And sheshould.
But it can wait.
So instead, I hook her around the thighs and toss her over my shoulder, giving her ass a smack just because I can.
It’s a really great ass.
She yelps and wriggles, trying to get free, but it’s no use. I’m already halfway up the stairs and looking forward to what distractionsI can come up with by the time we reach the top.
“I don’t thinkthere’s another option,” Grimm says over the line. “This is our best chance to put a stop to all this.”
He’s adamant and I can hear the murmurs of agreement from each of the guys as I drag my hand down my face. The hour I spent with Kat naked and wet left me relaxed and fairly optimistic, but that good mood faded quickly not long after getting on this conference call.
“Royce, read the messages again.”
“The first one was a private message that reads:Sinners get what’s coming to them. You’ll never poison their minds again with your unholy filth.”
“And the other?” I ask, letting the words replay in my head.
“The other is a comment on a post related to Kat receiving the award but not directly naming her. That one says:Don’t miss out on little Miss Perfect finally being exposed! She can run but she can’t hide. Sinners always pay the price.”
“Those messages were both posted from a coffee shop Wi-Fi,” Grimm says. “I also talked to the kid again that spray-painted Kat’s garage. The number the suspect messaged him from was a prepaid cell phone that is no longer in use, butthe kid called me today and said he saw the woman again at a different gas station across town.”
“What did he say?” I ask, feeling like I’m getting information in slow motion because I’m not with them in person.
“Said he almost didn’t recognize her because when she gave him the money, she had long blonde hair, but this time it wasa different color. He couldn’t tell exactly what it looked like because she had it tucked up under a beanie, but she winked at him when she caught him staring.”
“So, the blonde hair was most likely a wig,” Jace says. “Looking back through Hazel’s social media, her sister, Portia, had long blonde hair for a while, also pink and some rainbow style.” He pauses. “She changed it back to a darker brown before she and Hazel went to Vermont.”
“Was it unusual for Portia to go back to her natural color?” I ask, tossing the pen in my hand onto the desk.
“As far as I can tell, there’s not a box of hair dye she didn’tlike—no real rhyme or reason though.”
“So, we’re working under the assumption that Hazel, Portia, and Amelia—or some combination of the three—found out that Kat is also Sloane Daniels. Their shock and disgust morphed into creating fake accounts to bully Kat online but for what? What was the end goal?” Ozzy asks as we all sit with the information he’s laid out.
“Maybe they thought if they could scare her enough, she’d stop writing as Sloane,” Jace offers as Royce talks over him.
“Doesn’t explain the accounts alsogoing after Kat for her children’s books.”
“Jealousy?” Grimm says. “We know without question that her sales and audience has always been higher than Hazel’s, and that gap has only grown since Portia’s death.”
“Do we know the purpose of their trip to Vermont?” I ask.
“Not that I know of,” Royce answers as he shuffles something around. “But grief is different for everyone. Maybe she was feeling the pressure from Portia or the aunt to be bigger than she was comfortable with, and now she’s trying to sabotage Kat in order to honor’s Portia’s memory.”
“That’s twisted,” Ozzy says as he chuffs out a laugh. It’s more surprise than amusement as a contemplative silence settles over us.
“So who is pulling the strings now?” Jace asks. “Is it the aunt who has at least one confirmed throwaway account that she uses to heckle Kat anonymously, or is it Hazel with a complete personality change after her sister’s death?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” I tell them, an odd sense of calm washing over me, “and it starts with getting Kat back to her house.”
42
KAT
I’m surprised when we pull the Range Rover into the parking lot, the SUV we arrived in a week before occupying the same space where we’d left it.
“Grimm did a thorough sweep,” he says as he backs in and puts it in park. “We want to keep things as normal as we can when we get back to the house.”
