Ash cracked his fingers again, for luck, and then started his search with the property address. He could picture the search in his head, the way he’d maneuver through the packets of data as if he was ported in. It took so much longer for the commands to travel from his brain to his fingers. He hated that his hands couldn’t keep up with what he’d be able to do in a blink. Porting in was so much easier.
Ignoring the phantom ache at the back of his neck, he poured all his energy and focus into his hands.
The first commands were rote—accessing the system, cloaking his presence, and setting up a warning system in case someone noticed his activity.
His next commands bypassed the general internet and plunged him into the deep web beneath, where secrets were bought and sold and anything could be found for a price.
He laughed, because that part sounded familiar. Surely there would be a record of the Jack there. “All right, baby, let’s see what you’ve got.”
Fingers flying over the keyboard, he entered his parameters. The first results were crap. Gambling sites and decks of cards.
Not at all what he wanted. He wanted the story behind the intriguing brunette who owned the bar. The one whose touch had sent shivers straight to his heart. Whose husky voice made him long for hours of conversation. The woman who tied him in knots and hid secrets in her dark brown eyes.
Deeper down he found a years-old website, which was useless. Razor Jack’s didn’t need to advertise. If you knew about it, great. If you didn’t, well, you probably didn’t want to be there anyway.
“Okay, what next?” He tapped his fingers lightly on the keyboard and pondered his next move.
“Reviews, blogs, newsie sites.” He added those as search parameters, but doubted they’d provide anything useful.
Nope. Nope. And nope.
“You are very well hidden, my dear Jack.”
Had the previous Jack been this well-hidden? Ash had no idea. He’d never bothered to look—hadn’t needed to.
Most people were an open book, posting every damn aspect of their lives online. His respect for her and her business grew.
The Jack had intrigued him before. Now he was enthralled. He loved a challenge.
Where else to look?
Razor Jack’s was a bar. Bars got rowdy.
He’d love an old-fashioned police report. Unfortunately, most public safety and security was run by corporations. He’d hack those if he needed to, but everything he’d seen pointed to the Jack not turning to corporations for help. She’d solve problems herself. He just needed to figure out how.
Other public records were still an option. Births, deaths, marriages, and disappearances. There had to be some kind of record out there.
Tweaking his search over and over, Ash scrolled through pages and pages of results, poking into the occasional record. Nothing.
“Fuck.” If he hadn’t seen her himself, he’d believe she didn’t exist.
About to give up, something in the data scroll caught his eye.
A death certificate.
Not that unusual. Hundreds were probably issued each day in the region, and those were just the official deaths.
It wasn’t the name that was familiar. It was the address. Razor Jack’s address.
It could be coincidence—a bar fight gone wrong—but he had the feeling the Jack wouldn’t be that careless. Any bodies falling in the bar sure as hell wouldn’t be discovered there.
Ash delicately retrieved the file, careful not to leave any tracks that would lead back to him or to the Tremaine Corporation.
Once he’d segregated the file into the section of the system he used for storage, he took a deep breath and opened it.
The medic involved had been meticulous in his notetaking, but despite all the time Ash spent in the hospital with Hope, the medical jargon didn’t mean much. He understood enough to tell that it was a heart attack. The victim had been declared dead at that scene.
Ash closed the autopsy report and flipped to the profile of the deceased. He gasped and took and involuntary step back from the terminal.
