Nash Brothers Box Set - Carrie Aarons Page 0,202

because she turned me down as a teenager.”

He holds up his hands in surrender. “Not saying it is. Because clearly, it’s much more than that.”

My eyebrows lower in annoyance. “We’re just hooking up. No strings attached. And if you utter a word about this to anyone else, I’ll give you so many purple nurples, your nipples will fall off.”

Fletcher’s hands fly to his pecs, over his shirt, and he gives me a look of mock offense. “Your secret is safe with me, under threat of nipple damage. But you do have feelings for her, you can’t lie about that. Enjoy the beer!”

he yells the last part as he flies out of my door, probably in fear that I’ll sucker punch him in the arm for saying that. Which isn’t unfounded, because I was getting ready to wind up.

22

Forrest

My life has two sides these days.

The one where I’m Forrest, the man my family knows and the guy who rearranges his schedule to be at Penelope’s every beck and call. And the side where I hunt for the cyber thief plaguing the businesses of this county.

“What do you have for me, Nash?” Captain Kline answers his phone, his gruff voice taking on its typical no-nonsense tone.

It’s been about a week since I’ve been into police headquarters because it’s useless for me to go there. The technology I have in my office is far superior, and I prefer working alone. It’s not like I can consult anyone else on this case, because of Kline’s explicit instructions, nor would I usually do that.

“He’s struck two more businesses, so the total is about seventeen with a stolen sum of about two hundred and fifty thousand.”

“And why haven’t you caught the bastard yet? I thought you were the best … do I need to rethink my strategy on this?” He’s pissed, I can tell.

But not as pissed as I am that I haven’t nabbed this asshole. “No, I’ll get him. He’s a slippery fuckwad, but I’ll get him. I’m close. I traced the transactions back to a holding account offshore, somewhere in the Middle East. It should supply me with some answers, I was about to—”

“Don’t tell me. I can’t know about your illegal methods of finding this prick. You have one more month, and then I’m going to the state department for help.” Kline doesn’t even give me room to argue about the timeline.

“Understood,” I grudgingly answer, and we both hang up without a goodbye.

Flexing my hands so that all of my knuckles crack, I roll my head in a circular motion to pop the muscles in my neck. Sitting in front of my computer, I begin to flit from one screen to the next, chasing the suspect’s actions all over the virtual globe.

Why would he re-route this money to an account in the Middle East? Who else in the state of Pennsylvania was crafty enough to do this, anyway? I thought it was just me.

And then my tracing software pings, and I know I’ve got something on my line. The fish wriggles, but I chase it, my eyes switching so quickly between screens that I might give myself a seizure.

I’ve caught this fucking thief. I can’t wait to bring this asshole in, for the cops to get their hands on him.

“Gotcha, you bastard.” I smile a smug grin as my fingers fly across the keyboard.

It takes a few minutes, but I track down the location …

To the address of Keaton’s office on Main Street.

“What the …” I trail off, my brain working faster than my fingers can compute.

I fly from screen to screen, window to window open on my desktops. I have three in my office at home; the screens are the best quality and biggest you can order.

My search leads me from lines of code to geographic tags, and I’m chasing this guy through the Internet. I can practically taste his demise, that’s how close I know I am.

And then my vigorous typing stops. Because I found what he wanted me to. The cunning trap he set up for me.

The trail he left for me from Keaton’s online business records goes to one other system only.

Bowen’s point-of-sale software.

There is obviously no way that one of my brothers is stealing from the other, neither of them are tech-savvy enough to pull that off. Nor would they ever be disloyal. And the way that this is hacked, it’s definitely the perp I’ve been chasing through the interwebs.

Which means he knows who I am. Who would