And the CFO, while not present during program maintenance, had a complete list of personnel who were, as well as time and date stamps for every change.

  Sierra’s Web experts had his computer, but Joe had saved everything on an external hard drive, which he plugged into his laptop with hands that, while not shaking, were buzzing with nervous energy.

  A few clicks and he had the list of sales program updates. Found one that closely coincided with Stellar’s release. Copied the list of people who were paid overtime to be present that night, carried it over and pasted it in the fraud investigation portion of the spreadsheet he’d started after the video meeting with Glen Rivers and Hudson Warner.

  And then pasted it again to the stalking portion—his list of people who could possibly have a motive for either wanting him gone or a need for extra money to line their pockets and might have found him to be the likely scapegoat to help make it happen.

  If he couldn’t get online, he needed someone at Sierra’s Web to do so—to check social media accounts, if that’s all they could access, on everyone on the list.

  There were a few names new to his investigation there.

  He no longer had access to company files that could tell him specifics about the employees—not all of whom he knew—but it stood to reason that anyone who’d been vetted to help with such a sensitive software program update would have a high level of technical skills.

  Beyond that, they finally had a real starting place. The rest of the fraudulent activity could have happened at various times, but this...a change in the actual sales program...their pool of possible perpetrators had just been narrowed considerably.

  Alight with the first real hope he’d had in months, Joe sprang up out of bed, nearly banging his head on the ceiling as he stood on the raised bed portion of the room and, stepping down, threw open the pocket door. McKenna had the only usable phone in the place, and he had to connect with whatever techs were working the night shift at Sierra’s Web...

  She’d left on the dim running lights along the floor. He saw the edge of the couch pulled out to a bed, heard quick movement from that direction, and before he’d taken another step was staring down the barrel of her gun.

  Jaw dropping open, Joe recognized his mistake at the same time he took note that she slept in her clothes. That night? Every night?

  “Joe, what the hell...” Her voice groggy from sleep, he saw the weapon drop as, pushing hair back out of her face, she climbed fully out of her makeshift bed.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her, then glanced down at the hand still holding her gun. “Seriously sorry.”

  She was staring at him—he couldn’t make out a lot from her shadowed expression and the three feet separating them—but her face was pointed as straight in his direction as her gun had been.

  And he realized he’d come charging out of his quarters wearing only the basketball shorts he’d started sleeping in the night she’d arrived. Before awkwardness could stifle them completely, he blurted, “I need to use the phone, to get with experts on the night shift. I’ve got something that—”

  She was shaking her head.

  “The numbers we have are only for Glen and Hud—phones they’ll have on their persons. If this isn’t a matter of immediate life and death, we need to wait until the morning.”

  Of course they did. Had he been more himself, rather than feeling like a caged and hungry tiger, he’d have realized that.

  “Right,” he said then, turning back to the door of his cave. “Good point.”

  “Joe?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’d like to know what you found.”

  It was two in the morning. He had to be ready to drive the next day if the need arose. And she needed rest, too.

  Things he should have already considered.

  “In the morning,” he said, and leaving her standing there looking all accessible and gorgeous, he put himself to bed.

  * * *

  That chest. Oh lordy. Even in near darkness, she’d noticed nipples peeking out of dark hair.

  And the broadness—his shoulders seemed to expand, his muscles thicker, when he took off his shirt.

  But his belly button was what had done her in.

  She’d actually had a thought to stick her tongue in it.

  Which sent her diving back for her covers. And her phone. Looking at the cameras would get her focus back on track.

  Joe was counting on her to keep him safe, and she was damned well going to do it.

  And...what had he found?

  Would it really clear his name?

  Her wealth of wanting that for him startled her as she lay there, ensuring that there was no movement in the vicinity of their rig.

  Of course she wanted a successful end to the job for all involved, but her feelings went way beyond client/bodyguard care.

  In a few very long days, the man had grown on her.

  Felt like a real friend. Someone who’d touched her life in a way she’d never forget.

  Someone who hadn’t touched her enough yet.

  If his case was solved, the job complete...she’d never know what it felt like to lie with him. To be touched by him, more than just fingers attaching a bandage to a scratch.

  She’d already removed the bandage, but she reached her fingers back to rub the area, remembering his soft warmth doing the same.

  Should she go knock on his door?

  Make the bone thing happen?

  Before it was too late?

  She was still in clothes from the day before. She changed after her shower early every morning. And if they had to be on the run again, he needed his rest.

  Did she really want her time with him to be rushed?

  Did she...

  * * *

  McKenna woke up before dawn, realizing she’d fallen asleep still contemplating sex with Joe—and was hugely relieved that she’d done so.

  Fallen asleep.

  Without having sex with Joe.

  She showered and was already dressed in her traditional work clothes of lightweight pants, blue that time, and short-sleeved white top, outside, circling the area, when she heard plumbing working inside the rig. And hurried inside to fix breakfast.

  Joe was up, which meant the day had officially begun.

  And she needed to hear his news.

  To get the job done, and herself home, before she made a total fool of herself.

  * * *

  Fully dressed in tan cargo shorts and a short-sleeved black shirt, Joe told McKenna about the scheduled sales-program maintenance over breakfast, keeping things between them strictly business. The fact that she’d chosen the cattycorner chair, at the wall opposite his side of the table, told him that she intended to do the same.

  And while a part of him was truly disappointed, he was a realist through and through and felt a whole lot more comfortable with the situation as they took their seats at opposite ends of the couch for the call to Glen.

  The conversation went even better than he’d anticipated, as a time he’d pinned for the sales program change coincided with one of the suspects Glen’s computer forensic team had been looking at for the virus coding.

  “Coding is kind of like a fingerprint in the digital world,” Glen said. “Hud can tell you how to write programs to make computers do things, and my guys know how to pick up on coding differentials—ways programmers write their commands...”

  Heart pounding, Joe glanced over at McKenna. And lost a breath when her gaze, moist with emotion, stared back at him.

  He’d known all along he was innocent. He’d never been certain anyone would be able to prove it.

  “You’re saying the commands in the virus and in the sales program change were written by one person?”

  “I’m saying that we were looking into the virus compared with work one employee has done legitimately for the company...and that employee is on the list you just read off to me.”

  Had he been standing next to McKenna, he’d have grabbed her up and twirled a circle. Had he been outside, he’d have let out a loud whoop!

  Joe took a sip of coffee, put the cup on the table back in front of the couch, rubbed his hands on his legs and noticed McKenna’s sockless ankle, leading to the foot enclosed by her tennis shoe, bouncing up and down, almost in rhythm with his hands.

  They had something—the two of them. Even if it was just the sharing of a few bizarre, unforgettable days. He was honored to have known her.

  And glad that they were ending it as friends—no hurt feelings involved.

  Joe thought they’d be ending the call as his report conversation wound down, maybe with the hope expressed that it would all be over that day.

  Most particularly when he heard Glen’s “We’ve got more here.” The firm was living up to its reputation. Getting the job done.

  “Something we need to talk about,” the man continued, his tone changing to one more akin to doom and gloom than celebration.

  McKenna glanced at him. He nodded, as if to tell her all was good. And was still gazing into her eyes as Glen said, “You didn’t tell us you had a criminal record.”

  He heard McKenna’s hiss but didn’t see her expression. Or the shock he was sure would be in her eyes as his eyes closed, and then, turning his head, opened again to stare at the floor by the kitchen sink.

  “I don’t have one,” he said, but he knew the words, while technically true, were pointless. They’d obviously dug up something during their search.

  The possibility had always been there.

  “Not as an adult,” he amended. Glen had seemed eager to get the information Joe had given him about the sales program. Had vowed to get everyone to work on it. The firm wasn’t quitting him.

  It kept coming back to that.

  Maybe because it felt like it was all he had.

  Watching as McKenna stood by the door, looking out the blinds she’d raised, staring at her back, he figured he’d lost the only other thing he’d been valuing lately—her friendship.

  “I had an...unusual childhood,” he admitted, watching that straight, forbidding posture by the door. “It has nothing to do with my life now.”

  “I have to disagree with that,” Glen said. “On several levels. One, we’re sitting here blindsided, unaware that our client has a past conviction...”

  McKenna’s head swung enough for her to see him. And she saw him looking at her and just as swiftly turned back.

  “Second, fraud and theft are...”

  Holy hell. “What!” He jumped to his feet, picking up the phone she’d laid on the couch between them. Dropped it, ungently, on the table and stood there, glaring at its silent self.

  “Theft?”

  “You were convicted? Did time? You telling me you were innocent then, too?” McKenna hurled the words.

  Warmth drained from him. And surged back in the form of red-hot anger. “That record was sealed!” His raised voice on the last word shocked even him.

  He glanced toward McKenna, ashamed of his outburst, wanting to apologize. The look of betrayal in her eyes as she stared at him kept him silent.

  “It’s all over the internet,” Glen said somewhat softly, as though trying to mediate more than anything. “Popped up some time after midnight, the team tells me. The #wheresjoenow hashtag has more than tripled in hits.”

  “The record was sealed,” he said again, but he felt more like an abandoned dog than the strong, capable, determined man he knew himself to be.

  If he didn’t know better, he’d think the past fifteen years of his life had been a fluke.

  “Which means we have an even bigger problem.” Glen’s tone held warmth and professionalism. At least one of them was staying on task. “How did someone get into sealed records?”

  “I’d like to know about the charges before we go any further,” McKenna said. “I’m assuming there’s been no activity on either this line or yours,” she said, clearly to Glen. “We’re safe to stay on the phone?”

  “No activity. And I was getting to that, as well,” Glen said. “If we’re going to figure this out, Joe, we need to know all relevant information.”

  “It’s not relevant,” he said, certain of that. “Except as a way to put the squeeze on me by getting more and more people hunting me down until I’m found.”

  “It’s relevant to me.” McKenna sat at the table by the wall, pulling down the shade next to her. One she’d raised less than an hour before.

  Looking at her, Joe got it.

  She wasn’t sure she was going to stay. Regardless of what the firm decided.

  Part of him, maybe the larger part, wanted to show her the door. Let her go. Take his chances guarding himself.

  Probably better for her if he did, before she got any deeper into the black hole that had become his life.

  Sitting down on the opposite side of the table, he took a deep breath.

  And made a decision he’d thought he’d never have to make.

  Chapter 14

  “My father was a two-bit thief.”

  McKenna’s heart stopped and then went into overtime as Joe’s words, said in a low, resigned voice she didn’t recognize, fell to the phone on the table.

  “Who went on to rob a bank,” he continued, dropping his bombshells into the early-morning silence.

  “When I was eight, he started using me to score goods, which he’d then return for cash. We’d go shopping. He’d let me pick clothes, a toy that I wanted, and told me I could carry them while he went to the counter and paid for them. I didn’t find out until I was caught walking out with a video game console that he wasn’t actually paying anyone for any of it. I was arrested. Charged. Convicted. I told everyone I thought my dad had paid for the items. He testified that he knew I had a problem. That he was getting help for me. He was charming and convincing, and they believed him. I served six months in detention and was then released to his custody. I grew wise overnight. He did his own stealing after that, got caught when I was fifteen, and I haven’t seen him since.”

  Tears filled her eyes. She couldn’t help them. Didn’t even try. Joe hadn’t looked her way since he’d started talking. Was staring at the phone to which he was speaking.

  “I have never knowingly broken the law,” he said. “Not even to break the speed limit the first time I drove my Maserati.”

  He could be playing them. Growing up in crime...he’d been bred to make things seem different than they were. To con people into believing him when he lied to their faces.

  And she believed him.

  Because her instincts knew she could?

  Or because she was too personally close to see reality?

  “Fine.” When Glen’s response, clear and strong, came over the phone, she’d actually forgotten her boss was there with them.

  And then drew in air more easily as his reply fully resonated with her.

  Glen believed Joe.

  Glen, whose team of experts was digging into every aspect of the man’s life, from the things he spent money on, how much he spent and how often, to the places he frequented. They knew far more about him than she did.

  And Glen believed Joe.

  Something tripped in her heart. A switch she hadn’t known was there.

  Before she could even fully acknowledge or identify any change in her, Glen continued, “So that leaves the bigger problem...how did this information make it onto social media?”

  And she tuned in. Fully tuned in. To the case. All business.

  With fear striking at her, she told them. “Someone in law enforcement had to put it there. Someone getting caught up in the social media hunt, who happened to have access... Everyone wants to be involved these days...to be a part of whatever chase is on... It’s become a major form of entertainment, and for some, a way to get noticed and gain influence.”

  “Law enforcement is our first guess, too,” Glen said. “It’s the obvious one. But it could also be someone from your past, Joe, who’s looking for their sixty seconds of fame. That’s what I need to hear from you. Who knew?”

  “No one,” he said, then added, “People who worked for the court, of course, or in juvie. The records were sealed. And I have not spoken of it, other than to law enforcement personnel, since the day I was arrested.”

  “Were you in counseling?”

  “Yes, while in detention. Not afterward. The only issue I had was being blamed for something I didn’t knowingly do.” His harsh chuckle almost choked her.

  “I’ve kept my nose completely clean ever since,” Joe continued before she could say anything, do anything, to make the moments better.

  “Which meant that my past never had cause to surface again.”

  He’d walked the straight and narrow so that he never had to go through what he was going through in that moment. The unfairness of it caught at her.

  Pushing away the emotion that welled up in her, McKenna sat up straighter. He’d hired a professional. At the same time, anger at a world that had dealt the man a second unfair blow reignited her backbone. And her determination to stay by his side until he was not only exonerated, but safe from the rabids who were making a pastime out of hunting him down.

  The rest, any attraction between them, would just have to sort itself out.

  * * *

  “What about your father? He knew.”