He gave her a brief smile. “Just let it roll over you. It will pass. I promise I have the ability to be professional and to separate what happened from work. Two different worlds.”
She chewed her lip, considering him. “Okay. I can compartmentalize if you can. Plus, I need to run some stuff by you if you have time. Ren’s out at a meeting and I think you may be able to help.”
She let out a breath and he could tell she’d probably practiced this little speech, which was kind of endearing.
“Of course.” He indicated the chair in front of him for her to sit. “Tell me what you’ve got.”
Cora strode across the room and settled in the chair, a little wrinkle in her brow and a tense set to her shoulders. Unlike earlier when she’d been vibrating with energy, she suddenly seemed worn-out and . . . disturbed.
“You found something bad.”
She sighed and set the notepad down. It was filled with small, round handwriting that seemed to be no-nonsense and pretty all at the same time, just like her. “Yes and no. I’ve confirmed that no other emails went out except the one to me and the guy who jumped me. That’s the good news.”
“Okay. But?”
“But like I showed you when we first talked, a list of other profiles were accessed. I thought they’d just been read, but this week, I found others were altered. Ren got on chats with a few people and verified that there were changed safe words and new information that the customers didn’t put in. Like mine. All of them having that flavor of putting someone in a position to get hurt. All women. So it seems like our guy was planning on more of this and either got interrupted or is waiting for some reason.”
Hayes frowned. The idea of an enemy lying in wait was not a comforting one. “That’s concerning.”
“Exactly. So I started looking through site activity histories, trying to match people up, see if there were any connections that stood out. Who talked to whom. Who played with each other. If anyone was blocked or had some sort of falling-out. I mapped it out and three names kept popping up. Almost every person’s account that was accessed had interacted on some level with one of three particular players—three male dominants.”
“Okay, that’s a promising lead.”
“Right. But I couldn’t get much from their Hayven profiles. So I pulled the credit card pages of those three to get real names and addresses. I was trying to avoid that because it feels a little sticky privacy-wise, but I was out of other options. I needed real info to Google them to see if I could find any red flags.”
Hayes leaned back in his chair and rubbed a hand over his jaw. “And you found something.”
She put her fingers on top of the notepad, her expression grim. “Yeah. Two of the men seem to check out. I was able to find them on Facebook and LinkedIn, cross-reference their info. All seemed pretty standard. Neither are in tech jobs or had anything that stood out. But the third—the credit card info was dummy info. Some business that doesn’t exist—at least not online. And I couldn’t find any name connected to the account. I think that could be our guy.”
Hayes’s stomach dipped, dread curling through him. “What’s his Hayven name?”
She sighed, her face drawn. “Dmitry.”
Hayes kept his expression as placid as possible. “Just because you can’t verify who he is doesn’t mean he’s the hacker. Maybe he’s just extra cautious about protecting his identity.”
She nodded. “Maybe, but it seems suspicious. Someone smart enough to have that level of security is a flag in and of itself.”
Hayes rubbed his brow bone, the information sinking in and twisting around in his head. He obviously knew he wasn’t the hacker, but the fact that those on the list were tied to him in some way pretty much confirmed their deepest fear. “Fuck.”
Cora cleared her throat, ignoring his outburst. “And, just so you know, I could probably get more information on this guy if we need it. More than what I could find in the system. But it may mean venturing into some ethically gray areas. That’s really what I needed to run by you.”
Hayes looked up at that, wary. “What do you mean?”
She shifted in her chair, looking altogether uncomfortable. “I, well, I know Dmitry in the game. We . . . chatted regularly, developed a friendship, which just freaks me out now, thinking about it. He seemed like a good guy, but maybe this was all some part of his mind game. I was chatting with him the night of the attack. He would’ve known I was heading home.”
Hayes stared at her, only hearing half of what she’d said. “Wait, you’ve talked to Dmitry regularly?”
“Yes. I know I said I mainly observed in the game, but I was lying to protect my privacy. I guess that’s kind of a moot point now after what happened this afternoon. But the only reason I’m bringing it up is that I could try to draw him out since he trusts me a little. We broke things off recently, but I may be able to get him to talk to me. Poke around.”
Alarm bells were going off in Hayes’s head, adrenaline like a dam break in his blood. She’d talked to Dmitry. He’d only talked to one woman regularly. One who’d dominated his mind for months. One who he’d had to let go. One who . . .
/>
Was sitting right in front of him.
Worlds collided in his head in a fiery crash. Wham! Fantasy smashing into reality. The manufactured images of Lenore mixing in with the woman sitting across from him. I’m just an average girl. Memories of so many nights of talking, teasing, playing. He’d made this woman come. He’d made her laugh. He’d opened himself up to her in a way he hadn’t to any woman in years. He’d been grieving the loss of her.
This woman.