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"Fair warning." Angelica unlocked the Corvette. "By tonight, everyone will know Kit Lord is in town and spent the morning at Onyx Security."

"I thought you said people here respect privacy?"

"They do." She started the engine. "But Florence Horton was having her roots done while we were at Java Jolt. She's the town's unofficial information network."

"Great."

"Don't worry. The gossip stays local. Florence might tell everyone you're here, but she'd die before she'd tell an outsider. It's like Vegas, but with more casseroles and less neon."

"What happens in Jasper Creek stays in Jasper Creek?"

"Unless you're caught flirting with someone at the Harvest Festival. Then it becomes town legend." She pulled into traffic. "Ask me how I know."

"Who were you flirting with?"

"The high school principal. Very married high school principal." She groaned. "I didn't know! He wasn't wearing a ring!"

"Angelica!"

"Florence made sure everyone knew exactly how that conversation ended. With his wife showing up and me hiding in the corn maze for an hour."

Despite everything, I laughed. Real laughter, not the polite society version I'd perfected for talk shows.

"See?" Angelica reached over, bumped my shoulder with hers. "This place is already working its magic. And who knows? Maybe Code will work some magic of his own."

"On the video investigation."

"Sure." Her grin turned wicked. "We'll call it that."

As we drove back toward Whispering Pines Inn, I thought about Code's hands on the keyboard, the absolute certainty in his voice when he said he knew it wasn’t me in that video. The way he'd looked at me, really looked, like he could see past every carefully constructed Hollywood facade.

Angelica started humming off-key to whatever was playing on the radio. But I barely heard her. My mind was back in that conference room, watching a man who barely spoke but somehow made me feel safer than I'd felt in weeks.

Maybe Angelica was right. Maybe Jasper Creek was already working its magic.

Or maybe I was just desperately looking for a hero in a situation that might not have one.

Either way, in an hour I'd hand over my digital life to a stranger with tired eyes and steady hands, trusting him with secrets that could destroy me if he chose to look close enough.

Angelica bumped my shoulder again. "Stop overthinking. Code's one of the good guys."

I wanted to believe her. God, I wanted to believe someone could fix this mess. But in my experience, nobody was coming to save you. You saved yourself or you drowned.

Still, as we pulled into the inn's parking lot, I found myself wondering what Code was doing right now. If he was setting up his workspace, drinking his coffee, those careful fingers already diving into the digital web someone had woven to trap me.

"Earth to Kit." Angelica waved a hand in front of my face. "We're here."

"Sorry. Just thinking."

"About shoulders?"

"About the investigation."

"Right." She killed the engine. "The investigation. With the very attractive investigator and his very impressive shoulders."

"You're impossible."

"I'm right."

Maybe she was. But that was a problem for Future Kit. Present Kit had to hand over her phone, her laptop, her tablet, every device that held pieces of her life, to a man she'd known for exactly forty-three minutes.

A man whose eyes seemed to see too much and whose presence made me simultaneously want to run away and step closer.

This was going to be complicated.