Cal eased back, his hands still lingering on her arms. “Better?”
It wasn’t, not really, but she nodded. “Yeah.”
“You want something to eat?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. I’m exhausted, but I need to work.”
He tipped his head toward the hallway. “Office is this way.”
She followed him into a room that could’ve passed for a scaled-down version of the big briefing space at headquarters. Top-of-the-line monitors, a heavy desk, and enough secure equipment to track a small war.
Cal motioned for her to take the chair. “Go ahead. I’ll get us something to drink.”
Alena powered up the laptop and signed in, her fingers already moving to pull up updates from HQ. The screen glowed to life with scrolling data, but her attention snagged when Cal returned, a Coke in each hand and a plate of cheese and crackers balanced on his arm.
He set everything on the desk and dragged over a chair next to her. “You’ve got to eat something or I’ll be charged with starving an operative.”
This time her smile wasn’t forced. “Fine. One cracker.”
There were no updates on Dexter or Melissa. The silence on both fronts made Alena’s stomach sink, but she forced herself to focus as she nibbled on a cracker. She pulled up the files Noahhad dropped into the system, deep runs on Arneson, Kara, and several of Dexter’s friends.
Arneson’s came up first.
“He’s been funding Dexter’s legal appeal,” she said, scanning the lines of data. “And he’s been visiting him at least once a week since he went inside.”
Cal leaned back in his chair, Coke in hand. “Plenty of time and opportunity to plan an escape.”
“Because they’re close,” Alena muttered.
“Close enough that Raines managed to get a warrant for Arneson’s financials,” Cal added. “If he’s gotten sloppy, that might show us something.”
Alena’s gaze shifted back to the earlier memory of Arneson tied to that chair. “It might’ve taken him a while to figure out how to tie himself up like that, but it’s doable.”
Cal nodded. “Exactly what I was thinking.” He stood, crossed to the wall screen, and tapped it awake. The digital crime board lit up, connections and images threading across the display. Cal dragged Arneson’s photo into place beside Dexter’s and drew the line that made him an accomplice.
Alena watched the link lock into place. It wasn’t proof, not yet. But it was a start.
She clicked over to the next file. “Kara Whitfield. She’s thirty-six, same age as Dexter. Trust fund baby, never worked a day in her life.” She skimmed further. “Looks like she met him when she volunteered at the prison, but according to one of her friends, Kara had already seen pictures of him and gotten obsessed.”
Cal leaned closer to read over her shoulder. “Says here she visited him several times a week.”
“And wrote him daily letters,” Alena added, shaking her head. “That’s not just volunteering. That’s fixation.”
Cal frowned as another line of text caught his eye. “In the past six weeks she’s been taking firearms training. What do you bet that was prep to help him break out?”
“She’s got the money for it,” Alena said. “Which is why Raines pushed through a warrant on her financials, too.”
Cal pushed back from the desk and went to the wall screen. With a swipe, he added Kara’s photo to the crime board and linked it to Dexter’s. “Another suspected accomplice.”
Alena stared at the growing web on the board. Two names connected to Dexter. Two people who might be helping him hide Melissa. The knot in her chest pulled tighter.
Cal stood back from the board, arms crossed. “One thing’s clear. Arneson and Kara don’t like each other. I don’t think they’re working together. Unless it’s an act.”
Alena leaned on the desk, eyes still on the web of names and connections. “I thought about that too. But the tension between them felt real.”
“Yeah,” Cal said slowly. “It did.”
“I’d like to know why,” she murmured. “Maybe it’s as simple as Arneson not wanting Kara in the way. If she interfered with the escape, she’d be a liability.”
