“I talked to people and then examined city and building records. It made sense something ran underneath town.”
Fine. “So where are the boxes?” I asked.
He stopped and looked at me the way other people look at a sudden wet patch in a room that shouldn’t belong. “I don’t have them.”
“You don’t,” I echoed. I could feel the heat in my palms that came from anger. “Don’t lie to me.”
He lifted a shoulder. “I’m not. Why in the world would I take them? I wanted the reward money, and you found the boxes, so it’s yours.”
Right. Like I’d make my grandparents pay me.
“I don’t believe you,” I snapped.
The wind smashed against us both. “I think you do.”
Darn it, I kind of did. “As a collection item, the boxes are worth more than the reward money. Heck, even melted down for silver, they’re worth a lot more.”
“I don’t melt or ruin beauty,” he said instantly.
My chin lifted. “I think that’s the first thing you’ve said to me that isn’t calculated.”
“Wrong. I don’t lie, lass.”
That wasn’t the same as calculation. “You and Rory used to work together. At the CIA?
“Used to work together, and I can’t tell you where,” Cormac said. “Not anymore. I’m freelance now and I work for myself.”
I wanted to press, to turn his words inside out until something real fell out. Instead I watched him pull a phone from his back pocket and press it to his ear.
“Hey, it’s Mac,” he said. “Can you pull CCTV from the Timber City Hospital? From yesterday afternoon until early this morning. Yeah—make it until six a.m. Get me the whole feed.”
He clicked off and his gaze snapped back to me. “Some of it will be available,” he said. “Not all of it.”
“Who are you?” I asked. I didn’t want to let him breeze away with half answers.
He smiled, not fully, and put the phone away. “Already told you.”
“You have a hacker who can obtain CCTV?” I asked, because it seemed the next logical question.
“Everyone has one,” he said, as if that settled it.
I thought about the way he’d said it, the ease of his voice. “Did you just call my cousin?” Pauley couldn’t be hiring out to strangers, could he? Panic heated my breath.
Cormac snorted. “Rory couldn’t hack his way out of a paper bag.” His eyes crinkled like he’d just told a private joke.
“Different cousin,” I whispered.
“No. My hacker isn’t related to you in any manner.”
We walked on in silence for a minute, both of us listening to the same river and the same wind, but I had no clue if he was hearing the same thing as me. Without agreeing, we turned around and strode back to the driveway.
He smiled, that slow, confident tilt that lacked the dimple. “Tell you what.”
I crossed my arms. “What?”
“If I find the boxes before you do,” he said, eyes gleaming, “you make your sister go out on a date with me.”
The wind lifted my hair, tangling it across my face, and I shoved it back, glaring. “You’re so desperate for a date you have to make deals to get one? That’s just sad.”
