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Exercising complete caution, he checked the tape sealing it. Nothing appeared to be slit or tampered with. There was only a return address but no name, something corporations did sometimes in shipping.
“Why is he still here?” Kimmy’s not-so-quiet whisper filtered to him. “I thought he’d be on his way back to Montana.”
Bronte’s voice was distracted when she answered. “He’s doing some other odd jobs for me.”
“Like being your fiancé?”
A beat of silence followed. He had an itch to walk out just to see Bronte’s face, but he stood rooted to the kitchen floor.
“Where did you hear that?” Bronte’s tone was slightly choked despite her effort to sound normal.
“Anthony dropped by yesterday to pay us for services. He claims he took you and Jace out to a celebration dinner!”
Asshole.Jace paid for the meal. Anthony was just trying to make himself look good.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you knew Jace before he arrived? I can’t believe you hid something so important from me.” Hurt echoed in Kimmy’s voice.
“I’m…sorry, Kimmy. Things are just moving fast, and there hasn’t been time. Between the Angelica thing, keeping the investors from finding out about the security breach and the upcoming show, there hasn’t been time. This news isn’t…something you send by email.”
Jace took out his pocketknife and flicked it open. Since Bronte was going along with the ruse of him being her fiancé, he figured he had all the rights to open her mail. Not that he’d let anything stop him—he’d check the mail no matter what. It was his job.
He slit the tape and pried open the cardboard flaps. White fabric lay in the bottom. A harmless piece of clothing.
He still had to check. When he pulled it out, the garment unfolded to reveal dark red splotches on the front, and they weren’t put there in a factory. They were added later.
Blood.
Instead of dropping the item back into the box, he held it up to examine the streaky pattern of blood across the Artemis logo.
A shrill scream from behind him made the hair on his neck stand on end. With the shirt still in hand, he whirled.
Bronte stood there, Kimmy right behind her. Both women’s faces were pale with shock.
“What is that?” Bronte rasped out.
He swung the shirt to his side, balled in his hand.
She leaped forward so fast on those high heels he thought she might fall on her face. He reached out to catch her.
She snagged the shirt out of his hand and held it up. Another cry burst from her lips. “It’s covered in blood! Whose blood is this?”
“Bronte, hand me the shirt. Sit down. You too, Kimmy.”
The assistant stumbled to the kitchen chair and collapsed heavily into it.
Bronte swayed on her feet.
He banded an arm around her middle, hauling her against his chest, and took the shirt from her hand in the same move.
“Who sent that to me?” Dark shadows of fear swam in her eyes.
“There’s no name, only an address, and probably a bogus one.”
She scraped her fingers through the cherry-red lock of hair hanging over one eye. “Only two people have this shirt—Angelica and me. It’s the first logo we came up with for Artemis. We were so excited that we couldn’t wait to get shirts made.”
He nodded. “And you were wearing yours last night.” The garment might still be tossed on her bedroom floor after he ripped it off her.
“Oh my god. Does that mean Angelica is…?”
