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I flip him off before putting my hand out for Laiken. “Come on. Let’s go to bed.”
She doesn’t seem convinced but she nods anyway, closing the computer and coming with me. Just before we reach the stairs, I turn around to look at Mali.
“By the way, you owe me two-fifty,” I tell her.
There’s no denying she’s not happy about it, but she understands and nods.
Laiken and I head up to our room and once we get inside, I shut the door. I finally feel like I’m able to let go of some of the stress of the last few hours. Turning around, I grab Laiken’s hand again and spin her so she’s facing me.
“Baby,” I say, trying to keep my calm.
She sighs. “I know what you’re going to say, but you should know it was all Mali’s idea, and I didn’t know about it until he was on his way over.”
“And you didn’t think to let me know that some random ass guy was coming to our house?” I ask. “Come on, Lai. You’re smarter than this.”
Her head drops and she nods. “I’m sorry. I was just so hopeful that it would work. I mean, you guys were going to use a hacker until you realized he was dead.”
“Thatwas an actual hacker. One that doesn’t make house calls because he’s legitimate.”
She winces from my tone, and I rein my anger in once more as I press a kiss to her forehead.
“I’m not mad at you, Lai,” I tell her. “But I need you to be more careful. Losing you again would absolutely destroy me, and living without you isn’t something I’m willing to do anymore. So, no more dark web, and no more strangers coming through that door. Okay?”
Nodding, she wraps her arms around my waist and rests her head on my chest, and I exhale becausethisis what I needed.
What I’ve always needed.
It’s her.
Let the record show,I am a total hypocrite. I acknowledge that, and I own it. It was only a couple days ago that I was lecturing Hayes on the importance of sleep, and here I am, up late and doing more research as he sleeps beside me.
Welcome to the twilight zone.
For some reason, I can’t get the look on Riley’s face out of my mind. It wasn’t your typical jealous glare. There was something darker to it. Something more sinister. I know Cam and Hayes are positive it’s not her, but I’m not entirely convinced, and I don’t think Mali is either.
So, it doesn’t hurt to give something a second look.
I go through the process we created, starting with her social media. There isn’t much on it, really. No pictures with friends or family. She doesn’t have a TikTok, but she runs the one for the bar. Of course, that mostly consists of videos of Cam and Hayes since that’s all people want to see anyway. The occasional few of drinks being made don’t even have half the views. The only Instagram I can find on her is one that only has six pictures, and the last one was posted a few years ago—so that’s essentially dead.
I move onto yearbook photos, work history, and other things, but it’s hard because she’s only a little younger than the guys. That’s freshly into adulthood. There’s not much to find unless you’re one of those people who puts their whole life on the internet.
Which, Riley is obviously not.
It becomes clear why Cam was able to check her off the list. There isn’t much to go off with her. And I have no choice but to swallow my pride and admit that they were right. It doesn’t look like Riley is our stalker.
But that doesn’t mean I like her.
I mean, who gives someone a dirty look for talking to herhusband? A homewrecking ho, that’s who.
The way Cam and Hayes were so quick to rule her out though, bothers me. Not that I think there’s something going on. I know better. But it reminds me of how I acted when one of them suggested Monty’s parents being behind the whole thing. I immediately ruled them out, and now I’m thinking we shouldn’t cross anyone off the list unless they were thoroughly looked into.
I start with his mom, and of course, being the wife of a senator, there’s a plethora of information on the internet about her. It takes me a couple hours, but I comb through the majority of it. It’s hard because most media outlets seem to copy and paste what the other says and moves a couple words around, so each article is basically being read twice, but I don’t see anything about her that jumps out at me, really.
Then I move onto Monty’s dad.Senator Rollins.If anyone found out I was looking into him for anything, I’d have people calling for my head on a spike. He’s a loved member of the community, and there aren’t many people with a bad thing to say about him. But like I said, I’m not ruling anyone out based on anything but hard evidence or lack thereof.
As I’m scrolling through all of the results, I switch to the images tab and look through there. It’s a lot more pleasing to the eye, and an article of anything painting him in a positive light isn’t going to have a picture of him smiling on it.
Except maybe this one.
