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I swallowed hard, trying to figure out a plan of attack. I was heading to them anyway. I’d have to catch a rideshare—public transport didn’t go to the upscale marina where the runabout was docked this early—but it was doable. “Okay, um, give me an hour. I’m on my way.”
“Are you bringing the professor?”
“I’ll call Tristan now. I don’t know if he has classes or meetings.” I’d been in twice-daily contact with Tristan since I’d last seen him. He wasn’t Professor Reid to me anymore. Something had changed between us. At first it was living out this naughty fantasy between us. The risk of getting caught heightened the thrill of sleeping with a sexy older man. He was forbidden fruit, and I was feasting on those apples. But now I was terrified for him. If he lost something as important to him as his career because of me, I’d never forgive myself.
But Zee needed us, and I knew he’d want to be there for her if he could.
Ry was quiet, but the silence wasn’t as heavy. “Okay. Should I call her dad or Ezra?”
I hesitated. “I honestly don’t know. My gut tells me that worrying Monroe might not be the best idea. Ezra might be a different story, but I’m not ready for his interference yet—not when he put her in this mess.”
The sight that greeted me when I knocked on the door had my head spinning, and not in a good way. Balled up pieces of paper littered the floor, and Zee’s snack was untouched on the coffee table, a fly buzzing around the miniature charcuterie board.
Her back was to me, but I recognized her shirt as the one she was wearing during our video call the day before yesterday. Zee’s hair was thrown up in a messy bun atop her head, and her leggings were ratty old ones with a hole in the thigh. This wasn’t Zee—not by a long shot.
Tristan stepped up beside me and looked around the room. His questioning gaze ping-ponged between Zee and me, and I winced. “Let’s try to get her to talk,” he whispered.
I nodded; I could do this. She needed me to do it. Tristan squeezed my waist and wandered over to the wall, studying what she’d pinned there. It looked like a family tree with a bubble at the top and branches coming down from it, but within each bubble, there was much more detail than simply a name. I couldn’t read it from across the room—the font she’d printed it in was tiny and handwritten notes were scrawled across a few. Next to it was what looked like a timeline horizontally spanning the width of half a dozen A1 pieces of paper with dates highlighted. One toward the end had extensive notes written under it, and a stack of papers clipped together sitting on the floor.
I stuffed my hands in my pockets, feigning casual as I greeted her, “Hey, beautiful. I brought Tristan. Thought we might go for a swim.”
She held her hand up, silencing me. “Can’t. I’m in the middle of this.”
“What are you working on, Zali?” Tristan asked, tilting his head toward the wall.
“It’s my research all mapped out—what I’ve found so far.” Whatever she’d found, it was out of control. Even if Ry hadn’t warned me she’d been working non-stop for days, it would have been obvious from The Wall.
“I think you need a break…,” I started. Zee spun in her chair and glared at me, my words trailing off at her acidic look. “Or not,” I squeaked.
“Don’t tell me what to do, Flynn,” she warned. Her eyes were like flint, cold and hard, but the dark circles below them betrayed just what she was doing to herself to make this much progress.
“He’s worried about you, kitten. We both are.” Tristan leaned his butt against her desk and eased her yellow glasses off her face. “So is Ryder. We just want to know you’re okay.”
“I’m fine. There, you can go.”
Tristan laughed, but the sound held no humour. It wasn’t walls that fell into place when he slipped into this persona, but a mask of sorts. The man was warm and affectionate with the people he let into his circle. I’d slipped in there a few nights ago, as had Zee, but the Tristan before me now was on the defensive, pushing Zee.
“Little girl, I tell you when we’ll come or go, and right now, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Fuck off, arsehole.” She shoved away from him with her foot, her chair wheels spinning as she moved across the timber floor.
“There’s my kitten.” He smirked and lifted his chin, daring her to react.
“You think you know me so well? You’ve fucked me a couple of times. So, what? I’m an open book now?” Zee stood and faced off with him, her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed defiantly. She was in bare feet, and the height difference between them was comical. She really did look like a kitten who thought she was a lion. I knew her well enough that I didn’t make that mistake, but Tristan had a knack for getting her to react.
He raised an eyebrow, looking entirely unimpressed. “Enlighten me then. You’ve probably been running around in circles anyway. What information could you have possibly found that I haven’t already?”
Man, he was baiting her, but it was working. Zee’s eyes were ablaze, her hands balled into fists, and every muscle in her body primed to attack.
“Or we could get naked and go for a swim,” I suggested, my voice sounding like a child’s next to Tristan’s deep baritone.
“Fine. You want details? Sit the fuck down and listen.” Her glare at Tristan softened somewhat when she directed it at me, but she was on edge.
I swallowed, waiting for her to speak. What bomb was she going to drop on us?
“After you both left the other night, I got to thinking. Professor, you were building a timeline with dates in the diaries, investment records, share prices, that sort of thing. You were going to match it up with events during the GFC. I decided to look at it from the regulator’s perspective. What did they say about ReimagINC, and what was the liquidator’s opinion?”
She pointed at the midpoint of the timeline and picked up a printed report from the floor below it, then dropped it onto her desk. The pages, one after another, were tabbed with coloured flags. “Long story short, the liquidator—and based on the liquidator’s report, the regulator—both determined that the company’s collapse happened because of deposits being made into high-profile US organizations that were almost bankrupted during the GFC. They agreed with your conclusion that negligence was a factor. I’m waiting for yours and Flynn’s data before coming to any conclusion about that.”
