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Bianca stared at her, nonplussed.
“Okay. Let’s see if the two of us can hash this out together.” Diana tipped her cap back and sat down next to Bianca. “As soon as your name was brought into Elias’ case, our bosses kept pushing him to make a connection. They wanted him to find some way to link the Lorings to something illegal. Elias got that tape on you—he made a couple of them actually, but you know the one I’m talking about—out of desperation. He needed proof you had no clue what was going on, to give to them. He scrubbed it, but it wasunscrubbed. I don’t think you could understand how hard that is, but someone very important, and way over our pay grade, wanted that recording to be so embarrassing for the Loring family that it would be just as damaging to your reputation as being brought in and questioned would be. It was a smear campaign right from the start, and Elias unwittingly gave whoever is behind this the ammunition they wanted against your family.”
None of this made any sense to Bianca. “Why?” she asked.
Diana shrugged. “The best I can figure is that someone hates the Lorings. And I have a feeling—and I should tell you, my feelings are usually pretty awesome—that it has something to do with your father.”
“Myfather?” Bianca laughed mirthlessly. “But he’s been dead for over ten years.”
Diana nodded. Then she leaned close to Bianca and raised her brow. “Still have an uncle, don’t you? Someone who, rumor has it, might run for office?”
Bianca frowned. She thought about what Elias had done. “You’re saying that the recording of us was leaked because Eliaswasn’tspying on my family like someone wanted him to?”
Diana seemed to agree with that assessment but she wasn’t going to say yes or no definitively, and Bianca understood why. Diana was just spinning scenarios and she didn’t want to come off as having actual proof.
“I can tell you what happened in the room,” Diana said. “Elias was ordered to watch your family, but when he saw that the Lorings weren’t involved in his case—and he was really vocal in team meetings about that fact that you weren’t—our bosses pushed him to prove it with physical evidence. Hence, the recording.” She stopped and considered Bianca sympathetically. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed this about Elias or not, but he is a by-the-books kind of guy. It took him apart to do this, for a bunch of reasons. Can I just say that when the full recording was played, Elias lost his frigging mind? He’s a pretty even-tempered dude, but not that day. Whoever unscrubbed that recording is a piece of shit.”
Bianca looked at the fairy lights, taking deep breaths to keep herself from crying, but it wasn’t working. Her eyes started leaking anyway.
“I’m sorry,” she said, sniffing and laughing and wiping her eyes. “This keeps happening every time I talk or think about him.”
Diana nodded. “I know how you feel,” she replied musingly. “And so does Elias. He’s so in love with you.”
“Really?” she asked.
Diana rolled her eyes. “Since Halloween, that guy hasn’t known his cock from his Glock. You’re lucky he didn’t shoot you and make sweet, sweet love to a perp.”
An inappropriate laugh burst out of Bianca. She had the feeling that she could be very good friends with this sassy woman. “How long have you worked with Elias?” she asked.
“Six years. I’m going to miss him, too, even if he is kind of a bastard sometimes because he doeseverythingby the books, he’s still the best kind of people.” Diana stood up and gave Bianca her hand to help her stand up as well. “Oh, and this is important.Ishot that asshole, right? Elias was there because your brothers came to him with the picture, and then he was on site to comfort you before I came out of my position in the woods, but he didn’t have the rifle on him, I did. Got it?”
Bianca nodded. “Got it.”
“And if this ever comes around, it was my idea. Which is true.”
Bianca stopped Diana. “Why are you doing this?” she asked, realizing that this woman was on the hook for a dead body.
Diana frowned and bit her lower lip, debating whether or not she wanted to answer. “I owe your family.” She shook her head and sighed. “I owe Gabriel.”
Bianca had a million questions, but Diana turned and went back to the group, obviously done with this conversation. Bianca followed her back across the driveway, to where her brothers were waiting and watching her every move. She could see them standing there, both of them with their hands on their hips as they looked expectantly toward the gazebo.
But Elias wasn’t with them. She didn’t see him anywhere.
“Where’s Elias?” she asked, as she joined them.
Her brothers shared a look. “He didn’t think you’d want him here,” Rafe said gently. “Was he wrong?”
Bianca didn’t know how she felt or what to believe, but she knew she missed Elias. She nodded, looking down. “He was wrong. I want to see him.”
Cassiel made a frustrated sound. “He really came through for us,” he admitted.
“More than that,” Rafe said, chiding his younger brother for not giving credit where it was due. “Elias is the reason you’re still with us.”
The paramedic came back with a blanket. He had Bianca sit at the back of the ambulance while he tested her for a concussion and looked her over for any other injuries. Her brothers paced behind him the whole time, throwing impatient looks, and alternately answering and asking questions from whatever official passed them by.
Then another FBI agent asked Bianca a few questions. It seemed to take forever, but it probably only lasted about half an hour. She told them everything as it had happened, only changing the bit at the end, saying that Elias had reached her first and moved her away from the body, and Diana had been carrying the rifle when she came out of the woods. No one batted an eye at her story.
“Are we done with questions?” Cassiel asked Diana in a testy way. “Our sister isn’t wearing shoes or a coat and we’d like to get that cut on her face looked at.”
