Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SHEP

I returned to the house late once again. I tried to be quiet so as to not wake anyone, but apparently that didn't matter since everyone was up.

"Hey." JJ smiled and came over to me. I cupped his face and kissed him. I'd been so busy with the bakery and him with Four. I'd missed him.

"Hi, babe."

"Tired, hungry?"

"Not hungry. I ate at the shop, but I'm tired." I jerked my chin toward everyone congregating in the living room. "What's going on?"

"Well, Georgia, Maxwell's daughter…she was relocated to a rehab facility a couple of hours ago. And Maxwell wants to go because it's in Wyoming and he thinks it's far enough, but as you can see nobody is cool with that."

"Are any of us going there?"

"And that brings us to another issue…no. Collectively, we agreed to sit this out. Gabe and Mason don't feel Georgia is a target, and with her mom there—and from what I'm told, a lot of family—she'll be okay for now."

I nodded because it wasn't likely they'd go after her anymore. Their focus was probably on finding Four and figuring out what happened to Max.

"What did Maxwell tell his ex?"

JJ rolled his eyes. "Oh, he said he was working on trying to get out there. She didn't take that well."

No, I imagined she wouldn't. "Anything else I should know?"

"A lot. Come here."

I followed JJ back to where everyone was. They all looked up at me, exhaustion evident on their faces. Mason was on Gabe's lap on one of the overstuffed chairs, and I'd bet they were happy to be together again.

"Who wants to catch Shep up? I already told him about Georgia and the argument going on about that," JJ explained.

Noel started. "Nick and I were able to track the money to an offshore account—because of course, that's where it went. But Maxwell shared some info on how they communicated and surprisingly, they had texted Maxwell on his cell phone one time. It was the bank information for the transfer. Which, I guess the consortium had a stupid moment."

"So what does any of that mean? Talk to me like I'm five." I pulled JJ to sit beside me on the couch.

Nick snorted. "Okay, so talk to you normally, got it." I flipped him off. "What my brother dear is telling you is, we dug into the phone deets. We thought it would lead to nowhere and that it was sent from a burner. But it was not."

"That's huge." My eyes widened. This was a big lead.

"Sort of." Noel shrugged. "I wasn't able to get the identity exactly, but the phone used was linked to the Harper Reese Corporation right here in the city. Of course, that's an eighty-story building and owned by Harper Reese. So while we can't pinpoint the person who texted, we do know they work there."

"I stand by my idea, going there to speak with Harper Reese and see if he'll be able to help us identify the owner of that cell. His business owns it, and I'm sure they know each employee's cell phone. Maybe he doesn't know he has some slimy crazy chaos demon working for him." Mason shrugged.

Angel released a low growl. "And like I said, maybe he knows exactly what's going on and by doing that we're practically handing ourselves over to him."

"What do we know about Harper Reese?"

Nick clicked on his laptop and spun it around. A very distinguished-looking man was on the screen. He wore a tuxedo that I was sure had cost a small fortune. He was extremely good-looking: dark hair with sprinkles of gray, a bright smile, and blue eyes. In the photograph a leggy woman with long blond hair and a sinful red dress clung to his arm.

"Harper Reese, age fifty-two. Comes from old money. His family has had their fingers in oil, cars both foreign and domestic, real estate, and many overseas operations."

"Okay…but what's he doing now? What's going on in the eighty-story building?" I squeezed JJ's knee, happy when he took my hand and entwined our fingers.

Noel pulled Nick's laptop closer…or maybe it was his? Who knew? These two shared things.

"In many buildings, as you know, floors are rented out to companies, but not in the case of the Harper Reese Building. Which, before you ask—yes, it's named after him. It was built twenty years ago, and his grandfather wanted it named after his favorite grandson."

"Thanks for the unwanted fun fact, continue." I waved my hand at him.

"No culture…anyway, this building is all Harper Reese. He has his real estate, a charity he runs is there, some accounting firm. It's not rented out to any outside companies. But all, and I mean all, the cell phones are registered to the Harper Reese Corporation."

"Which each employee would have had to have knowledge of prior to signing their phone agreement. It doesn't preclude that they have their own private ones, just that this person at least had a moment of brilliance to realize it would be harder to find them in a sea of hundreds of people," Gabe said.

"Or they fucked up." JJ pursed his lips. "It's hard to say. Is there any way the two of you could hack his system and pull up the info?" JJ looked hopeful as he asked Noel and Nick.

"Uh…" Nick glanced at Noel before answering. "No."

"You can't?" JJ cocked his head. "I thought you had wonder-twin powers or something."

Noel snorted. "First, fuck you. And second, yes, maybe we could, but it would take a while. Especially if Harper Reese is behind the consortium. He'd for sure have security for his security. Navigating possible traps and such takes finesse and time. And while we're smooth, time might not be on our side."

"So what can you both do with this phone?" Mason asked.

Noel answered, "It'll take time, but with the cell phone number we can maybe get the MAC address. If the person set their phone to connect to open Wi-Fi, that would be awesome. We'll check cell towers near the Harper Reese building first. See if it pinged any towers. Maybe they frequented a café or something. If we get that info, we can then hack the street cameras and get a face. But again, this will take time."

It was a plan, but one that may or may not work. "Where's Four?"

"Sleeping," JJ answered. "He had a very mentally draining day. I'll tell you about it upstairs."

I nodded. "And anymore on Maxwell's golfing buddy?"

"Mark Spriggs. At least that's the name he gave Max. Has to be an alias because based on all the info Max tossed our way, we couldn't find him." Nick huffed. "It's a lead that takes us to nowhere."

"Look, we're all tired. Let's get some rest, and tomorrow we can attack this with clear heads." Mason stood, offering Gabe a hand up.

"Yeah, I gotta go to the shop tomorrow. Trying to get things organized."

"How about Gabe and I go to the bakery tomorrow? You stay here." Mason smiled and Gabe frowned.

"You sure?"

"We'd love to." He smacked Gabe's arm. "Wouldn't we?"

"I'd like to be able to stay home for once, babe."

Mason rolled his eyes. "It's one day. Besides, I want to meet the newbies." He batted his eyes at Gabe. "I suppose I can go alone."

"Fuck that." Gabe wrapped his arms around Mason. "Let's get up to bed. We'll go to the shop tomorrow, but only one day. I'm beat."

"Thanks, man." I slapped his back as he walked past me to the stairs.

"I'd still like to talk about me seeing my daughter." Max was a bit red in the face.

"Tomorrow. Night." Angel left the room, inevitably ending the conversation.

I shrugged at the man, and got up from the couch. "Good night, Max." I took JJ's hand and led him to our room.