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Hez and Ed exchanged a victorious glance across Hez’s battered desk. Hez turned back to his computer monitor, where Bruno’s face watched from a Zoom window. Sunlight played on his hairless head, and the sound of distant waves came through the speakers, so Hez guessed Bruno was enjoying the secluded California beach he was rumored to own. It was only a guess, though—the background behind Bruno was the logo of his company, Whacktastic: a deranged child holding an enormous sledgehammer.
Hez’s phone buzzed with a text from Savannah—something about being on Simon’s tail. What was she on his tail about this time? Simon had been behaving himself all day, as far as Hez could tell. The kid had been sitting in Hez’s office, quietly playing on his phone for the past few hours, and he didn’t complain when Hez parked him in a dingy empty room so they could meet with Bruno. Hez made a mental note to check with her later, but he had more important things to think about right now. If Bruno was right, this could give him the evidence he needed to exonerate Jess. “Great news! Tell me about it.”
Bruno grabbed a can of Red Bull from off camera and took a swig. “Someone put a keystroke logger on her laptop about two months ago. I haven’t figured out how they did it yet. She had pretty good security, but there are ways around that. Maybe a spear-phishing email from someone she trusted.” He talked fast, and Ed scribbled furiously to get everything down. Hez was glad he had his intern taking notes. There was no way he’d be able to simultaneously talk to his computer expert and transcribe everything he said.
“Keystroke logger—that would have recorded her passwords, right?”
Bruno’s head bobbed. “Yup. They got her passwords, and then someone got in and manually uploaded the rat spreadsheet sometime after 2:00 a.m. on October 16. They also removed the logger at the same time.”
Hez’s phone buzzed again, but he ignored it. “Are you absolutely positive it happened after that?”
“Yup. She backed up her laptop to the cloud every night. The last backup happened at 2:00 a.m. on October 16. That backup had the logger but no spreadsheet. The copy of her hard drive you gave me had the spreadsheet but no logger. Ergo, someone removed the logger and added the spreadsheet after the backup. QED,” Bruno added with a flourish of his Red Bull can.
Hez sat back, his mind whirling. The police raided Jess’s house on October 15, and they’d had her laptop ever since. Whoever planted the rat spreadsheet and removed the telltale logger almost certainly got to the laptop while it was in police custody. “Could the hacker have done that remotely?”
Bruno shrugged his thin shoulders. “Hypothetically possible but unlikely. They would’ve needed to install a VPN to do that, and I didn’t see one in any of the backups. Plus, if the laptop was turned off, someone would need to physically turn it on first.”
Someone in law enforcement had set Jess up. Savannah socialized with the chief of the Pelican Harbor Police Department, and her best friend worked there. Could his wife be putting herself in danger? Or maybe inadvertently tipping off the killers about the investigation?
He needed to warn her when she came to get Simon.
* * *
Erik crossed his tanned, muscular arms. “Savannah Webster.” His gaze darted to Simon. “What are you doing in my house?” He still wore khakis and the red shirt Savannah had spotted him in this morning when he entered the history building.
Her tongue didn’t want to unravel the circumstances of how she came to be standing in his home office, and she had to get out of here and call the police. Erik was the person behind everything that had happened, and she struggled to tamp down the fear souring her tongue. “I—I can explain.”
Simon, blue eyes alert and eager, took a step toward him. “You have to be Erik Andersen, right? You were engaged to my mum.”
Erik stiffened. “I’m Professor Andersen, but I don’t know your mother.” His blue eyes clouded with confusion. “Who’s the kid? I’ve never even been to England. Who’s he talking about?”
The suspicion on his face deepened, and Savannah took a step toward the door. She had to keep his attention away from the desk where she’d spotted the artifact. “There’s been a misunderstanding, Erik. I’ll take him and get out of your way. I’m so sorry for the inconvenience.”
Simon jerked his arm out of her grasp. “Bollocks! I knew Mum didn’t tell you about me.” He took another step and reached toward Erik. “I’m Jessica Legare’s son. Your son.”
Erik’s face went red, then white. His mouth sagged, and his square jaw tightened as he stared at Simon for several beats. “That’s impossible, kid. Savannah, what’s going on here?”
“My mum is Jessica Legare.” Simon fumbled in his pocket and withdrew a folded paper from the pocket of his shorts. He unfolded it and shoved it in Erik’s face. “You were engaged to her eleven years ago. I’m ten.”
Erik’s gaze roamed over Simon’s face, and Savannah saw the instant it clicked for him. His eyes flickered, and he took a step back. “You’re Jessica’s son? She said . . .”
“She never told you she was having a baby, did she? She locked me away in a boarding school and never told me about my dad either.”
Savannah winced at the pathos vibrating in Simon’s voice, and she wanted to scream at her sister for what she’d done to this little boy. All of Jess’s secrets had knotted into a tangled mess that just might destroy all of them. This man had orchestrated everything and had framed Jess for murders she didn’t commit. He wouldn’t allow his hard work to unravel now.
She licked her lips and seized Simon’s hand again. “I’m going to take him home now, Erik. I don’t think we should discuss this in front of Simon.”
Erik’s face flushed. “Jess lied to me. I always knew she was secretive, but this is over the top. Why would she have kept something this important from me?”
Savannah could have listed the reasons, but they would only inflame the situation and put her and Simon in more danger. She edged toward the door with Simon, who kept trying to tug out of her grip. “You need to talk to Jess about this, Erik. Simon is too young to take in all the layers of what happens in a relationship.”
“So you’re saying you agree with him, and he’s really my son? Jessica has hidden him away for ten years and you let her?”
“I only found out about Simon myself last week.”
Erik reached out and grabbed the doorjamb to steady himself. “Her own sister. She kept this secret even from you.” He swiped a big hand through his hair. “I can’t take it all in.”
His gaze lingered on the boy, and a crafty smile lifted the corners of his mouth. Savannah could see the wheels turning as he realized what kind of leverage this might give him over Jess. She had to get Simon out of here right now. She took another step toward the door, and Erik’s gaze went over her shoulder to the artifact on the desk.
