Jax whistled and passed it around. Hazmat was boxing up the still-sealed sarin box. The police were cuffing everyone in sight, including Roark’s dad. He was holding his bleeding head and shouting about frauds and cheats and demanding that everyone be arrested, except himself, of course. Ariel thought she’d have to send the evidence against him to the local authorities.
Roark swung the van off the road into a shopping center parking lot. He halted in an unlit corner as the rain unleashed a torrent. “Plate, sign,” he ordered. “Take no chances.”
He and Reuben leaped from the front seat, opened the back of the van, and began searching through their drawers. While he was drawing out a magnetic sign, Roark found a tarp and threw it in Ariel’s direction. “Ain’t got blankets, cher, but if this helps...” He dashed off.
She gratefully pulled the tarp over her head and relaxed in the darkness. Jax wouldn’t yell at her when she was in here. She could just hug Roark for his understanding...
She really wanted to hug Roark the way Evie was hugging and kissing Jax, although Evie was also beating his big arm with her fist and shouting about her car at the same time. It was a little difficult to determine if she was more upset about losing the car or almost losing Jax. Ariel could appreciate that.
“Plate switched,” Reuben called into the van. “Ice cream orders?”
“White chocolate raspberry,” Ariel said from under her safety net. She had people she trusted around her. If she could stop all the fights and lights... she’d be just fine, she discovered. She was feeling a little... giddy... but she didn’t have to focus right now.
“USB plugs, panel behind you,” she told Jax, hoping to stop the argument and feeling remarkably confident now that she’d memorized her surroundings.
Evie instantly swung to examine the equipment. Once she had her phone plugged and charging, she texted Ariel’s phone.u ok?
Ariel thought about it. She’d watched chaos—but that had been on a familiar computer screen and hadn’t affected her. She’d never worried about others before, so her fear had muddled her thinking very badly. And then she realized...
“Barouche. The numbers for Barouche are 2-1-23-15-21-3-8-5. That’s the bitcoin wallet number...”
Frantically, she poked her phone, hoping to reach her computer so she could pull up the account she’d been working.
The door beside her opened and Roark lifted her canvas. “Ice cream, bébé. Numbers can wait. I’m gonna kiss you now, if dat all right.”
“That,” she corrected in distraction, reaching for the ice cream and almost losing her phone as he leaned over and overwhelmed her with his masculine size and musk. Ice cream and kisses...
Worked. It all worked beautifully to pull her shattered pieces together into one whole bundle of nerves.
* * *
“They arrested Ursula for murder,found the knife with her prints all over it.” Sitting on the floor, Jax showed Evie his notebook computer while she wrapped Loretta’s birthday presents in the privacy of their bedroom. “They found the antifreeze in Savanna’s apartment, and Ursula’s griping about the nurse’s stupidity pretty much concludes the investigation into Marlene’s death. Reuben is sending Gump a sizable bill.”
He lifted Psycat off the colorful gift wrap on the floor and placed the Siamese in the box the gifts had arrived in. The cat gave him a baleful look, meowed something that sounded likemurder,and curled up in his cardboard bed. Psychocat might have been a more apt name.
Sitting on the floor amid the debris, Evie sent him a mischievous glance. “Will the FBI pay for all the files we sent them showing where to find the stolen funds? I’m hoping that leads to catching all the rest of the Sunshine hydra.”
Her T-shirt today readKeep Talking, I’m Diagnosing You.Jax had bought it for her.
“Gump said he’d file an expense report for independent contractors. We’ll see. We need incentive to keep Roark here now that his dad is safely behind bars.” Jax held his finger on the ribbon so she could knot it.
“Oh, I don’t think keeping Roark here will be a problem,” she said airily. “You might ask Loretta if it would be okay to expand her rental property so he doesn’t get too claustrophobic.”
Jax clenched his molars and tried not to roar too loudly. “There’s no need for him to stay with Ariel any longer. She needs her privacy.”
Evie nudged his toes with hers. “She’s not a baby any longer. She gets to decide who lives with her. And last I looked, she’s pretty happy sharing the house and the business with him. If you’re really, really lucky, Roark will figure out how to make what she does legal.”
“She’s working in cryptocurrency!” he shouted. “Unlocking Barouche’s account and revealing all those illegal transactions spun heads. The old con was stealing from his own conmen to set up all his girlfriends. Messing with criminals is dangerous.”
“Well, Ariel stole the funds back, which means she probably needs Roark as a bodyguard. Of course, cleaning out his dad’s bank credit line with that witch app is what set Claude off.” Apparently not caring that she was exploding his head, Evie admired the clutter and reached for the next present to wrap.
Jax took back his computer. “Well, Barouche robbed him first by siphoning funds into bitcoins. The feds don’t know what to do with all the information. We’re damned lucky Ariel hasn’t been arrested.”
The image of two hacker geniuses living out there in the woods... Gahhh!
“Maybe the feds or banks or whatever have hired her by now,” Evie said reassuringly. “Your sister is a grown-up. Leave her be. Lucy Murkowski’s twisted aura apparently reflects her learning disabilities and self-doubt, but she’s honest. Did they put her in charge of Sunshine? I hate to see everyone lose their homes.”
She studied a plush snowy wizard owl, then began building a box for it by taping together an assortment of Blu-Ray fantasy videos to expand Loretta’s horizons beyond Harry Potter.