Another text from Ariel followed with a different number. He tracked this one to the list of his father’s victims as well, then ran another browser search.
This time, he got a clear name and address:E. M. Broadhurst in Afterthought, SC.One of his da’s marks was right here in town?
And then he got an ugly knot in his gut.Broadhurstsounded familiar. Where had he heard that name? Afterthought was a very small town. The whole population could probably shelter in a Wal-Mart and set up housekeeping. He ran the address through Google maps, then did a street view—a small brick home not too many blocks from Evie’s Victorian.Evie. She had aunts and cousins out the wazoo. Wasn’t one of them—
He texted Jax with the name and a query.
Jax texted back:evie’s aunt ellen?
Oh crap-a-doodle.Da was scamming Evie’s aunt?
Why the burner number? What did Ariel want him to do? Why didn’t the damned reticent femaletalk?
* * *
Ariel hadlittle grasp of the real world and people outside her computer bubble. She had no interest in social media or world news.Numbersfascinated her. She had traced all the calls Priscilla’s mother had received this past month. She’d uncovered repeated calls from what Roark called a burner app—someone was hiding their identity and location.
Her mind poked around the edges of the problem. According to her research, scammers often used mail fraud to harvest names and addresses of lucrative victims to sell on the darknet. Once those identities were out there, they could be used for stealing credit cards or entire identities, building driver’s licenses and passports. Roark’s father could be perpetrating those crimes. Or just stealing money from old ladies. Hard to say.
She almost felt better now that Roark had returned and was working on the problem. He was trying hard not to disturb her concentration. He didn’t understand that she was sensitized to every movement, every sound, every change in atmospheric tension. He couldn’t help that. She was the one who had to learn to deal with it.
It had been somewhat simpler in the larger house she’d grown up in. There, she could burrow away in a far corner when the housekeeper arrived or her adoptive parents were home. This bungalow was much too small to escape without hiding in the closet under blankets with earphones on. She couldn’t work like that.
So she practicallyheardhis frustration with the lack of information she’d provided.Heardwasn’t the right word, but there really wasn’t a word for her extreme sensitivity.
Her dilemma was that she’d told Pris she wouldn’t tell anyone. That seemed counter-intuitive. How could she help without calling in people who knew more than she did? What did Pris think Ariel could do? Evie’s cousin already knew her mother was being scammed. Was Ariel supposed to divert the phone calls? She didn’t know how to do that.
Roark’s tension—frustration?—died back a little. He must be working on something.
She returned to tracing cryptocurrency in the exchange his father’s bank account used. She might not know a lot about human nature, but she knew the kind of people playing with bitcoins were not little old ladies liable to be scammed by con artists. Someone was buying the cryptocurrency with good old-fashioned cash.
An email arrived in her box. Emails were usually long and contained too many time-consuming words. She ignored it. Sometimes she read them over lunch, but that was one hour and thirty-three minutes away. And she wanted to check her game cams then.
Her phone buzzed with a text. Irritated, she glanced down at it.
read it, Roark demanded.
Frowning, she saved her work and turned to her iPad to open her mailbox.
The email contained a long list of instructions and a script.
“What?” she cried, rather than throw her valuable device at the wall. Then in two ticks, she tapped back a vehementno.
Roark rolled back her pocket door and stood there in all his masculine immensity, bulging biceps, tattoos revealed by his skimpy tank top, his black curls tousled and falling in his face. Damn, he wasn’t like any male in her sheltered world. He exuded... pheromones, she decided. The whole room reeked of male pheromones. Hiding in her closet would not help.
“I can have the calls forwarded here,” he said in a deep voice that sounded like a growl. “But I cannot sound like Aunt Ellen.”
“Why?” she cried, unable to explain her lack of understanding.
“To set the bastards up and nail them. What, did you think I’d just trace the number and go shoot the scumbag? It could be my father or brother for all I know.”
Ariel buried her head in her arms as the deluge of words washed over her. Sheknewthis. She comprehended the words.Voicessimply didn’t fit in her head.
She took ten deep breaths as the therapist had taught her. She processed his words one by one and nodded against her arms. With difficulty, she forced herself to speak. “I can’t. Can Pris?”
“Possibly. She’s your client. You talk to her. She doesn’t strike me as much more talkative than you.” He closed the door and left her alone.
Thirteen