by Eryn Scott
Hadley groaned. “Suze, I—”
“Nope.” Suze held up a hand to stop her. “No negotiations. You need to get out of the house and get your mind off Sweet Pea and this case. Plus, you love brunch at Seven Stones almost as much as you like Luke.”
Smiling, Hadley shook her head. Her best friend knew her all too well.
“Okay, I’ll be just a minute,” she said, dragging herself into the bedroom.
Once she’d dressed, they drove to Seven Stones. The timber-frame building sat on the banks of the Cascade River as it wound its way through downtown. Even before entering the building, the delectable scents of grilled meat and seasoned veggies wafted out to greet them. The familiar smells served to perk Hadley up, if only a little.
Suze told the hostess they wanted to sit on the deck, knowing the sounds of the rushing river were as healing to people who’d grown up on its banks as some medicines. Hadley closed her eyes after settling into the chair. She pulled in a long breath of the crisp valley air and pretended the white-water rapids were washing over her, washing away her worries.
“So nothing new with the case?” Suze asked when Hadley opened her eyes again.
She chuckled. “I thought you wanted to bring me here to get my mind off the case.”
Suze’s cheeks reddened. “Right. Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Hadley sighed. “I’m having a hard time holding myself back from knocking on every door in Stoneybrook and demanding to search their homes for Sweet Pea, so I get it. It also feels awful that Laney’s killer might get away with what they did.”
“Totally.” Suze agreed.
The waiter came over, and the women ordered brunch. Suze stuck with her usual, the French dip. Hadley, usually partial to their BLT or burger, decided to try something more breakfast-like and went with the eggs Benedict.
“You and Luke still good?” Suze asked, taking a sip of her water.
Hadley nodded, then her nose wrinkled. “But being in a relationship again is reminding me about the negatives that come with caring for someone so much.”
“Like?”
“With Luke gone to Seattle. I miss him.” Hadley shrugged.
Suze chuckled. “That’s normal.”
“I know, but I spent so much of my relationship with Tyler missing him when he was in Seattle, and he was off with some other woman.”
Suze set down her water and fixed Hadley with a serious stare. “Had, I get that you have baggage from Tyler, but this is Luke. He’s nothing like him.”
Hadley frowned. “Oh gosh. I know that. I wasn’t saying I’m worried about him cheating on me like Ty did. I guess I’m just mad that there are any similarities between our relationship and my old one.”
“Well, let’s hope that’s the one and only.” Suze lifted her glass, waiting until Hadley did the same. They clinked water glasses.
They spent the rest of the time laughing and chatting. Being outside, by the water, renewed Hadley … somewhat. When Suze dropped Hadley at home after brunch, she slipped back into her pajamas. Ansel and Marmalade did their best to comfort her, but she still couldn’t keep her mind off the little calico who’d fit so perfectly into their lives.
Luke called around lunchtime interrupting Hadley as she sat on the porch clutching Sweet Pea’s old collar and staring off at the mountains.
“Hey,” she said, picking up the phone.
“I’m guessing by your tone that Sweet Pea’s still missing.” He sighed. There was white noise in the background.
“You guessed right. Unfortunately. Where are you?”
“Driving home. What a weekend.” He let out a long exhale.
“You guys fix everything?”
“Eventually, yes, but it could’ve been way worse. I’m lucky I caught it in time.”
“What happened?” Hadley folded her legs up under her in the Adirondack chair.
“One line of code was off, and it had a pretty big domino effect. We were able to fix it quickly once we located the problem.”
“Whoa. Good thing you’ve got mostly tech superheroes working for you.”
Luke laughed. “That’s one way to look at it.”
“It’s what Gran says about people who know a lot about technology. She thinks they have super powers. But as we’ve learned this week, not all of them use those powers for good.”
“Very true. Well, I’m almost home,” Luke said, his voice softening at the word home. “I can’t wait to see you.”
Butterflies fluttered in Hadley’s chest at the thought. “Me too.” She smiled. “Drive safely, and I’ll see you soon.”
“Will do.”
They hung up, and Hadley went back to turning the collar around in her hands almost as if it were a rosary and she were praying for Sweet Pea’s return. On about her fifth or sixth rotation, Hadley stopped. Her fingers pushed down on the fabric of the collar.
There was a bump in one area. Knowing now the collar was handmade, she’d assumed it was the seam. But as she inspected it, she realized it extended much farther on one side than the other. Hadley wasn’t one to make sewing judgments. Her seams were often bulky and uneven too, but this seemed like more than just amateur sewing skills.
Tipping her head, Hadley rubbed the collar in between her fingers. The bump moved slightly.
There was definitely something in there.
Padding into the kitchen, she rummaged around in her catch-all kitchen drawer until she found the smallest pair of scissors she owned. Her heartbeat rose as she used shaky fingers to snip the purple thread holding the collar together in a circle.
Ansel and Marmalade, having followed her inside, watched on with interest as if there might be a treat inside.
Snipping the last stitch, she tugged the fabric apart and almost jumped back as something dropped out onto her kitchen countertop. Hadley peered closely at the small, metal object.
It was a tiny USB.
Holding her breath, Hadley grabbed it and raced over to her laptop. It took her four tries to get it inserted into the slot on the side of her machine due to her trembling fingers.
But once it slid in, the small icon appeared on her list of devices.
Laney’s JIC
“JIC?” Hadley wondered aloud.
She typed the three letters into the search bar on her computer. The first result was from Urban Dictionary.
JIC - a common acronym for “just in case.”
Hadley’s pulse beat in her eardrums. Was this the missing information? Had Laney made a secret backup knowing someone was after her?
Clicking on the drive, Hadley waited as it opened to a list of files.
O.H.
H.D.
S.G and G.W.
CPU Knight
She clicked on the first file. O.H. stood for Owen Hansen. They were her blackmail subjects’ initials. Hadley’s heart fell. This wasn’t anything new. It was the same information they already had.
Just to be sure, she went through the files. Owen’s file had multiple screenshots labeled: things like, Search History and then the date. Hadley had no interest in learning more about what things the apartment landlord had been looking for on the internet.
She moved on to Hunk’s folder, finding it full of digital receipts for products Hadley assumed involved steroids. There was also an email between him and someone with the email handle Juicedup. A quick perusal of the message told her whoever Juicedup was, they were the one supplying Hunk with the more hardcore substances.
Simone’s folder included a few dark pictures Hadley didn’t feel the need to click larger. The thumbnail versions gave her enough of an idea about the content.
Each file also contained a video. Hadley clicked on the one for Mayor Whitmore. Laney’s pale face filled Hadley’s screen. She inhaled sharply, the eeriness of seeing Laney alive, talking, took her breath away. The young woman’s dark hair hung in a stringy curtain, slightly covering her face.
“Mayor Guy Whitmore,” she said in the video. Her voice was croaky and weak as
if she rarely used it. “On this drive, you’ll find copies of pictures I have of you and a woman named Simone Grahame. A woman who is definitely not your wife, Mayor. I’ve also included a link to a bank account in which I expect you to transfer five hundred dollars per month, to be paid by the first of the month, or else I will release this information to the community and your wife.”
Hadley clicked out of the video and stared at the screen for a moment. Once her vision refocused on the content again, she caught the time stamp on the video file. Heart racing, she clicked on the video for Simone and read the time stamp. She clicked back to the mayor’s video just to be sure.
The video for Mayor Whitmore had been created a full two days before Simone’s. Pulling out her phone, Hadley dialed Paul.
“Hey,” he answered.
“We were wrong about Mayor Whitmore. I think he knew about the blackmail days before Simone was set to receive hers.”
Paul sighed. “Yeah, but Had, we have the man on camera during the time Laney was killed.”
“What if he hired someone? He had to know she’d blackmail Simone too, so what if he had someone watch Simone and wait for Laney to show up? Then he hired them to take care of her so he wouldn’t have to pay.”
“I’ll check into it. This is an election year, so I guess we can’t rule anything out, no matter how mobster movie it sounds. Hiring hit men in Grande County…” he muttered, and Hadley could picture him shaking his head. “How do you know this?”
Hadley explained how she’d found the secret USB hidden in the collar. “But it’s all the same stuff you guys found on her computer. I’ll come by and drop it off. Sorry, I just needed to know what was on it, see if it could lead me to Sweet Pea.”
“Okay, get it here as soon as you can, Had.” Paul hung up.
As she put down her phone, her gut told her something wasn’t right, and it wasn’t just the fact her brother was mad at her. If the mayor really had sent out a hit on Laney, why would the hit man have broken into Hadley’s house and stolen her cat?
Blinking, she glanced from the USB drive stuck into the side of her computer to the destroyed collar on her kitchen counter.
“The person wasn’t after Sweet Pea, they knew Laney had files hidden in Sweet Pea’s collar,” Hadley whispered to herself. “But why wouldn’t they have only taken the collar? Why did they take Sweet Pea too?”
Her most recent theory about Mayor Whitmore unraveled before her. How would the mayor know about Sweet Pea’s collar?
No, this had to be someone who knew Laney well, who knew about her cat.
A friend of the girl with no friends, Hadley mused with an inward groan.
Defeated, she rested her chin in her palms and kept searching through the rest of the files. There had to be something here. But nothing else jumped out at her. She even searched through the CPU Knight files, even though she already knew that was how Laney had procured the illicit information on her clients.
Inside the CPU Knight folder were a bunch of coded software files. There was a sound byte labeled Fanfare, and Hadley clicked on it. A happy ye olde tournament-style bugle trumpeted out from Hadley’s speakers.
Her spine straightened. She recognized the sound and not just from last week, when it had trilled out of Gran’s laptop after she’d used CPU Knight.
Michael’s laptop had made the same sound yesterday.
It was then she realized this USB drive did contain information Laney’s computer hadn’t. The link between Laney and CPU Knight. They’d only found out she was the creator when Paul had checked into the correlation between Laney’s death and CPU Knight going offline. The information hadn’t been on her computer.
Because it had been deleted.
She thought back to Michael’s quick fingers flying across the laptop keyboard, the cursor racing across the screen so fast she got dizzy and turned away.
Clicking on the sound file, she searched through the information listed under properties but couldn’t find an author. Frantically, she opened all the files in the CPU Knight folder, clicking on their properties until she stopped.
There on the logo of the knight inside a computer screen, she saw it.
Created by Laney Powell and Michael Kearns.
Her fingers shook so badly she could barely lift her phone.
“Paul,” she said into the phone before he even had a chance to say hello. “It’s Michael. Michael killed Laney.”
“Wait, slow down, Had. What’d you find?”
“He was a coauthor of CPU Knight with her. He’s the one who erased the hard drive. He must’ve done it when he recovered the files.”
“I’m putting in a call to McKay. Hold tight. Actually, no. Bring that USB to the office right now.”
“On my way,” she said, closing her laptop.
Hadley glanced down at her pajamas. She dashed into her bedroom to change.
When she was in the middle of pulling up her jeans she heard the sliding glass door open.
24
Frozen, Hadley listened from her bedroom. The back of her neck went cold. The creaky floorboard next to her couch groaned out a warning.
Luke had said he was almost home, or maybe Paul had decided to come to her instead. But then she remembered that both of them hadn’t entered her house quietly like … ever. They were two of the clompiest, loudest people she knew.
On the other hand, Michael had broken into her house once before to get the USB. She should’ve known he’d try again when he realized he had the wrong collar.
Scanning her bedroom for anything that might help, her heart sunk as she realized she’d left her phone in the other room, next to her computer. She pulled her jeans up the rest of the way, tiptoed over to her bed, and grabbed the big steel flashlight she kept under her bed frame in case she had to investigate any worrisome bumps in the night.
Her heart hammered so intensely she thought it might explode. Taking one last gulp of air to calm her pulse, she walked out into the hallway that led to her living room.
Michael stood next to her kitchen counter, inspecting the remains of the collar Hadley had disassembled to extract the USB. He looked around the room, as if searching for the device, when his gaze landed on her. Even now that she knew what he’d done, who he really was, Hadley couldn’t help but think how little he seemed to fit the description of a murderer.
Between his boyish charm and his kindness toward Gran—not to mention the help he gave the local sheriff—he just didn’t seem capable. All except his medium-sized hands, perfectly fitting the medical examiner’s description.
“So you know,” he said, the phrase encapsulated in a sigh.
Hadley swallowed, then nodded. So much for her last shred of hope that he wasn’t the killer.
“I didn’t mean to hurt her.” He stepped forward.
Hadley raised the flashlight in warning. “Don’t come closer.”
His face fell. “I promise. It was an accident.”
“You should’ve told someone. Innocent people don’t usually go to the lengths you have to cover up accidents,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him. “What did you do with Sweet Pea?”
Michael put up in hands in a “hold on” gesture. “Sweet Pea was my cat. Laney was looking after her for me because my apartment stopped allowing animals.”
“Which is why you stole the cat and not just the collar,” Hadley mumbled to herself as it clicked.
“I have a record. The sheriff would’ve locked me up. He warned me that any slipup would mean I get locked up.” Michael’s voice rose into a pleading register.
McKay must’ve made a trade with the kid, help him whenever he needed tech help on a case, and he wouldn’t send him to prison. The sheriff just hadn’t realized the latest case had been Michael’s fault.
“So you framed innocent people?”
“They weren’t innocent. You saw what was on their computers.”
“Jenny was innocent. You left the evidence on her desk and planted her hair elas
tic at my house after you broke in.”
Michael looked down for a moment, confirming Hadley hit a chord.
“Also, how dare you judge others when you were stealing their information.”
“The blackmail was all Laney. I just learned about it. I really wanted CPU Knight to work. It was my business idea. Laney moved up here and needed a job. I knew she was good with computers from when we were kids. She helped me design it. Everything was going well until I saw the blackmail files on her computer one day when she thought I wasn’t paying attention.” He shook his head. “I used our software against her and when I got home, I realized what she was planning with Simone. I was working for Hunk’s that day, and I saw her across the street at the juice bar, so I went to stop her.” Tears pooled in the corners of his eyes.
Hadley listened, wondering why stopping Laney had to mean strangling her.
“She went crazy, came at me and started to punch me. I had to get her to stop, so I pinned her up against the building”—he gulped back a sob—“by her neck because I couldn’t grab her hands. I was just trying to hold her back. I swear I wasn’t trying to kill her.”
“And you fled back to Hunk’s, where you hid the evidence on Jenny’s desk.” The case Hadley’d spent the last week agonizing over finally all came into place. She sighed.
Michael’s face darkened as he watched her. “If you tell anyone, I can make your life awful. I’ll sell your identity online. I’ll ruin your credit. I don’t want to, but I will.” He straightened his posture, pushing back his slight shoulders.
“She already has told someone,” Paul’s deep voice preceded him around the corner. He stepped into the living room, glancing over at Hadley to make sure she was okay.
Hadley blinked. She hadn’t even heard him come in. Glancing down at his feet, she noticed he was only wearing socks. She would have to take back her earlier thought about her loud brother. He was stealthier than she realized.
At that moment, the front door opened. “Honey, I’m home,” Luke announced as he tromped into the house.
Hadley shook her head, and she might’ve laughed if she wasn’t standing near a killer. Unfortunately, Michael took the slight distraction of Luke’s loud arrival to bolt out the still open sliding glass door.
