Rogue Descendant (Nikki Glass) - By Jenna Black Page 0,62

behind the attacks against you. I promised I would warn all my people off, and I did. But I found I was curious myself, so I did a little investigating.”

My heart gave a loud ka-thump in my chest. If Cyrus thought Anderson wasn’t going to like what he was going to say, then that meant . . .

“It was Emma, wasn’t it?”

Cyrus nodded. He pulled a folded sheet of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket. “I stopped by her place and poked around on her computer for a bit while she was out.”

I must have looked shocked at his blatant invasion of Emma’s privacy, because Cyrus gave me one of his wry grins. “I’m her boss, and she’s living in a house that I pay for. I have every right to keep an eye on her, especially when her loyalty’s been questionable from the start.”

Add one more item to the long list of reasons I never wanted to be an Olympian.

Cyrus slid the paper across to me. “I didn’t find anything interesting in her files or browser history. But I did find this in her recycle bin.”

I unfolded the paper and saw a screen shot of a computer’s recycle bin full of junk files. A number of them with nonsense names had been highlighted, and I could see a bunch of tiled windows that had opened up in WordPad.

“I found seven different versions in her recycle bin,” Cyrus continued. “I don’t remember exactly what the email you showed me said, but the one on top in that shot is the closest to what I remember.”

I had memorized “Konstantin’s” email claiming responsibility for the fire at the Glasses’ house, and although the one on the screen shot wasn’t exactly the same, it was close enough. Looked like I’d been right all along to suspect Emma as the author of all my woes. I reread the letter a couple of times as I tried to process what I’d learned. Obviously, Emma was the firebug and was responsible for the fires at the Glasses’ house and my condo, but I had to conclude that the fire at my office was every bit as accidental as it had originally seemed. It predated my feud with Emma, and the circumstances were very different. Perhaps what had happened at my office had sparked the whole idea in Emma’s head. No pun intended.

“I had a talk with her,” Cyrus continued. “She claims she didn’t write it and she has no idea how it showed up on her computer.”

I gave a little snort of disbelief, and Cyrus’s cynical smile said he was with me. The smile faded into a look of grave intensity.

“None of this changes anything in the long run,” he told me. “Emma is still an Olympian and under my protection. I have made it abundantly clear that you are off-limits and that I won’t tolerate disobedience. I don’t expect you to have any more trouble with her. But I thought you should know. I’ll leave it up to you whether you want to tell Anderson or not.”

I stared at the incriminating paper, shaking my head once more at the irrational depths of Emma’s hatred. Anderson wouldn’t want to know how low she’d sunk. He had a hard enough time reconciling his image of Emma with the woman who had betrayed Erin to her death just to spite him, but this was even worse. However, this might be something he needed to know, whether he wanted to or not.

“Thanks,” I said, putting a heavy dose of sarcasm in my voice.

Cyrus smiled. “You can see now why I didn’t want him to hear it from me.”

I rubbed my eyes, feeling tired and headachy. I didn’t exactly want Anderson to hear it from me, either.

I wondered if Cyrus thought I was rubbing my eyes to stave off tears, because his voice suddenly went all soft and sympathetic. “I wouldn’t take it personally if I were you. Emma’s . . . not well.”

“No kidding?”

“Her maid tells me she has nightmares every night,” Cyrus continued after giving me a reproachful look. “I can see with my own two eyes that she’s losing weight. She shouldn’t have left Anderson when she did. In retrospect, I can see she was being self-destructive, and I probably served as an enabler.”

I’d been so furious at Emma and the things she’d done that I’d never put a moment’s thought into what her life might be like now. She was jealous, vindictive, and spiteful