His brows dipped, and the muscles in his jaw ticked. He was confused, a look she was sure not many people had ever seen.
He pushed off the doorjamb and rounded the desk. His arms crossed over his big muscular chest.Focus. She shook her head as her fingers hovered over the keyboard, waiting for his reply.
“They tested him at first.”
“Like you tested me?”
“Yeah, only his was different. They gave him a picture of a box and told him he had a day to figure out what was in it. He said that the visions came to him in dreams.”
“A box?” she asked, vaguely remembering the conversation. “Pictures of a pineapple and a cat?”
“Yeah.” Ryker dropped his arms to his sides as she typed the word pineapple in the search box. Within seconds, she had the audio transcript pulled up. She hitPlay on the audio and listened to the recording.
Ryker rested his hands on the back of her seat as he stood behind her. He smelled of fresh rain with a hint of something she couldn’t identify. A smell that she’d come to associate with him.
His fingers dug into her seat and the tension in the air thickened as he listened to the conversation. If he could have crawled through the Internet and straight to that voice, he would have silenced it for good. His energy turned…violent.
“Is that him?” Harper asked, glancing up.
Ryker’s jaw clenched as he nodded. She pulled up all of the corresponding audio and call logs made from the same number. She went straight to the last one, which was two months prior and listened.
“Ms. Thatcher, this is Detective Grant. I’m searching for a missing thumb drive that is crucial to a case. Can you help me track its location?”
Harper chewed her bottom lip between her teeth.
“Can you give me the name of the last person to have it?”
“Eve Cage.”
Pain tore through Harper’s heart and blazed a trail of regret through her body until she thought she might be sick. She lowered her head. She remembered thecall verbatim. She hadn’t given him a direct location but a city. Harper hit Pause and turned to look at Ryker. His mouth parted slightly as he stared blankly at the screen.
“I’m so sorry,” Harper said, rising from her seat. “We vet all law enforcement. He had to have passed our backgrounds in order to get through to me.”
“Hit Play.”
“Ryker,” she pleaded, knowing he probably didn’t need to hear the rest. “Please, don’t do this.”
“Hit Play.” He growled his demand.
When she didn’t make a move to hit the button, trying to spare him, and herself, from what she knew would come next, he reached around her and jabbed the button himself.
“Give me a minute,” she’d said in the recording. She could hear her breaths over the recording as she’d tried to connect. “Carson City.”
“And the thumb drive?”
“Behind a tree.” Harper had said it more as a question than a statement.
“I can’t do this,” Ryker said, straightening, unable to look her in the eye. “She’s dead because of you.”
All fight left her body. Her hands fell to her sides. The knots in her belly twisted into a tight ball of regret as she watched Ryker walk toward the door. “Ryker, wait.”
Her words stopped him, yet he didn’t turn around. He wouldn’t look at her, and she couldn’t blame him. No words would ever make things right, but she had to try. “I’m so sorry. I’ll track this bastard down, and I’ll find him if it’s the last thing I do.”
“You’ve done enough.” His words were but a whisper, but the impact was a direct hit against her heart, shattering it into a million pieces. He walked out without looking back, without another word. He was just gone.
How could she have been so stupid? She should have asked more questions. She should have felt the caller’s energy. There were a billion things she should have done, and none of them included answering the caller’s question.
Harper plopped down into her chair as a tear slid down her cheek. Ryker Cage’s personal hell was all her fault. She didn’t know how long she sat in that same position, hoping that he’d come back in and tell her that she was wrong, but deep down, she knew she’d never hear those words.
