Page 57 of My Cruel Salvation

“He wasn’t there,” Devlin guesses.

“No, he wasn’t. Nothing was. His laptop’s gone. Suitcases gone. The refrigerator was still stocked, but other than food, the place had been cleared of any sign of him. Mostly, anyway.”

“Mostly?”

“There was a note,” Brandy says. “For me.”

“He left you a note?” Devlin looks between her and Lamar. “What did it say?”

Lamar passes over his phone. “That’s a picture the officer on duty sent me.”

“[email protected] plus something that looks like a password.”

“That’s the email that distributed the leak,” I say. “Was that a password? Did you log in?”

“We did,” Lamar says, taking back his phone. “As far as we can tell, that’s the only thing that email account was ever used for.”

Brandy looks from me to Devlin. “That means he was the leak, doesn’t it?”

I nod, feeling miserable for my friend. “Yeah,” I say. “It does.”

“Why tell me?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “But I think it’s because he genuinely cared about you. He knows he has to run, but he wants to help you and your friends.”

“Who cares what he wants?” she snaps. “God, I wish I’d never met him.”

“I know.” I put my arm around her and look helplessly toward Devlin. I want to console her, but there are things to do and more questions to ask. And I know damn well that Devlin is itching to get them out of his office so he can contact Ronan and the other angels who are downstairs mingling this very minute.

“Thank you for letting us know,” Devlin says, his attention on Lamar as he starts to rise. “I assume you’re heading for the scene?”

“Actually, there’s more.”

Devlin’s brows rise and he settles back, then nods for Lamar to continue.

“As I was talking with the officer onsite at Christopher’s AirBnB, I got an email. This one wasn’t from the station. This one came from Joseph Blackstone’s email address.”

I look at Devlin, confused. Especially because by the time Devlin was making his speech, the team should have taken out Joseph Blackstone. Devlin’s face is still completely unreadable, so I turn back to Lamar for answers. “You’re saying Joseph Blackstone sent you an email?”

“Or someone pretending to be him. But this one didn’t have the pictures. It was text.”

“What does it say?” Devlin asks.

Lamar taps his phone again, then passes it to Devlin. I’m curious enough that I leave Brandy’s side to look over Devlin’s shoulder. It’s an email chain, and in it, Joseph Blackstone is messaging with his half-brother Christopher about the preparations for Anna’s revenge. Including a very specific mention of the plan to have Christopher run me over in the SUV in order to distract Devlin.

I look over Devlin’s head to Lamar. “There was nothing in any of Anna’s belongings or on any of her devices that suggested that this was happening. That Christopher had anything to do with it. Is it fake or did she not know?”

“Good question,” Lamar says.

Devlin passes the phone back to Lamar. “It sounds to me like either Christopher really did drive that SUV, or someone very much wants us to think he did.”

“Joseph Blackstone?”

Devlin nods. “Quite possibly.”

I almost screw up and blurt out that Blackstone’s dead. At least, I assume the team’s taken him out by now. Fortunately, I realize that Devlin’s playing it cool around Lamar and hold my tongue as Lamar frowns, then tugs on his chin, a sure sign he’s thinking. “He wants you focused on who tried to run Ellie down as opposed to who decided to tell the world about your father.”

“A solid theory,” Devlin tells Lamar. “If it’s true, it means that Blackstone’s running scared.”