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The distaste in Kev’s voice was palpable, and when his eyes met mine, we shared a rare moment of total wordless understanding. I wouldn’t trust my Horn to anyone unless it was a life-or-death emergency, and I knew Kev felt the same.
“M’kay, sorry to disturb your beautiful moment of nerd unity—” Champ began.
I startled guiltily and saw Kev’s face flush beet red before both of us glanced away.
“—but is it possible to mask the location with like… IP addresses or VPN or something?” Champ went on. “I don’t know much about that stuff, but surely—”
“No,” Kev and I blurted at the same time. We exchanged another quick glance, and Kev pressed his lips together firmly. He waved a hand as if giving me permission to continue leading the meeting I asked Champ to call.
I rolled my eyes. “Horns don’t… Look, it’s complicated to explain, but the short version is that no, there’s no way to do that on a Horn.”
“Besides which,” Kev interjected because apparently he couldn’t keep still, “I, um… I hacked into the security system at the Silage Motel, where Vince was staying, and the person going in and out of Vince’s room wasn’t Vince.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You did what?”
Kev lifted his chin defiantly. “I hacked the security footage after I realized Vince’s Horn was still here but he wasn’t. I figured it was important to know for sure where Vince was, and I wanted to help. And since you didn’t bother replying to my text, I figured I’d just… go ahead and do it.” He swallowed hard and added waspishly, “Especially since that way I’d know it was done correctly.”
I opened my mouth to shred him into quark-sized pieces for overstepping yet again, for ham-handedly pushing his way into my fucking case, for being an untrained civilian asshole… when I noticed his pointer finger tapping spasmodically against the side of his thumb, and I shut my mouth with a clack.
When I looked closely, I could see all the other little signs of anxiety Kev was trying to hide. It was there in the tiny pucker between his eyebrows, in the slight quiver of his lips. He was waiting for me to ream him out, and he was dreading it, but he’d gotten the footage anyway.
I wanted to help, he’d said.
I like knowing I helped someone, HogDogKev had told Smitty earlier.
Fuck. I could let him have a moment of glory, just this once.
I took a deep breath and blew it out. “I would have handled it just fine, but… thank you. For making this more efficient.” I shrugged. “So what did you find?”
“Well…” The combination of excitement and wariness in Kev’s expression was so comical, and I had to restrain myself from grinning. “I went back through their security footage and found an instance of Vince entering the room with the man at the same time. I’ll forward you still photos of the instances, but there isn’t really enough of the second man to get a good look at him. Just enough to confirm that they definitely know each other.”
I powered past my annoyance that this intel was coming from Kev instead of me and glanced around the room at my team. “So, signs suggest there’s definitely a partner involved.”
“Maybe,” Elvo said thoughtfully. “But the guy at the motel could be a hookup or even a friend.”
“A friend Vince entrusted his cartel-connected Horn to?” I asked dubiously. “That’s a mighty close friend.”
“I trust my cousin Carter more than anyone on the planet,” Kev said. “We shared a homestead before… you know.” He shot Riggs—the cousin-marrying homewrecker—a resigned look. “But I wouldn’t just leave him with my Horn, especially if it was connected to an op. Would you?”
Champ closed his eyes briefly. “Shit. So the other guy is a partner.”
“Yeah, almost certainly. And, um.” Kev licked his lips and stole a glance at me. “That’s not all.” His face took on that half-apologetic look he’d worn before, and it raised my hackles. What the hell else had he done?
“Out with it,” I demanded.
“You, ah… You might be wondering why I hacked into HOG Corporate’s system to find Vince’s location in the first place?” His finger tapped the side of his thumb again. “Well, I was… I was looking into your system vulnerability today, and I discovered Champion Security’s systems are still being targeted,” he said in a rush. “Someone here in the Thicket attempted to hack into one of the servers.”
“Looking into—? But you said the only system vulnerability was—? And how did you access the system today when I—?” I was only confused for a split second before the answers hit me, one after the other. “Motherfucker! You lied about being the only vulnerability in my system? Jesus, Kev. And when you accessed my computer to run the script yesterday, you made yourself a fucking admin on my account so you could get back in later, didn’t you? You asshole.”
