Page 18 of Shark’s Rise

“A flatter disk that displayed some sort of insignia…maybe even a corporate logo or a family crest. Neither one of us was familiar with it.”

“But you think it might mean something? And if so, then what?”

I squared my shoulders. “The simplest explanation is often the truth, so we’re going for that first. Clearly it’s meant to be some sort of message to me.”

Abbi screwed her face into a confused frown. “But how would Terryn, of all people, have known about the piranhas? We were the only ones in the backyard that night.” Her throat visibly constricted. There was a new flare of her gaze. “Holy shit, Bas. Did she have something to do with all of this?”

I maintained calm across my own mien. Fortunately, I’d had over twenty-four hours to sit with this knowledge. “We don’t know,” I told her. “At least not yet. I mean, this is definitely where the woman’s shit gets really suspicious.”

“And it wasn’t before?” Abbi injected.

I took half a moment to again steel myself. “She said…she was in the backyard that night,” I explained. “Terryn said she stuck around long enough to watch you pass out. That was when she left.”

“Long enough?” Abbi spewed. “Because she wasn’t inspired sufficiently to take off before then?” As her voice pitched higher, she went on. “You’ve got to be kidding! Honest to hell! What was she doing there?”

Once more, I struggled to crank down my blatant surprise. This was the most animated I’d seen my Little Red all morning. I hated that it had taken raw anger to accomplish that.

“She said she got an email from me asking her to come over.”

A new flurry of her open agitation. “And now this is getting weird. No, scratch that. It’s getting outright messy.”

“I know.” I worked on modulating my composure now, since there was nobody else around to help modulate Abbi. There was animated, and then there was outright spun up. “I know, baby, and Elijah’s working on—”

“So you’ve said,” she snipped, looking ready to break free and pace any second. But she didn’t. Instead, she challenged, “Aren’t you worried about Pia and Vela now? Didn’t you say you were going to bring them here, too? For their safety? Where are they, Sebastian? Are they being secured?”

Since I sensed she had more questions left, I said nothing. But I sure as hell listened. Her pitch was still escalating, but if I wasn’t mistaken, her angle now seemed…hopeful. Was this the key to the ongoing health problems Elijah kept telling me she was having? Was my sweet, outgoing Abbigail suffering from loneliness? Feeling isolated?

“Elijah has a detail keeping watch over them, but so far, there hasn’t been a reason to be concerned about them,” I said. “I’ve been trying to have minimal contact with my sister to keep her off their radar.”

Abbi dipped a terse nod. “Okay. I guess that makes sense. But what’s the plan now? I mean, what’s the new direction, given this development with Terryn? Clearly, she’s involved somehow…in all of this.”

I emulated her nod but replied, “Yes and no.”

“What do you mean?” she demanded.

“Terryn told me that she’d corresponded remotely with the keychain’s supplier. When it was ready to give to me, they had it couriered to her at the office.”

“Is that how she’s explaining the freaky email too?” Abbi charged. “That all of that was done…remotely?”

“Of course not.” At once, I hated myself for barking it. My sourness was entirely due to what I had to tell her next. “Apparently, somewhere along the line, my email account was…hacked. Those bastards used the originating address to set up the message to Terryn. The email only looked like it came from me.”

Abbi absorbed that information with terse lips and a probing gaze. “So what does that mean?”

“That it seems Terryn is just being used as a pawn. The woman hasn’t exactly been secretive about her…crush on me.” I dragged a hand through my hair. “Or whatever the fuck it is.”

“Crush?” Abbi pushed out a bitter laugh. “Ohhh, Bas. That woman is more than just crushing.”

“Like I said,” I bit back, “whatever the fuck it is…the bastards took advantage of it to get directly to me. They leveraged her.”

“Yes, but she let them.” They were the words, laced with bitterness, that spurred her to pace away. When she turned back to face me, her arms were folded and her shoulders were stiff. “Maybe you should let her go, Bas. Once and for all. They can’t use her to get to you if she’s no longer near you.”

“Well, I’m waiting to see what Elijah comes up with regarding that third charm, and then I’ll go from there. As much as that woman is a creepy psychopath, I think whoever used her once may use her again. Now that we know that it’s happened, we can watch her closer, too. That was definitely our mistake to not take her seriously.”

“At what point are you going to get law enforcement involved in this?” The pale shade had returned to her cheeks.

“I don’t know that yet either.”

Her scowl warned me of an incoming argument. At the very least, a spirited protest. But by this point, I was looking forward to it. The fire in her fight usually led to one in my loins. But more than that, I needed to know her flames still existed. That my fierce, determined girl was still in there somewhere.