CHAPTER 9
Wyatt and Thunder left,leaving the laptop with Kori so she could continue examining it—for now. Before they’d done so, Wyatt had given Kori his cell number, just in case.
Then Kori went into her room and lay on top of the quilt still fully dressed—other than her shoes—and she stared at the ceiling.
The room was warm. The bed was comfortable. Outside the window the snow came down without any signs of stopping.
But she couldn’t sleep.
She thought about the message on Mackenzie’s laptop.
Come alone and come now.
What did that mean? Who had sent it? It didn’t sound like anything someone from Mackenzie’s work would send.
Had her sister gotten herself into some kind of trouble? After their parents’ deaths, Mackenzie had struggled for a while. She’d become quieter and more withdrawn, and she’d pulled back from doing the things she usually enjoyed.
But then something had shifted. She’d started trying new things, meeting new people, saying yes to things she would have once avoided.
At the time, Kori had told herself it was good. That her sister was finally moving forward.
But now she wasn’t so sure.
Because some of those choices hadn’t felt like Mackenzie at all.
Then Kori thought about Flint.
She hadn’t expected to run into him on the street with a woman at his side. She’d handled it. Shealwayshandled things. That ability was what made her a good attorney.
But handling something and being unaffected by it was totally different. Lying alone in a strange room left little space to pretend otherwise.
Flint had chosen this town. Mackenzie had chosen this town. And somehow Kori had ended up here, forced to deal with two people she hadn’t ever wanted to see again.
She sat up, already tired of her thoughts, and glanced at the time. Nine thirty-six.
The last thing she wanted to do was to stay here in her room and do nothing, especially when time was of the essence.
Her mind replayed the search of Mackenzie’s apartment earlier. The desk. The kitchen. The bedroom.
The laptop.
Kori frowned.
The moment she’d found that second laptop under the bed, she’d stopped looking for anything else. Everything after that had revolved around the trail footage.
But Mackenzie had always been an avid journaler. Since middle school she’d written things down—thoughts, plans, reminders, the names of people she worked with.
Kori hadn’t seen any journals in the apartment earlier.
Which meant she’d missed something.
Her pulse quickened.
She needed to check Mackenzie’s apartment again.
Before she could talk herself out of it, she pulled on her boots and jacket and picked up Flo’s key from the nightstand. The woman hadn’t asked for it back, so Kori had kept it—just in case she needed to get back into her sister’s apartment.
A few minutes later, she pushed through the front door onto the porch and stopped.
