Page 30 of Cipher

“What happened next?”

“He asked if I was sure. I told him I was and he said, ‘Thank you, Nina.’” Confusion deepened the faint lines between her brows. “There was no record of my real name attached to the house. I used a proxy to sign the lease. But he’d sort of mumbled it, so I thought maybe I misheard him.”

Bex leaned forward slightly, her expression remaining gentle even as her attention sharpened. “Did he leave after that?”

“Not right away.” Nina’s fingers tightened around the bottle. “He stood near the walkway and took a picture of the front of the house. Then he walked toward the curb, photographed my car, and got into a dark SUV. I figured he wanted to double-check that he hadn’t gotten the house wrong. The car isn’t in my name, either, so I didn’t think too much about it.”

My entire body went still as the pieces shifted into a shape I recognized. “You still have the doorbell recording?”

“Yes. The account keeps clips for a couple of weeks.” Nina looked uncertainly toward the camera. “I haven’t opened the app since the attack.”

“I can retrieve it from the provider if you authorize access.” I set a clean Black Castle tablet on the low table rather than reaching for her personal phone. “The original stays preserved in your account, but I’ll make a copy for the sheriff.”

“Okay.” She gave me the email attached to the account, entered the temporary verification code herself, and pushed the tablet back toward me. “Whatever helps you find the people who did this.”

The cloud archive still contained the motion clip from the afternoon the man had shown up. I opened it without playing the audio at full volume, then mirrored the image to a small wall display. A man in a tan jacket and baseball cap stood several feet back from the door, his face angled so the camera captured the lower half while he spoke into the intercom.

The footage confirmed everything Nina remembered.

My muscles tensed when he crossed the lawn, and the camera’s wider field caught him returning to a dark full-size SUV and typing something into his phone before pulling away.

I froze the image as the vehicle turned at the curb, and Bex gasped. “That’s the same SUV that was watching us.”

Her gaze had moved from the screen to my face, reading the answer before I gave it. “Yeah.”

Nina’s breath caught, and Bex immediately turned back toward her.

“You couldn’t have known that man mattered,” she reassured, her voice calm but firm when guilt started entering Nina’s expression. “He didn’t threaten you or say anything that sounded dangerous. He gave you a story that was meant to feel ordinary enough to dismiss.”

“I should’ve told someone.”

“You had no reason to,” Bex reminded her. “Most people wouldn’t report a stranger asking about a former tenant, especially after he left without trying to get inside.”

She was right, but the visit had never been harmless. He’d gone there already possessing the protected address and her first name. He’d been there to verify that the correct woman lived inside, document her vehicle, and report back.

I replayed the visitor typing into his phone before the SUV moved out of frame.

Nina’s eyes filled, but Bex reached for her hand before fear could pull her backward into the attack. She guided Nina through several slow breaths while I saved a forensic copy of the clip and preserved the account metadata. Once Nina calmed, she remained with Bex for another fifteen minutes, answering smaller questions about the man and his vehicle. She couldn’t provide much, but Bex never pressured her to manufacture certainty, and when the interview ended, Nina left steadier than she had arrived.

I watched Bex walk her to the hallway, one hand resting gently at Nina’s back, then she leaned close to say something that made Nina manage a real smile before the protection specialist took over and led her away. Pride and possession tightened together beneath my ribs. My woman was amazing.

I closed one hand around her waist when she reached me and drew her against my side, but I released her before Raines emerged from the observation room and caught more than the possessive hand he had already resigned himself to seeing.

“She okay?” he asked.

“She will be,” Bex answered. “She thought the visit was too ordinary to matter.”

“That was the point.” I led them toward my office, keeping Bex tucked beside me as Black Castle personnel moved through the corridor. “He needed her to dismiss him long enough to confirm the address.”

My office sat inside a restricted executive wing in Black Castle’s main building, separated from the operational floors by controlled access and enough reinforced glass to provide clients with transparency without proximity to anything sensitive. I put stills from the footage onto a mounted screen display while Bex and Raines took seats at a conference table that took up half the space.

“I’ll have trusted deputies canvas Nina’s street.” Raines studied the images. “We’ll keep the reason broad so nothing gets back to the department.”

“Already sent the stills to Stryker,” I told him. “Black Crowns will circulate it through local contacts. Anyone likely to recognize the vehicle or the man.”

Raines’s mouth tightened. “Tell your people not to contaminate witnesses before mine reach them.”

“They know the difference between asking whether somebody recognizes a face and telling them what answer we want.”