said I wasn’t the target. I told her she didn’t know that.”
“Did she counter you?”
“No. She said she’d contact me if she learned otherwise,” Leo told him.
“So she doesn’t really know. But she is actively searching for the answer,” Claire said.
Leo agreed. “My thoughts exactly.”
“Then what did she say?” Neil asked.
“Nothing. I panicked. Asked if she was okay. Told her I can help her.” His breath was shaky. “I told her I loved her.”
Claire stopped typing and looked up, eyes wide.
“She didn’t respond,” Neil concluded.
“No, she did. She told me loving her would get me killed. Then she apologized and logged off.”
Neil turned away, walked to the other end of the room. “Okay, then. We have something to work with.”
Leo didn’t see it. “W-what do you mean? What do we have to work with?”
“First, she contacted you. That’s not easy for her. And she did so in less than a week.”
“That means she’s thinking about you,” Claire declared without looking up from the computer.
“And the feelings you have for her are mutual,” Neil said.
“Ahhh, look at you tapping into your warm and fuzzy side,” Claire teased Neil.
“I don’t have a warm and fuzzy side . . .”
“Wait. Stop. How did you conclude that?” Not that Leo didn’t like to hear that perspective.
“She apologized,” Neil said.
“I heard her apologize several times in Colorado.”
“That was the amnesia talking,” Claire said. “Olivia would run over your leg with a car, get out, and ask what the hell it was doing there in the first place. Saying I’m sorry isn’t in her wheelhouse.”
Neil pointed to Claire. “Which means she’s changed.” He poked Leo in the chest. “That’s all you.”
Leo’s head was short-circuiting.
Claire started singing. “Warm and fuzzy. Warm and fuzzy . . .”
“Zip it, Claire.”
She chuckled.
Neil patted Leo’s chest where his finger had poked. “Fair warning. Loving her can get you killed.”
He had already concluded that. Didn’t stop him from falling hard. He leaned against the desk where Claire was working. “I know.”
“Now, the next time she contacts you—”
“We don’t know that she will.”
Neil waited for Leo to look up to start talking again. “The next time she contacts you it will be to convince you that what you had wasn’t real. That she couldn’t care less about you or any of us.”
“To push me away.”
“Yes. The more convincing she is, the more likely there’s a threat. If she didn’t care, she wouldn’t call. So when she does reach out, try and get her on the phone. Listen for clues. Background noise, is she tired . . . is it day or night where she’s at.”
“And if I can’t decipher any of that?”
“I’ll place a recording device that activates when you turn up the volume on your phone or computer. You can deactivate by pressing it twice. Then we can pick apart the recording here,” Claire informed him.
“I thought you weren’t going to actively look for her,” Leo reminded Neil.
Neil hesitated, as if he wasn’t sure how to answer the question, and then decided. “I changed my mind.”
“And how often do you do that?” Leo asked.
“When it’s warranted.”
Claire sat back in her chair and rubbed her hands together.
“Did you find something?”
“No. Clever bitch. I really need to know how she did this.” She sighed. “I found the time the messages started and when they ended, but no data. No number, no computer ID. Nada. The disappearing ink is just brilliant. That’s some Mission Impossible shit right there.” She was clearly excited.
“Damn.”
Claire turned back with a new fever driving her. “Now the question is, Did she activate your audio and video? I would have.”
“Wait, you think she saw me, heard me when she was texting?”
Claire looked at him like he was an idiot. “Why would you have mono when you can have stereo?”
The last time Olivia stood outside the gates of Richter was the night she and Neil’s team took down Pohl. She’d convinced Neil to take her with them for their sting operation and flush out Amelia’s killer.
Olivia had every intention of putting a bullet in Pohl’s head at the first opportunity. But when she’d seen how Neil and his people worked, she couldn’t jeopardize his operation. If Pohl had ended up dead at that point . . . more questions would have been asked.
Seven years later and she sat perched in a tree with a pair of binoculars in her hand.
It hadn’t snowed yet, but the bitter cold kept the students bundled in their uniform jackets and colorful scarves. It looked as if