Page 23 of Ironwood Ranch Cowboys

Which means the file was opened without the system acknowledging how.

That isn’t a delay or a missed entry or anything that can be explained by lag or oversight. The system doesn’t function in that way.

I built it specifically to avoid that kind of failure.

This isn’t failure. It’s interference.

I lean back slowly, adjusting my watch as I process the information, the movement more intense than necessary, but calming in a way that keeps the analysis structured rather than reactive.

Annie wasn’t working at two in the morning. There’s no version of that scenario that fits within the established patterns of the ranch.

Someone would’ve seen her. The staff, the night rotation, even Silas on one of his walks… there’s too much overlap for that kind of movement to go unnoticed.

So either someone used her credentials or someone wanted it to look as if they did. Neither option is acceptable.

I sit there, eyes fixed on the screen, because I’m committing it to memory instead of saving it. The timestamp, the file path, the credential pairing.

Every detail locked in place without leaving a trace in the system itself.

Not yet.

This isn’t something I escalate without certainty, and it’s definitely not something I bring to her.

Not until I know whether she’s part of it, or the reason I found it at all.

CHAPTER FIVE

Annie

I know something is wrong before I even set my bag down.

It’s not dramatic, with alarms and broken windows. There’s no mysterious shadow sprinting through the hallway with a villain soundtrack playing behind him.

It’s smaller than that. Worse, somehow.

My desk drawer is open by maybe half an inch.

That’s it. Barely anything. A sliver.

The kind of thing most people wouldn’t notice unless they were specifically looking for it, and I’m not specifically looking for it so much as I feel it the second I walk into the office.

It’s like my skin catches on the wrongness before my brain does. I stop in the doorway.

The office is hushed in that too clean Ironwood way, all soft printer droning and polished wood, and order arranged so aggressively it starts to feel threatening.

Morning light cuts across the floor in neat gold bars. Sherry’s desk out in the main office is empty, probably because she’s gone to bully the copier into submission, or charm a delivery driver into moving his truck three feet to the left.

Everything looks normal.

Everything except that drawer.

I stare at it for a beat too long, trying to decide if this is one of those moments where I’m being ridiculous.

Maybe I left it open Friday. Maybe I got distracted by a spreadsheet, or a question, or Cody appearing at my elbow like a creepy math ghost and forgot to push it shut all the way.

Maybe.

But the feeling in my stomach says no.