Chapter 5

5

The Garden District, New Orleans, Louisiana

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 6:05 P.M.

PHIN WAS ON HIS KNEES in front of Cora's kitchen door installing the last of the new locks when the house alarm beeped to let him know a door had opened. He leapt to his feet, grabbing a baseball bat that he'd found in Cora's coat closet.

He didn't have a gun, but he'd be damned if someone would enter this house to hurt her. He stood in the kitchen archway, clenching the bat and squaring his shoulders to make himself look as big as possible.

"Whoa." Burke put both hands in the air as he closed the front door behind him, Antoine at his side. "Just us."

Which made sense, considering whoever had entered would have needed a new key and Antoine was the only one who had one. Cora would get a full set of keys, of course, but she was still asleep in the living room.

He'd checked.

Several times.

She slept deeply, the lines of worry that had creased her brow having disappeared for now. He'd dropped a hammer on his foot two hours before and she hadn't even reacted, even though he'd sworn very loudly.

If someone broke in, she'd likely sleep right through it. Luckily Blue had woken her when she'd had an intruder.

Phin glanced over his shoulder at the old dog, who lay on a thick dog bed in the corner of the kitchen. Blue was watching him, his eerie light blue eyes calm.

SodaPop, on the other hand, had jumped to her feet and was now leaning against his thigh. Good girl.

Phin pressed a finger to his lips before stepping back so that his coworkers could enter the kitchen. "I think she'd sleep through a hurricane," Phin murmured, "but I don't want to wake her. I don't think she slept last night at all. She put the contacts for her alarm system on every door and window in the house and there are a shit ton of windows. I don't think I've ever worked on a house with so many windows. There are over forty of them."

Antoine removed the ever-present laptops from his shoulders and placed them on the kitchen table. "She did a good job, too. I don't think I could have installed a security system any better."

"But the window locks are a joke," Phin grumbled. "I ordered some special locks for most of the windows, but I can't pick them up until tomorrow. Did you assign her a bodyguard?"

Burke nodded. "I did. Molly will be here soon for night duty and Val will guard her during the day."

"They're good choices." Molly was no-nonsense and the most logical person he'd ever met. Val was energy and light and friendship. He still wanted to guard Cora himself, but between the two women, she would be well protected.

Burke pointed to the kitchen table, where Antoine was already sitting, his three laptops open and arranged in a semicircle in front of him. "Can we talk?"

Phin wanted to say no, because he knew what Burke wanted to talk about. Burke had apologized for that morning and, as far as Phin was concerned, it was no longer an issue.

But Burke had that look in his eyes, the one that said that no wasn't an okay reply.

"I suppose." Phin took a seat and buried his fingers in SodaPop's coat. She leaned even more heavily against him, her presence welcome. Grounding. Necessary.

Antoine put his headphones on. "I'm not even here. Talk, talk, talk."

Phin knew that Antoine wouldn't pay them a bit of attention, although it wouldn't matter if he did. Antoine knew most of his story. It had been Antoine who'd gotten him the job with Burke's group to begin with.

Burke took the chair closest to Phin's. "I'm not going to tell you that I'm sorry again, even though I am." Then he sighed. "I'm glad you're back."

"Me too. This is…home."

"Good. So…Stone and Delores. Have you gone to them every time you've disappeared in the last few years?"

"Yes. Stone and Delores have given me safe harbor whenever I've needed it. I think it's cost them a lot to keep my visits from my family, but they gave me their word. It's why I've always felt safe going to them."

"I understand," Burke murmured. "So why did you come back today?"

"I didn't." Phin rolled his eyes. "I came back Sunday—or tried to. I got as far as the deli on the corner before I turned tail and ran. Yesterday, I got a half block closer. I felt like such a…" He sighed. "A coward. A failure. I wanted to be able to do the work you guys do, but I spiraled on my first real assignment. I ran. I wanted to be normal , Burke. I still want that. But…I'm just me."

Broken. But healing again. How many times would he have to heal?

Forever. This could happen again and again forever. The notion was depressing as fuck.

"We missed you," Burke said quietly. " You , Phin."

Phin's lips curved. "I know. I got all your texts. Joy said she was going to make me cut my own switch when I came back, because I was scaring her by staying gone."

Burke laughed. "She still might make you do that."

Phin closed his eyes, the memory of her bloody body on the floor coming back to assault his fragile peace. "But then I heard the gunshots, Burke. I had to come inside. To make sure she was okay."

"And you probably saved her life." Burke squeezed Phin's forearm briefly before pulling his hand away. "You ran toward the danger, Phin. You're no coward, and you're no failure. I talked to Joy on my way over here."

Phin's head shot up, adrenaline surging. "She's awake?"

"She is. Demanding to go home. But she also demanded to see you. She could hear you, begging her to hold on. Her kids say that if you don't come, they'll march over here and drag you to the ICU."

Phin's mouth stretched wide in a grin that felt odd. Like it belonged on someone else's face. He hadn't grinned like that in a long time. "I will."

Burke smiled back. "Are we okay?"

Phin nodded once. "Yeah. It hurt this morning, I'm not gonna lie. But you've been good to me, Burke. I owe you too much."

Burke frowned. "I don't want us to be okay because you feel like you owe me."

Phin exhaled. "I didn't mean it that way. I meant that you've proven your support time and again. One little slip doesn't wipe all that away. I still want to catch the bastard who hurt Joy, though. I may not owe you, but I do owe her. If I'd been there, he never would have hurt her."

"You don't know that. Antoine was asleep in his office and didn't hear the scuffle until it was too late." Burke held up a hand when Phin started to disagree. "Don't distract me. Why did you come back now?"

Trust Burke to realize that Phin hadn't adequately answered his question. "It's the holidays. I want to see my family. I'd set Christmas as my deadline for getting my shit together. But I couldn't face them until I'd faced you all. I'm sorry, Burke. I'm sorry I ran and I'm sorry I didn't come back till now."

"You came back, Phin. That's all that matters. The rest will take time. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're okay."

"I might run again if I spiral."

Burke met his gaze directly. "I know. As long as you come back. And let us know you're okay while you're gone." He nodded briskly, the conversation now over.

Thank God.

"Did you read Cora's letters?" Phin asked.

"I did. I can't figure out what's so important about them that someone would risk invading our office during the daytime. While Joy and Antoine were there. They're letters that a father would write to a daughter he hasn't seen in too long. Asking how she's liking school. Telling her that he'll always love her. But some of the items are things that shouldn't have been obvious unless he'd been here, watching her. Like…" Burke pulled out his phone and opened a file. "Here's one of the letters. I scanned them in so I wasn't carrying them around. I put the copies she gave me in my safe at home." He gave Phin his phone. "Read what I highlighted. This was in the very first Christmas letter she received."

"?‘You looked so pretty in your new green dress. Like a Christmas angel,'?" Phin read. He frowned at Burke. "He—or she—knew what her dress looked like."

"Exactly. There are several small things like that over the years. There was also a four-year gap," Burke said. "There were no letters from about six years ago to two years ago, then they start back up again. I want to ask her why that is."

"Her grandmother died two years ago," Phin said. "And her brother was sick then. He died a year ago." He sucked in a breath as a thought occurred. "She said her brother needed a bone marrow transplant, but they couldn't find a matching donor. She said she looked for her father, hoping he'd be a match, but could never find him. That might have been two years ago. Whoever sent the letters didn't want her to think he was dead, because she was looking for him."

Burke nodded his approval. "You could be right. The letters that started back up had a different tone. More hands-off. He said he was happy where he was living and that he had a new family. He hoped she was okay. Said he'd love to come back and see her sometime, if she was willing. But there was no return address. No way for her to know how to answer him either way."

Fury started to boil in Phin's gut. "Someone's been manipulating her for years ."

"And we're going to find out who," Burke promised. "I need to bring Antoine in on this. He's been waiting for us to finish." He waved at the man, who took off his headphones.

"Is the talk, talk, talk done?" Antoine asked hopefully.

"It is," Burke confirmed. "How many bugs total did you find?"

Antoine's expression became grim. "Twelve. Whoever was listening to her was not fucking around. No cameras at least."

"What about her phone and her computer upstairs?" Phin asked. "That is one nice setup she's got in her home office."

Antoine nodded. "I know, right? I was hoping she'd be awake to tell me the password. That's why I came back, to run a check of her system."

"I don't want to wake her up," Phin said quietly. "She was so tired." He realized too late how that sounded and wished the words back, but of course that was useless.

Burke gave him a sharp look, one that said he'd noticed that Phin was extra attentive to Cora Winslow and would be addressing it later.

Great.

Antoine didn't seem to notice. "Not having the password might be better. I really want to know how easy it would have been for the intruder to hack into her machine."

"Go see if you can break in, Antoine," Burke said. "I'll take the heat if she's mad about it. Also see if her phone's infected."

Antoine stood and closed his three laptops, leaving them on the table. "I'll be back. Are we eating soon?"

Burke snorted. "Yes, Antoine. We will feed you. Molly's bringing food."

Antoine did a smooth little dance. "Food from my favorite restaurant. Awesome."

Molly's fiancé owned Le Petit Choux, a restaurant in the Quarter. The food truly was awesome. Phin's stomach growled on cue.

Antoine smirked. "I'm not the only hungry one. Text me when the food's here. I'm going up to check her computer."

Burke turned back to Phin. "So, now that you're back, my furnace is making a racket."

Phin laughed, the request making him feel better than all of Burke's prettier words. "I'll take a look at it as soon as I can."

The Garden District, New Orleans, Louisiana

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 7:20 P.M.

Cora blinked awake. It was dark outside and she'd fallen asleep on the sofa again. With a sigh she started to get up, then froze.

Voices. In her kitchen. Then one familiar voice cut through the fog in her brain.

"Then what were they looking for?" Phin asked.

Phin Bishop was still here and he apparently was not alone.

She stood and started for the kitchen, the cold floor feeling good against her swollen feet.

Blue was no longer asleep on the rug in front of the gas fireplace, which someone had thoughtfully turned on to chase away the December chill.

Probably Phin. Seemed like something he'd do.

Avoiding the mirror next to the front door—because she was sure that she looked a fright—she made her way into the kitchen, stopping in the doorway to study the group at her table. Burke Broussard sat at the head, where her grandmother had always sat. On his right was a medium-height blonde, her hair pulled into a sensible bun.

The blonde looked crisp and put-together, making Cora hyperaware of the fact that she'd slept in her clothes, which did not smell too fresh. She needed to shower and change.

On Burke's left was Antoine, the computer guy, and to Cora's surprise, he had the computer from her home office set up on the table in front of him, monitor and all. And it was on. He'd somehow bypassed her password protection. Annoyance welled up within her. How the hell had he done that? What had given him the right?

The words were on the tip of her tongue when she noticed the man half sticking out of the cabinet beneath her kitchen sink. Phin. He was wearing an honest-to-God tool belt, his jeans straining over his ass, and…

Well. That was a pleasant sight. And not what she should be distracted by right now.

Blinking, she refocused on the three people sitting at her table. Burke's gaze was fixed on his phone. The blonde, however, was regarding her with polite amusement and Cora knew she'd been busted staring at Phin Bishop's ass.

No problem. She could handle this. She was a Winslow, after all.

Channeling her grandmother, she smiled placidly. "Good evening."

Burke looked up and Antoine turned around in his chair, the two men studying her.

"Cora," Burke said. "I hope you slept well. We tried to be quiet."

"I did." First things first. "How is Joy? Have you heard anything?"

Burke smiled. "She's awake and irritable. Demanding they send her home."

Relief swamped her. "Thank God. I'd have checked my phone, but I'm not sure where I left it."

"You left it on the table next to the sofa," Phin called from underneath the sink. "It's on your charging pad now."

A glance at the countertop revealed her phone, exactly where Phin said it was. Blue was asleep on the rug in front of the kitchen door and SodaPop was sitting next to where Phin's very nice ass poked out of the cabinet. She wondered what he was doing under there, but there were other more pressing matters.

"I see you've been busy." She aimed a pointed glance at her computer.

Antoine lifted his brows. "?‘John Robert twenty-five exclamation point' is not a secure password."

Phin backed out of the cabinet, a smudge of grease on his cheek. It made him look even better than he had before, which was ridiculous. "Sorry," he said, sounding like he meant it. "We considered waking you up to ask for your password, but you looked like you needed the sleep."

"Plus I wanted to see how easy it would be to break into your system," Antoine added. "It took me less than five minutes." The censure in his tone was clear.

Cora winced. His criticism was fair. "You're right."

Antoine's expression softened. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that to sound harsh. But if I could break into your system, your mysterious intruder could as well."

The blonde rose. "Hi. My name is Molly Sutton. I apologize for what must seem like an ambush. These guys can get carried away when they're protecting your security. Your house is clean now, but Antoine found twelve listening devices planted throughout your house, and someone had broken into your computer and planted Trojan software to monitor your keystrokes."

Cora felt the blood drain from her face. "What? Seriously?"

What had she done on that computer the past two weeks? In the past two years? What had the intruder found? What had he stolen?

Oh God. The accounts. All the bank accounts. Her grandmother's trust. Everything she was and owned was on that machine.

My research. The jobs she'd taken, the clients she'd supplied, all of it swirled through her mind in unrecognizable bits and pieces.

I'm going to be sick.

Phin was at her side just as she slumped against the doorframe. He gripped her elbow gently, his quiet voice grounding her. "Hey. Breathe. It's okay. You're okay."

She did as he instructed, breathing, allowing him to lead her to the kitchen table. She lowered herself into a chair next to Antoine as Phin crouched beside her.

"Some water, Molly?" he asked, and the blonde opened cabinets until she found the glasses.

The water appeared in front of her and Cora dutifully drank it all.

Feeling more like herself, she nodded at Phin. "I'm okay."

I am not okay.

He clearly didn't believe her any more than she believed herself, but he took the chair beside her, at the opposite end of the table from Burke.

She closed her eyes. "I've meant to change that password for months, but…" She felt tears sting her eyes and willed them back. "I couldn't make myself change it."

"He was your brother," Antoine said, his words full of compassion. "I understand. I have brothers myself. Phin told us that John Robert passed last year. His obituary was easy to find." His voice remained so gentle. Too gentle.

Cora wished he'd go back to sounding harsh, because her eyes continued to sting.

She exhaled. "Anyone would know that he was important to me. Anyone could guess my password. His name and his age when he died."

Leaving her lost and so alone.

She shook herself. Focus. You can cry later. Setting her jaw, she opened her eyes to look at her computer screen. It was filled with the directory of her hard drive.

So many files. So many that were confidential.

She felt a degree of control return. At least she'd password-protected the folder where she kept her clients' records. She pointed to the folder on the screen. "Did you guess the password to that one?"

Antoine shook his head. "No. Not yet, anyway. That's a good one."

Burke was watching her carefully. "Why do you have password protection on individual folders?" He held up a hand. "The contents are not my business, but we assumed someone was after the letters in your safe-deposit box. Is it possible they were looking for something else?"

Again she closed her eyes, pressing her fingertips into her temples. "Besides money?"

To her right, she heard Phin get up from the table. The refrigerator door was opened and closed. Moments later, she heard something sliding across the table in front of her.

She opened her eyes to see a platter of fruit, cheese, and crackers, still in the plastic tray from the grocery store. She'd bought it the day before, intending to snack on it while she worked at her computer, which was now on her kitchen table.

"You need to eat," Phin said gruffly. "Your friend said you get…" He shrugged, his cheeks reddening slightly.

His hesitation to repeat Tandy's term nearly made her chuckle. "Hangricidal? Yeah. Thank you, Phin." She nibbled on a cracker, willing her stomach to settle.

Whatever they wanted, they'd nearly killed Joy to get it. "I need to check my bank accounts."

Antoine adjusted the monitor so that she could see it and slid the keyboard so that she could reach it. "I've cleaned the malware and viruses from your system. You're safe to check. I didn't guess the password to your bank account, either, but they were monitoring your keystrokes. I'd change all the passwords immediately."

Bile burned her throat and she swallowed it back. "Right."

She input her username and password for her personal account, then held her breath while it connected. She let the breath out in a whoosh.

"It's all still there." Quickly she opened the account for her grandmother's trust and it was all there, too. "All the investments are all still there."

"So it wasn't money," Burke said.

Cora frowned. "You don't think this has to do with the discovery of my father's body?"

"I didn't say that," Burke replied. "But we need to pinpoint what they want so we can figure out who they are. That your home was broken into and a lot of listening devices planted after you got a visit from the Terrebonne Parish sheriff's department makes for a pretty strong case in favor of your father. None of those letters were on your computer, were they?"

"No. I hadn't scanned them in."

Molly tilted her head. "You seem to be a digital person. Why not scan them in?"

Cora ate an apple slice while she considered her answer. "I don't really remember my father. I was only five when he left us. Or we thought he'd left us."

"I read all the letters," Burke said. "Him begging forgiveness for leaving your mother for another woman was a common theme throughout, so I get why you thought that. I would have thought the same."

She shot him a grateful smile. "Thank you. So…the letters were all I had of him. I hated them and hoarded them all at once. Which sounds crazy, I know."

"No," Phin murmured. "Not crazy at all."

"I would have done that, too," Molly said, her smile reassuring. "But why not scan them? You've scanned every receipt for every material you've bought for this house. Your taxes are impeccably recorded. What made the letters different?"

"The receipts have to be reported for reimbursement from the trust. My grandmother left her money to care for the house," Cora explained. "She figured that John Robert and I would live here with our families. We both had degrees and jobs that could support us and any families we'd have, but the house is…well, a lot. So she left the money in a trust to care for the property, pay the taxes, et cetera. It's invested well." She sighed. "She was considering changing the provision of the trust, to leave half the money to John Robert and half to me and will the property to us jointly. But then, about two and a half years ago, John Robert got sick again and the doctor said he needed a bone marrow transplant. A few months later, my grandmother had a heart attack and died without changing her will." She shrugged. "I spent the year between her death and John Robert's trying to find a bone marrow donor, but I never did. After John Robert died, I was in a bad place for six months. I didn't do anything with the trust, or the house, or anything. I went to work and came home. Honestly, I didn't have the mental energy to worry about the letters."

"And the last six months?" Molly asked.

Cora laughed, but it was flat. "I've been cleaning the house. Harry Fulton, my attorney, has been keeping the taxes paid and the investments going. This morning was the first time we'd actually talked in person in two years. It was all emails and texts. But you asked about the letters. I hated my father, but, like I said, the letters were all I had. I kept them in a strongbox under my bed. I didn't want my mom to know I was keeping them. She'd get this hurt look on her face every time one would arrive in the mail. I don't think she ever got over the betrayal."

Her throat thickened and she had to clear it. "She died thinking he'd left her for another woman when he was dead all along."

A warm hand covered hers. Phin Bishop. Trying to comfort her.

Cora tried for a grateful smile but couldn't muster one.

He just patted her hand. "Scanning in the letters would have made them seem more important than you wanted to admit they were," he said softly.

"Exactly." His hand was warm and solid and she missed it when he pulled it away. "So I just left them in the strongbox. I nearly burned them after John Robert died. I was so angry. I'd tried to find my father so many times, so that he could get tested for a marrow match, but the letters kept coming, talking about inane topics that I didn't care about." Her voice broke. "His son was dying , and he didn't care ." She dashed at tears, hating that she'd hated him when he'd been dead all along.

Antoine hmmed thoughtfully. "Did he send letters to your brother?"

"Yes. But he sent more to me. John Robert burned his. I told him I'd done the same," she admitted. "I figured I got more letters because John Robert was so young when our father disappeared."

"That's a theory," Molly said. "Let's back up. The intruder targeted you either because of your father or for some other reason. Let's talk about what other reasons there can be. I assume that if they'd been going to steal your money, they would have done so already, so for now let's take money off the table." She leaned forward, resting her forearms on the table. "What's in the password-protected folder, Cora?"

It didn't make sense to keep it secret. She hadn't done anything illegal. "Client information from my side job." They all stared at her expectantly. "I double majored in computer science and information science. My MS is in library science. Most librarians have some computer know-how. We help clients who come in to use the library's computers. Sometimes it's a simple Google search, sometimes we help them set up a Facebook account so that they can see their grandchildren's photos. And sometimes they're looking for someone—an old classmate or an old flame. I'm good at finding things. One day a client asked if he could pay me to find information on a daughter he hadn't seen in years. I found the woman with no problem. He paid me fifty dollars. I didn't want to take it, but he insisted. I put it in the collection box at my church. But word got out and pretty soon, other people in the community were asking me to find people and other information, too."

Antoine's eyes widened. "You hung out your PI's shingle?"

"No, nothing like that. I never charge more than fifty dollars and I always put the cash in the collection box. But it made me feel useful at a time that I…wasn't."

Phin frowned. "Wasn't what?"

"Useful," she murmured. "John Robert was dying and I couldn't stop it. I couldn't fix him. I couldn't do anything."

"You felt helpless," Molly said.

Cora nodded. "John Robert knew what I was up to. He gave me this computer. He did network security before he got too sick to work." Her lips curved even though her heart ached. "He would have been so mad at me for making my password his name and age."

Antoine just smiled. "At least you protected the folder."

"People trusted me with their secrets."

Burke leaned back in his chair, folding his hands over his belly like he'd done at his house that afternoon. "Is it possible the intruder was after one of those secrets?"

Cora hated the very thought. "I suppose. I mean, a few were…questionable requests. One woman thought her husband was cheating—he was. One man thought his business partner was stealing from him because the man had bought a new boat, but the partner had inherited the money. I suppose that someone might want something like that."

Molly shook her head. "They've gone to extraordinary means. Breaking in here, planting bugs. Breaking into our office and shooting Joy. Chasing you through the Quarter. I think it would have to be bigger than what you're talking about. Would you be willing to let us look at your client records? Just to rule that out?"

"You'll keep it confidential? Even if someone did something not exactly legal?"

Burke huffed. "We're not the cops, Cora. We're not going to turn anyone in. Unless they were involved in the attack on Joy."

Cora blew out a breath. "Fine, you can check."

Phin had crossed his arms over his chest. "Back to your father. You said you tried to contact him. How did you do that?"

Burke's brows lifted. "Very good question. And when did you start looking?"

"I started two and a half years ago, when John Robert's doctor said he needed a marrow transplant."

"Before your grandmother died," Phin said, and she nodded.

"She lived four months after that. She didn't think Jack would help, even if I did find him, but I was desperate. I called around to all the places Jack mentioned in his letters, asking if they'd seen him. Nobody had. I tried to find him through credit cards and variations on his name. Jack Elliot is a common name, but I called every one in every state. I had an old video of him from Christmas the year he disappeared and I was looking for someone who sounded the same. I called morgues and hospitals and I even flew to a few places where he'd mailed letters from years before. I picked places he'd mailed from more than once. He traveled around a lot. I had an old photo of him and did an age progression program on it. I passed it around at police stations and train stations and restaurants and hotels." She sighed. "But I got nothing. Then the letters started back up and I got hopeful, that maybe he knew I was looking for him, but those letters were all postmarked from other countries. He was seeing the world. Or so the letter writer claimed. I was so angry that he never gave me a way to write him back. John Robert was getting worse and worse and then…he died. After that, I put Jack's letters in the strongbox without even reading them. I was too heartbroken and numb over my brother to think about my father. Until the detectives showed up at the library to say he'd been dead all this time."

"You may have stirred something up," Burke allowed. "But I'd think they would have made their move back when you were searching. Not now."

"Her father was still missing then," Phin said. "She wasn't a threat."

"You're right," Molly said with a nod. "It wasn't until his body turned up that someone would have wanted to know if Cora had anything incriminating."

Phin's expression was grim. "Like letters written by a dead man?"

"Yeah," Molly said. "Just like that."