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“Thanks. Owen told me to ask if I can use your computer to help him sort through some spreadsheet data.”
“Be my guest. You can sort through mine, too.”
Picking up a set of keys, he walks to a cabinet and unlocks it. There, he pulls out a sleek laptop and passes it to me. “Password is Flower, but the E is a three.”
My heart blooms. Flower is what he calls Zara.
“That is the most romantic yet unsecured password ever.”
“Ever?” he raises an eyebrow. “My pops used four ones as his pin for years before we convinced him to change it.”
That makes me giggle as I sit on his sofa and open the laptop.
A low whir makes me lift my head. Luke’s desk is raising to standing height, then a panel slides out, forming a second low desk, so someone can sit next to him while he stands.
He kicks the chair in front of it, jerking his head that direction. “Better for your back.”
“Fancy.” I sit in the chair and adjust the height so I’m comfortable.
“Sometimes Zara likes to work on her stuff in here with me. We had it custom made. If you want to work alone, you can work in her office. Or I’ll leave you here and go work in hers.”
I smile up at him. “I’d like the company, if you don’t mind.”
He reaches over and tousles my hair. “I don’t mind at all.”
Luke is one of the few who can get away with messing up my curls. I like when he does it.
When I tell Owen I’m ready, he sends me directions for how to access the data, and I set about reading through the countless lines of financial data he’s uncovered so far. Luke is quiet mostly, but we make small talk from time to time. It’s comforting just sitting here with a friend.
I can’t say I’m finding anything useful as I dig through the numbers, but it’s keeping my mind occupied, and I’m grateful for the task.
Still, I desperately want to find out who is doing this to the people I love, so I hope I’m able to find something Owen couldn’t.
I open a bank record for Lorenzo Trentini. How Owen got access to it, I’m not sure, but I know better than to ask questions.
“What do you know about the shell company behind Renda St. Claire?”
Luke’s fingers pause on his keyboard, and he frowns down at me. “Why?”
Renda St. Claire was involved in a plot to kill the mayor of New York City a few months ago that led to Luke meeting Zara.
I point at a line in the spreadsheet. “I swear this name looks familiar. When we traced who actually paid for Zara to go on that date with your cousin in New York, it led back to Senator Pratchett, but we always figured Pratchett was just one rung on the ladder, right? Someone was paying him just like they paid Renda. Was this the company the payments came from?” The subject of Chuck Pratchett is bound to be a touchy one for Luke. Only a handful of people know Luke killed the senator after he kidnapped and tried to rape Zara. None of us lose much sleep over the slimy bastard’s demise.
“What are you getting at, Bellamy?”
He steps behind me and bends to peer over my shoulder at the screen.
“I don’t know what I’m getting at. This just looks like the same company that paid Pratchett and St. Claire gave money to Lorenzo Trentini.”
He reaches over me and uses the trackpad to scroll. “It’s definitely the same company. How did Owen not see this?”
“He’s buried in data. There were so many people and threads to follow that he hadn’t gotten here yet. It took me four layers of companies to find this one.”
“Holy shit,” he mutters, still reading.
I lean back and look up at him. “What?”
He stands and walks out of the room with his cell phone to his ear. What the fuck, Luke?
