Chance’s eyes squeezed shut, and he stopped trying to reach for the speaker button.
Gathering her strength, she shoved Chance away from her. Her legs immediately snapped together.
“G-Gwen?” Her father stuttered. He never stuttered. Not William Hawthorne. He made others stutter. He made others fear.
“Chance did his job,” she said, her voice sounding as wooden as she felt. “He found me, he stayed close to me, and he stopped the bad guy.”
Silence.
Chance’s eyes opened. When he stared down at her, his expression looked absolutely tormented.
Good. She felt pretty tormented right then, too. It seemed only fair they should both suffer.
Gwen jumped off the desk. Her knees trembled and she grabbed on to the edge for support. What had felt sexy and wild moments before now felt…wrong. Dirty.
Chance didn’t come to find me because he just couldn’t stand to be without me for even a moment longer. He came after me because my dad hired him. My dad told him to stay close to me.
She’d asked Chance if her father had hired him. Point blank. He’d kept the truth from her. Gwen bent and snatched up her clothes. She dressed as quickly as she could.
“What’s happening?” Her father demanded. “Chance, what the hell—”
“Your timing is shit, Will,” Chance said flatly. “I’ll call you later.”
“Wait, no—”
She saw Chance disconnect the call. She hobbled into her shoes and then unlocked the door as fast as she could.
“Gwen, stop!”
She looked back at him. Chance was grabbing for his jeans. She doubted the guy was going to run after her naked. So she took that moment to make her escape. She didn’t stop, didn’t pause for longer than a second. She fled.
Because she would be damned if Chance Valentine saw her cry.
Chapter Seven
Faith Chestang put her hands on her hips. Her gaze slid over Lex, then Dev, and Lex knew the detective was sizing them both up.
“Tell Chance that he’s going to owe me even more after this.” She gave a firm nod. “Him…and William Hawthorne. Because I know Chance is still on the guy’s payroll.”
She turned on her heel and headed down the narrow hallway at the police station. Lex hurried to keep up with Faith. “You’re wrong about Chance. He’s got his own operation now—we do.” Okay, so that emphasis wasn’t exactly subtle, but it wasn’t a one-man show. They were partners, and partners watched out for each other. “So I don’t know what you think you’ve heard—”
“William Hawthorne told me himself that he’d hired Chance.” She paused near the end of the hallway, right beside a shut door. “You’re saying Will lied to me?” Anger tightened her face. A whole lot of anger.
Dev cleared his throat. He’d rushed to follow her down the hallway, too. “Why don’t we just move to the part where you show us what you found on Ethan’s computer…and I’ll let Chance know about that increased debt he owes you.”
Her eyes sharpened, but she nodded. Then she opened the door.
Lex wasn’t particularly surprised to see the computer room that waited. There was a lot of technical equipment in there, but only one other person. A lone tech was inside, hunched over a laptop, typing fast and furiously.
“Hey, Zack, I need you to pull up that video again,” Faith said as she sauntered toward him.
The tech, a young guy who looked as if he might be in his early twenties, glanced up. He had a baseball cap on his head and one ear bud slid toward his left ear. He gave a quick nod and tapped again on the machine in front of him.
Dev made his way to Zack’s side.
“This guy was watching the pretty lady, a lot,” Zack said, his voice slightly nasal. “There are hours of footage here. I mean, seriously, he was watching her for weeks. Maybe even months.”
The sonofabitch. Lex knew that Chance would be pissed when he learned that news.
“Pity he’s got a high priced lawyer,” Faith muttered as she shook her head in disgust. “Because I heard Sophie Sarantos is already working to get the guy out on bail. A man like him doesn’t need to be on the streets.”
“No, he doesn’t…” Zack agreed. He took off his cap. Flipped it around. And leaned over the laptop again. “But he’s not the only threat your vic is facing.” He pointed to the screen. “Check it out. Right there.”
Lex leaned in close to the screen. Dev was already peering hard at it, too. Lex studied the scene on that monitor, then muttered, “Some asshole in a black ski mask is in her room.” And that guy’s build…his shape…He looks like the guy I saw at her place the other night. The bastard who’d slipped away in that van. Lex checked the time stamp on the video. “Hell, that is the guy who gave me the slip the other day! Is it Ethan? Was he putting in more cameras? Was he—”
“That’s not one of Ethan’s cameras,” Zack said.
Dev was still studying the screen.
Zack pointed to the upper left side of the video. “See where the guy is placing the camera? Right there above her bed? The videos that Ethan has—they don’t match up to that angle. His cameras were on her doors. Going toward her windows. Hell, almost like he was making sure he had the chance to watch everyone who came in to see her.” Zack tapped the screen. “That camera up there is different. It’s placed so the man watching her gets an up-close view of your victim. An intimate view. And that feed did not transfer to Ethan Barclay’s bar.”
“What?” Dev demanded. His head jerked to the left and he focused on Zack. “That’s not possible. I traced the feeds. They led right back to him! I traced them!” Now Dev was sounding all insulted.
“You didn’t trace that one,” Zack said. “Because that feed didn’t go back to the same place.”
Oh, hell. If that feed didn’t lead back to Ethan…then who the hell did it lead back to?
“I’m not wrong,” Zack sniffed. Now he sounded insulted. “I went to damn MIT. I know computers. I know tech. That feed didn’t go back to Ethan’s bar—the others did, but that one…hell, maybe he sent it to his home. Maybe we’ll find evidence there, but there was nothing related to it on any of the computers that we confiscated at Wicked.”
Shit. Shit.
Lex looked up and found Faith’s gaze on him. “Did you ask Ethan about that feed?” he asked her.