“And he didn’t take it well.”
Her head shook. “No. Not well at all.” She bit her lower lip and stared at the countertop for several moments before continuing. “He started following me around campus, showing up outside my classes.” Her gaze met his. “Surreptitiously taking pictures.”
Ah, hell. “I never wanted to hurt or intimidate you, V. You know that, right?”
“Yes.” She squeezed his hand and smiled. “I’m not mad.”
Until she gave it, he didn’t even realize how much he’d been waiting for that acquittal. “What happened with Tim?”
She let out a long breath. “He escalated.” Her hand moved in an insolent arc. “Unwanted pizza deliveries that I didn’t have the money for, calls in the middle of the night that woke me and my poor roommate. The last straw was when he posted an ad on my behalf on an unofficial school dating forum.”
Scott’s heart plummeted.
“It detailed all kinds of sex acts that I would supposedly do for money and included my dorm room and phone number, along with a photo,” she said, her voice as emotionless as if she were reading out her grocery list.
“Fuck.”
“That was definitely on the list.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.
“Jesus, Valerie.” He wanted to strangle the bastard with his bare hands. “What about the police?”
She shook her head. “They couldn’t prove it was him.”
Of course not. “So you left.”
“No. I hacked his computer and found videos of him and his fraternity buddies at a party. They were coercing new recruits to put something into girls’ drinks and then have sex with the girls. I sent the videos from his email to the dean of the university and the campus police department. Then I changed his password so only the cops could get into his computer.” She removed her hand from Scott’s and crossed her arms. “ThenI left.”
“Holy shit. Remind me not to get on your bad side again.”
She gave a sharp nod and grinned like the Devil. “Damn straight.”
Two hours later, Valerie stared at her computer in dismay. She wasin, but she had nothing. Oh, she had known not to get her hopes up, known Duncan would have attempted to cover his tracks. But she’d hoped anyway. Had counted on being smarter than him, counted on him making a mistake along the way that she could swoop in and exploit.
But no matter how many times she scoured Aggressor’s servers, there was nothing to find.
Nothing accessible from the network, anyway.
Now it was after five in the morning and she was depleted. After weeks of setting traps to get to this point, all her work had been pointless.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” Scott said in a sardonic tone as he set a mug filled with coffee, along with the hazelnut creamer and the sugar bowl, on the counter in front of her. “Anything to be thankful for yet?”
Just you. “Not a goddamned thing.” She pushed away from her laptop and stalked to the far side of the living room to peer through the blinds at the dark sky. The faint glow of city lights tinged the edges of the horizon, obliterating all but the brightest stars. Tears of frustration clawed at the back of her eyelids like angry cats and she let the aluminum blinds fall shut with a dulltink. “He wiped everything.”
“Hollowell?”
She faced Scott and blinked to regain control, releasing a long, shuddering breath. Tears would help nothing. She’d learned that lesson long ago. “Him or someone working for him. Either way…”
There had to be something in this place that she could kick.
Scott nodded, unaware of the rash anger simmering behind her fists, his face impassive. “Okay.”
“Okay?” she lashed out, regretting her accusatory tone even as the words dropped from her lips. “That’s all you have to say?Okay?” She pointed to her laptop and marched toward him. All the anger she didn’t even realize she had built up since her dad died whipped itself into a raging tornado. “Getting into Aggressor’s systems was our best hope, ourlasthope for getting the evidence. And you just stand there like everything’s fine and say, ‘Okay’?
“Fuck that.” She trembled, part of her standing apart from her own body, watching in horror as she railed at Scott for doing nothing more than…doing nothing. “Fuck your unshakeable calm.” Her voice came out too loud in the small, quiet space, stretched tight like an overfilled balloon. “How about you drop the Mr. Cool act and show me how you really feel? For once, could you do that?” Her fists clenched, and she shook one at him across the counter. “Show me that you feel something!”
He stared at her in silence, his sole reaction a twitching jaw muscle.
The heat shut off with a click, dropping them into tomb-like quiet. The only sounds were the humming of the refrigerator, her harsh breaths, and her heart pounding in her ears.
