THIRTY
Cora hadn’t slept. She and Kevin had spent all night trying everything they knew how to do to break into Gordon’s phone. They’d lucked out that the phone was jailbroken, but Gordon had a third-party security app installed and Kevin’s malware wasn’t designed for that.
So Cora had been coding on the fly, tweaking Kevin’s program, and Kevin had been trying to find another way in. He’d managed to get into the system at one of Gordon’s clubs, but there’d been nothing of note in there besides payroll stuff, financial documents, and employee records. On the off chance she’d hit pay dirt, she’d had Kevin search for the name of the woman who’d accused Hayes all those years ago, hoping maybe she’d been a stripper employed by Gordon’s company, but nothing had come up.
Cora took a big gulp of coffee and stared at the program she’d written. Her eyes burned. All the letters and numbers were blending together. But she thought maybe she had something. “Let’s try to run this. I think I found a workaround that won’t trigger the security app.”
Kevin leaned over, looked at her screen, and scanned through what she’d done. “Oh, so you . . . Yeah. That’s— Damn, that’s good. That could work.”
“As long as he has his phone on and doesn’t delete the message, it should get us in.”
Kevin smirked. “You sure you’re not slipping a black hat on in your off-hours? You’ve got some evil genius in you.”
“Only to take revenge on ex-boyfriends,” she said mildly. “Good thing you weren’t my boyfriend.”
That earned her a snort.
“All right, let’s give this baby a go.”
Fifteen minutes later, the message went out as she’d designed it and, somewhere in the city, lit Gordon’s screen with a notification.
She and Kevin barely breathed, waiting for the wall to slam down, the blocks to slide in place. But no alarm bells were triggered. Instead, the open road rolled out before them.
Cora clicked, and there it was. Gordon’s phone.
Text messages. Emails. Photos. All at her fingertips.
Cora’s heartbeat picked up speed. “Gotcha, motherfucker.”
Working fast just in case they got interrupted or the message got deleted, she opened up his photos and started scanning through. She confirmed the shot sent to the police was from him. But there were a lot more shots from the bar, the lens firmly focused on her, Ren, and Hayes. Talking. Dancing. Singing.
All time-stamped and proving that she was there willingly with the guys before Hayes handed her any drink. She took screenshots of each one. Then moved to the next.
A shot of her in a passionate kiss on the dance floor, both guys caging her between them.
Kevin coughed behind her.
“Shut up, Kevin.”
“I didn’t say a word.” She could feel him smiling even without looking his way. “But I’m happy to know it took two dudes to replace one of me.”
She groaned. “A nut punch is still on the table, just so you know.”
“It’s always on the table with you. But keep scrolling. He could delete you at any time.”
“Right.” She jumped back a few days in the photo stream, not sure what she was looking for but going on instinct. The pictures filled the screen, and a creeping cold moved through her. It was shot after shot of Ren. Getting out of his car at work. Walking into a restaurant for lunch. And farther back, him walking next to Cora outside of the Mexican restaurant. “Jesus.”
“Whoa,” Kevin said as she continued to click through pictures. “Stalk much?”
She scrolled back even farther. Hayes walking out of prison, Ren waiting for him. The two men embracing. Their house. Hayes’s SUV. Then screenshots from Hayven of Master Dmitry and Lenore. Records of their private chat conversations. She quickly closed those, not wanting Kevin to see the content.
She rubbed the goose bumps from her arms. “He’s been watching the whole damn time.”
“This is freaky, Cora. You need to bring in the police. This guy is obviously unhinged.”
“I know.” She took a few more screenshots and then scrolled back to the ones at the bar to make sure she didn’t miss any. But after she clicked through the last one, the scene jumped to something new. A place she recognized because she’d just been there yesterday. The police station. And Ren was walking out.
“What the hell?”
He gaze scanned to the photo’s information. Time stamp: a little over three hours ago.
Her heart jumped into her throat. “Oh no.”
“What?”
“I need to call Ren.” She looked around the cluttered desk, trying to find her phone, her movements frantic. When she found it under a pile of papers, she hit Ren’s number, her fingers shaking. It went straight to voice mail, no ring. “Fuck.”
She shoved her chair back and stood. “Kev, I know it’s a lot to ask, but can you keep looking through this to see what you find? And forward me all those screenshots. I need to show them to the police.”
“Yeah, no problem.” Kevin’s brow furrowed, genuine concern on his face. “But, Cor, you really need to turn all this over to the cops. I mean, people don’t stalk someone to never make a move. This guy’s got something planned. You could get hurt.”
Dread curled around her, making her feel light-headed. She didn’t want to think too far ahead or overreact, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that this was all coming to a head. That something had happened. Another thought struck her. “Wait, can you get me a location? Open up his Maps.”
Kevin rolled his chair to the spot where hers had been and clicked through to a few screens until he got the Maps app to pinpoint the phone’s current location. The address didn’t mean anything to her, but she took a picture of it with her phone.
Kevin spun around and grabbed her hand. “Hey, I’m serious. Be careful.”
The worry in his voice touched her. She leaned down and kissed his cheek. “I will. And thank you for this. Nut punches are officially off the table, all right?”
He smirked, though the sarcasm didn’t reach the rest of his face. “Good to know. I’ll send you what I find. And call me and let me know you’re okay.”
“Deal.”
Her phone was already to her ear when she jogged down the stairs and out to her car. Her mother answered on the second ring.
“Coraline, where the hell are you?”
“Mom, I need you at the station now.”
“What? Why?”
“We’ve got a bad guy to catch.”