Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 135847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
But it was Tom’s attention that caught Hale’s.
“I don’t have to say, I want you happy and it’s nice to know you’re seeing someone you like,” Tom said. “But just be careful with her.”
“She’s signed a comprehensive NDA,” Hale informed him.
Tom seemed relieved.
Hale wasn’t.
Because he now lived a life where every woman he dated had to sign the same thing. He couldn’t have them in his home, or his presence, or taking his dick, and gabbing about it.
The clip was obviously done, because Chloe was handing back the phone while bitching, “Damn, now I think I have to like her. At least a little bit.”
“It was a solid thing to do,” Rix said, now offering his phone to Tom, who had his hand stretched out for it.
Hale looked to Jamie to see his reaction to all of this, but he didn’t seem to have one.
Maybe Cadence was wrong that Jamie was there to ambush Hale. He always went out of his way to spend time with his son, who lived in Arizona, and since Judge was there, it wasn’t a surprise Jamie was as well.
“Okay, maybe I have an attitude because she outshined me with her dress,” Chloe said. “It was amazing. Perfect for her.”
“No she didn’t, sweetheart,” Judge murmured.
She shot a smile to her fiancé.
Hale kept his mouth shut, because Chloe looked beautiful Saturday night, but Elsa outshone everyone.
He took a sip of his beer and waited while Tom, with Mika pressed up to him, watched the interview and when they were done, Mika, looking mildly pissed, noted, “Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but as an objective observer who wasn’t around when all of that was happening, I think you should have let her air the interview. That woman seems like she deserved it.”
“No purpose to that, Mika,” Rix said, holding out his cell to Hale as an invitation to watch the interview.
“I’ll watch it later,” Hale said.
Rix nodded and pocketed the phone.
“I agree with Mika,” Chloe declared.
“Of course you do,” Tom said on a smile.
At this juncture, Mika pushed up from the sofa she shared with Tom. “I need to get upstairs. Since our group has expanded, we’re having make-your-own-nachos night. I need to check the queso.”
“Jesus, that sounds perfect,” Hale replied.
Mika smiled at him and gave his shoulder a squeeze as she walked by him. Cadence followed her mother, and Chloe headed up too.
That was when it happened.
It started with Jamie saying, “Prepare to be pissed at me.”
Hale braced.
“But I thought you’d told Tom about the emails,” Jamie finished.
Goddammit.
“They’re not a big deal. It happens all the time, and they’ve stopped,” Hale instantly assured Tom.
“Actually, your security team sent one they received on Sunday to Kateri. She shared it with me,” Jamie said, now pulling out his phone, engaging it and handing it to Hale.
It had an email on it from a familiar address, halewheelerisgodstan1@gmail.com.
And Hale felt blood rush to his head when he saw the message of, Not her, not anyone, not ANYONE, but NOT HER! then clicked on the attachment and saw the selfie he took of him and Elsa, with angry digital red markings scratching out her face.
“Kateri says, whoever this is logs into Gmail all over the city, including Manhattan, Queens, Harlem and Brooklyn,” Jamie explained. “And it’s always untraceable at internet cafés or in libraries where she, or he, has given a false name and sometimes ID. They have different descriptions of the person who is short, tall, young, old, man and woman, even Caucasian and Asian. Though this is probably because time has elapsed, and people have no real memory of who used their internet on any given day. On tracing every email, including this one, Kateri has hit a brick wall.”
“CCTV?” Tom asked.
Jamie shook his head. “She, or he, picks carefully. Places without cameras, or they know where the cameras are and they’re wearing bulky coats and hats and keeping their back to it. But some of the footage from where the older emails were sent is just gone because not many places have the capacity to store footage for that long.”
He hadn’t taken it seriously before.
Staring at Elsa’s face obliterated with those angry swirls of red, he was taking it seriously.
“So what do we do now?” he asked, handing Jamie back his phone.
“Report it to the police,” Jamie told him. “Kateri’s resources are better than theirs, and she has more time to take it seriously. But you need a complaint on file, just in case.”
“Then what?’ Hale pressed.
“Then you keep your security poised, because the minute another email comes in, it needs to be traced and someone sent out to where the IP address is located in hopes of catching them in the act or at the very least getting a decent description of them,” Jamie said.
“Which brings us to topic one of why I wanted you here tonight,” Tom butted in. “You need more security.”