry before, but he’d held cards close to his chest. Matched ego with ego.
Wyatt was going to take a page from Fiona’s book and be honest. See how Landry reacted to that.
The door swung open, and Landry entered and took the seat across from him. The digital recorder went in the middle of the table, and he hit Record. “Repeat what you told the officer, on the record.”
Wyatt met his gaze and didn’t flinch. “I’ll tell you everything I know. And I’m waving my right to have an attorney present.” It might be the stupidest thing he’d done in a long time, but nothing else was working.
Besides, if Fiona could pull it off, there was something to it. He had serious respect for the way she held herself. Mimicking her couldn’t be an all-bad idea.
“What do you want in return?” Landry asked. “Reduced sentence? Is this another plea bargain? You’re familiar with those.”
There was no reason to remind him Wyatt’s past felony was off the record. “I want you to catch the person who actually did this. And I’d like to know how Fiona is.”
“Of course you would. She’s fine. In protective custody. Under round-the-clock guard. Away from harm’s reach. How do you feel about that?”
Wyatt felt bad for Fiona. It had to be driving her nuts. “Pretty fucking relieved.” He didn’t try to mask the sincerity in the emotion. There was no reason to hide anything.
“Great. That’s out of the way. What did you want to tell me?” Landry was a blank wall. That would change.
“I forgot—I have one other question.” Wyatt leaned back in his seat, making himself as comfortable as was possible in shackles. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
Landry snorted. “No.”
“But you think I flagrantly left evidence everywhere. Fingerprints. Bomb-making supplies...”
Landry’s back was straight and his hands clasped in front of him. The same posture he’d worn since he sat. “I was hoping you’d tell me why.”
“Because I didn’t do it. But here’s what I think you’re doing. You arrested me in a flash. An investigation like this should take weeks or even months—”
“This isn’t some television police procedural.” Landry’s tone was bland.
“Because something like this, the potential for a serial bomber, turns into big news fast. You found easy evidence, you were under pressure to make an arrest, so you built a shitty case around something handed to you, and hand-picked for relevance.”
“You handed us the evidence. You were careless.”
“Obsessed, right?” Wyatt wasn’t bothered by the direction of the conversation. So far it was what he expected. But Landry was a reasonable man. Wyatt was banking on it. “That’s the story you’re going with?”
“Obsession fits your behavior.”
Wyatt was willing to admit that was true. Another thing he’d had far too long to think about. Whether he’d crossed those lines Devin said were so blurry. He kept coming back to the same answer—consent. She was all right with it, and that changed the narrative. “I am obsessed with Fiona Walters.”
Landry’s fingers twitched, but he remained otherwise still. “The heart can make a person do strange things.”
“I’ve gone out of my way to make sure she and I are in the same place, on a number of occasions, to catch her attention.” Wyatt didn’t think he’d be comfortable with this honesty thing, but there was a freedom in it.
Landry untangled his fingers.
“And Fiona knows what I’ve done,” Wyatt said. He needed a chance to tell her more, though. To apologize. To tell her how he felt.
“So why the bombs?”
Wyatt raised his eyebrows. “You tell me.”
“Clever.”
Wyatt didn’t care about the flat response. “When the first one went off, I was with Fiona. I’m not talking about I cornered her and made her talk to me. We were in an implementation meeting.”
“No you weren’t.”
Had Wyatt flinched? What gave him away? It didn’t matter. He should have stuck with the whole story. If Landry was this observant, maybe there was hope for Wyatt making his case. “That’s what it says on my calendar. I was really fucking her on my desk.” When Landry tapped the edge of the recorder, Wyatt added. “It was consensual.”
“Says you.”
“Says her. She’ll confirm it. With her boyfriend in the room. I believe you’ve talked to Ms. Walters. Does she strike you as a dishonest person? An accomplished liar?”
“Where were you when the second bomb went off?” If Landry meant the shift to throw Wyatt off-balance, he was about to be disappointed.
“With Fiona again. And Parker.”
“Convenient that only two people can corroborate any of your stories.”
Wyatt narrowed his eyes. “The same two people I’m supposed to be stalking. T
he hotel security cameras saw us come in. Electronic locks will show me entering my room and that they didn’t reach theirs until hours later. You can’t pick and choose your circumstantial evidence.”
Landry hesitated. That was new.
Wyatt latched onto it. “They’re records I know you’ve got on file. That you subpoenaed them before you arrested me. Unless you were so anxious to make your case that you willfully ignored steps in the investigation.”
“I don’t tell you how to sell software.” An edge crept into Landry’s voice. “You have an accomplice, or Chicago wouldn’t have happened. And the bombs weren’t sent at the same time they detonated.”
“Right. The mysterious accomplice. Who?” Wyatt had an opening now. This was what he needed and hadn’t realized it.
“We’re close to uncovering that.”
“Sure you are.”
“Give me a name, and it could help you.”
Wyatt had played that game before. “Help me understand this. I’m good enough to hide my interactions with an accomplice to the point where you don’t even have any suspects, but I left my fingerprints on a memory card with Fiona’s picture on it.”
“Obsession knows no reason.” Landry had dropped the mask at this point.
“Obsession. My supposed motivation. Tell me again why I used bombs?”
“You were with her when they went off. She turned to you for comfort—”
“She turns to Parker for comfort.” The words tasted foul. “And why would it hit her that hard? It’s tragic, and she’s a sympathetic person, but why would that register any higher on her radar than any other tragic news? None of it impacted her directly until you involved her.”
“Until you involved her, by leaving her information at each crime scene. Besides, those explosions might have gone off at the wrong time.”
Wyatt was starting to see how this worked, and he didn’t like the picture. Landry wasn’t operating on facts. He’d already decided Wyatt was guilty, and was bending information to meet that expectation. “So I’m careless, stupid, incompetent, and enough of a mastermind to hide an accomplice, who I could have framed instead of being in here myself.”
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