Elise blinked. “Pardon me?”
Penny’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “Yeah, that was my reaction too. At first, I couldn’t find anything on them as a couple. Sometimes that’s not surprising, especially if they’re not on social media, but when I say I couldn’t find anything, I mean I couldn’t find anything. No phone calls. No texts. Nothing.”
“So, you looked deeper?”
Penny grinned. “Exactly.” More banging on her keyboard, then phone records and text messages popped up on the screen. “Just so happens, the hacker Connie hired is someone I know. I made a call and found out that, about the time Isaac returned to Manhattan was when Connie paid a hacker to bury everything.” Her smile widened. “Of course, nothing digital is actually buried forever.”
“That’s a terrifying thought,” Elise admitted. “But good for us.”
“Great for us, actually.” She turned away from her monitor again, picking up her coffee cup. “I’ll save you from reading all the messages like I did, but I can tell you without any doubt in my mind that Connie and Isaac are hopelessly and madly in love.”
Elise gave her head a shake, trying to knock sense into it. “But she’s married to his older brother.”
“Exactly,” Penny drawled. “Like I said before, weird.”
Elise considered everything she’d heard, coming to one conclusion. “They’re up to something.”
“I’d bet my money on it,” Penny agreed before sipping her coffee. “My gut tells me this doesn’t have anything to do with Phoenix. There’s been nothing else put out in the media, no more whispers of secret, naughty sex clubs. Nothing.”
“And they haven’t blackmailed Rhys,” Elise said.
Penny nodded in agreement.
Elise set her coffee down, running her hands over her face. “These people are so fucking weird. Honestly, I’ve never had so much trouble piecing a case together. It’s like every direction you look, something doesn’t add up.” She dropped her hands, pondering her next steps. Most cases, Elise could handle from a distance, but sometimes she needed to get closer to get a better feel for the people she was investigating. “Can you get me a meeting with Isaac?”
Penny lifted an eyebrow. “What sort of meeting?”
“Any kind,” Elise said, rising. “I want to meet him. See if anything comes of that. Feel what kind of guy he is. I need to get into their headspace, and sitting around, waiting to see if they act again, isn’t working.”
“Isaac seems to be into some new startups,” Penny said, turning back to her monitors. “Shouldn’t be too hard to set up some kind of meeting with him if we say you’re an investor. Let me find out what companies he’s involved with and get you that information. Tomorrow good for a meeting?”
“That’ll do,” Elise said. “Shoot me the details when you’ve got them.”
“Will do. What’s your plan now?”
Elise pushed her chair back in the corner where she’d found it. “I’ll spend the day following Connie. See what kind of life she leads.”
“Let me know if anything comes of that.”
“You know I will. Thanks, girl.”
She headed for the door when Penny said, “Oh, and I also did a little digging on that boy toy of yours.”
Elise turned back with a frown. “One, I never asked you to do that. And two, he’s not my boy toy.”
Penny waggled her eyebrows. “Sure looked like it by the way he looks at you. Want to know what I found?”
“No, I don’t.” Not only did she never look into her friends’ lives, but she wasn’t sure she even wanted to know. If he had something bad in his history, it would shape her opinion of him. And she happened to like her opinion of him right now. Especially her opinion of their sex together. “But thanks for looking out for me.”
Penny lurched off her chair, grabbing a large envelope before hurrying to Elise’s side. “Normally, I wouldn’t push these things, but there is something in here you should see.”
Elise rolled her eyes, taking the envelope. “It’s going in the trash unopened, Penny.”
“Do with it what you will,” Penny said, wiggling her fingers in a wave before heading back to her desk. “All I’m saying is if I were you, I’d look inside.”
Elise felt the weight of the envelope, meaning whatever was inside had paperwork written up about it. Elise trusted Penny, and she knew she wouldn’t have given the information without due cause. But really, only one thing truly mattered. “Am I in danger with him?”
Penny dropped back into her chair. “That depends on your definition of danger.”
“You do realize that’s not helpful at all,” Elise pointed out.
Penny grinned. “I know.”
Archer returned to Elise’s later that night, exhausted. Not being at Phoenix constantly meant he had to catch up on everything he had missed. He’d spent his entire day in meetings, and he’d packed three days of work into one. And weighing on all of that was the awareness that he was nowhere closer to finding out why Connie and Isaac had published that damn photograph. He parked in front of the loft and cut the ignition, running a hand across the ache stretching across the back of his neck. Knowing Elise could break the tension running through him, he opened his truck’s door when his cell phone rang. Mom popped up on the screen. She called every couple of weeks, probably would call more if she hadn’t met Gerry, her husband of ten years now. He hit the speakerphone. “Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, honey. How are you?”
Her warm voice was like a weighted blanket across his chest. He leaned his head back against the headrest. “Long day, but doing good.”
“So happy to hear it. Is Rhys busy, then?”
His mom knew what she had to know. That Archer worked for Rhys as head of his security—she’d met him when she came to New York City—but she didn’t know the security was for a secret sex club. Considering all of Archer’s missions in the past had been top secret, he surmised his mother figured Rhys had some ties to that. “He’s busy; therefore, I’m busy too. How’s traveling going?”
“Oh, it’s just so wonderful,” said his mom, her voice holding a whimsical tone. “We took a train from Barcelona to Paris a few days ago. Long ride, but so worth it. You must come to Paris sometime. The food, the people, the history, it’s all amazing.”
“I’m sure it is. How’s Gerry?”
“Loving every minute of this trip,” she answered. “We both are.”
Archer shut his eyes, relishing in the happiness in his mother’s voice. For so long, she’d struggled. His father was deployed just after Archer turned one year old. He died during active service. His mother paid the price. She’d worked at a diner for as long as he could remember. Her wage plus tips simply wasn’t enough. She’d worked two jobs his whole childhood in order to raise him, so when he was old enough, he took care of her. Seeing that he didn’t need much money during his deployment, except a little for clothes and food, he sent the rest to his mother. Until Gerry came along. He was a stockbroker who fell in love with the waitress. He’d swept her off her feet and gave her the life she deserved. Archer respected and liked him. More importantly, he appreciated the happiness Gerry brought his mother. “Where are you off to next?” Now that Gerry was retired, they spent their time traveling the world. “We’re staying here in Paris for a little while. There’s just so much to see.”