“No, but I’m sure my girl could figure it out. She’s kind of a computer genius.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere.” She laughed and set her tray aside, getting up off the bed, still dressed in only my shirt, and dashed out of the room. I heard a large thump before her cursing.
“Are you okay?” I called out to her, about to get up to see for myself, but she came back, tablet in hand and limping slightly.
“Never better.” She sat beside me, and I couldn’t help it, I laughed, moving my tray over to check her foot. “I’m good, seriously—”
“You do your job, I’ll do mine,” I said as I lifted her ankle to inspect it. She made a face, but I knew it was to the hide the fact that she wanted to smile like bloody mad.
“It’s been two weeks, and he hasn’t touched any of our accounts,” she stated softly, leaning back onto the pillows as I massaged her ankle.
“What about the trackers?”
“All off.” She frowned. “Even his cell phones.”
I tried to think of some other way… “We have sensors in most of our properties, right?”
“Scans,” she said, her eyes completely glued to the screen in front of her eyes.
“I have no idea how I’m going to do this,” I muttered.
“Do what?” she asked, her eyes still not on me.
“Share your attention with your gadgets...I’m already getting jealous, but I need your help.”
She paused, moving the tablet to the side as she glared at me. “You are a little too good at flirting.”
“I was just saying the truth.” I smiled at her, rubbing circles up her legs.
“Stop, I can’t concentrate.”
“You can, you just need practice. Go on.” I nodded for her to finish her work. But she just stared at me. “Go on.”
She muttered something under her breath before looking at her screen again.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” she said, typing away as I fought the urge to laugh at her. She could be sinfully sexy one moment and innocently cute the next. “There isn’t anything for the properties, either. He’s done his best to make sure we can’t track him.”
I sighed. He never made anything easy. “If I was him, where is the last place you’d ever expect me to be?”
“The woods?” She laughed, sitting up and she went on. “I could imagine him going all brawny and chopping down trees in the forest to vent. He’d even grow a beard—ouch!”
She yanked her leg from me, her hand going to where I had bit her. “Don’t imagine my brother when I’m with you. You already have a bad track record for falling for your cousins.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Well it’s true—”
“You are terrible!” She jumped me, trying to pin me down, forgetting she was almost completely naked and therefore at my mercy no matter what. I reached up and tickled her sides, making her squeal so loud you’d think I shot her. “STOP!’
“Promise me you won’t think of him ever again—”
“How am I possibly going to do that—ahhahaha—stop—HAHA!”
“Promise me.”
“I promise!”
Letting go of her she took a deep breath and flopped back onto the bed. “Such a cheater.”
“Me cheat? Never? I know the rules,” I joked, but then froze.
“What?”
The rules.
Reaching for the table, I held open the map.
“Wyatt?”
“Do you remember how my father would always talk about the family rules when we were growing up?” I asked her.
“Yeah, but you said you they were stupid.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and looked over my shoulder.
“I did. But Ethan always took them seriously.”
“I’m not sure how this helps? Did the rules ever say where to go when you didn’t want to be at home?”
I shook my head before switching the cameras. “Rule 5: One family. One Roof.”
“No…he’s not.”
“He is.” I grinned when, finally, I saw what I was looking for. “He’s at home. He never left the manor. He just wanted us to think he did. Where is the best place to hide when everyone is looking for you? Under their noses. In this case, in the walls.”
I showed her the heat signature that the cameras picked up of him walking in the walls of the hallways, like a ghost, at night when we should have been asleep. She shivered against me.
“So fucking creepy,” she said, just watching in awe.
“He’s been with us the whole time.” I could barely fucking believe it myself, but it was completely within his wheelhouse. Ethan loved this family more than anyone else. He believed in the rules more than anyone else. No matter how broken he felt, he couldn’t ever just abandon it…and furthermore, it gave him a perfect opportunity. “Ethan most likely knows about us.”
“Well, he’s known I have feelings for you,” she said while moving to sit beside me. “But do you think he’s been watching us?”
“I don’t think so, I know so. He might have been hurt the first few days, but I’m sure he wanted to know how someone was able to break through all of our defenses and kill Ivy. He did it also to make sure no one in the family betrayed him. He’s most likely been listening to everything.”
“Shit,” she whispered, eyes wide.
“What? I hardly doubt he’d be pissed we were—”
“Not a lot of people liked Ivy and with her gone, even if they didn’t do it, didn’t kill her, they still spoke down about her…I spoke down about her.” She frowned, putting her hands on her head. “We hurt him more.”
“Yeah.” I frowned, picking up the tablet to watch when I suddenly saw another heat signature next to Ethan’s.
No fucking way.
“It’s not Ivy.”
“How do you know?” I asked her, and she reached over, typing on the screen.
“The height difference, and the posture. Ivy sometimes hunched. This person…looks like she’s never not stood tall in her whole life…”
“Who are you talking about—”
“Who knows all, and never worries?” she whispered, looking at me with a small smile
