“You never told me.” She sounded hurt.
Zy didn’t respond to that. “The kidnapper sent a new message? What does he want now?”
Tessa’s fingers trembled as she opened the DM and fresh tears fell down her cheeks. “Something I don’t know how to give them.”
“Let me see. Let me help you,” Zy insisted. “You’ve been dealing with this by yourself for too long, and I can—”
“You can’t,” she screeched. “See for yourself.”
When she shoved the phone into Zy’s hands, Trees looked over his buddy’s shoulder and scanned the message.
Who is the mole leaking EM Security’s information to outsiders? You have twenty-four hours to provide information and proof or Hallie will pay with her life.
What the fuck? But the implications seemed clear. Whoever had kidnapped Hallie must not have been the same people paying the mole for information about EM Security missions—at least that seemed logical, but in a world of murderous thugs willing to sell deadly chemicals for cash, there probably was no such thing as loyalty. Anyone could be double-dealing.
“Can I see your phone again?”
Visibly shaken, Tessa passed it back.
Trees couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. “If there’s a way to solve this, we will.”
Wordlessly, she nodded. But her terrified expression hurt.
Zy slung an arm around her, and Trees scrolled back through her Gmail. Bingo! The video of Hallie eating had come from a different address than the one the mole—someone other than Tessa?—had sent information about EM’s missions and Valeria’s whereabouts to.
Trees wasn’t sure who the players were, but they needed to figure it out fast.
“Let’s go inside. Tessa can get warm. We can dig more and game-plan.”
The couple agreed. No wonder, since everyone was drained. Tessa wanted a hot shower, and Trees agreed to meet Madison halfway between his place and town to pick up some necessities for her.
After a quick grab of items on the side of the road, Trees squeezed Madison’s shoulder in thanks. She gave him a tired smile and a kiss on the cheek.
“Go home and get some rest.”
“Do you need more help?”
She was loyal and selfless…and she would make some man an amazing wife someday. Trees didn’t know why he hadn’t fallen for her. On paper, she was perfect.
One thing he did know? He considered her a friend, and he didn’t want her any deeper in this. “We got it from here. Thanks for everything.”
With a nod and a wave, she was gone. Trees headed back to his place, trying not to look at the clock and think about all the hours of sleep he was missing.
As he parked in back of his house, he received a text from Zy. I have an idea. You going to be much longer?
With a wry grin, he pocketed his phone and shouldered his way inside. “No, buddy. I won’t be much longer at all.” Then he turned to Tessa, holding out the overnight bag. “Madison said this should get you by for a day or so.”
Tessa rose, gripping the blanket around her, and took the sack by the handles. “Thank you. And please thank her for me.”
“She said she was happy to do it.”
“I’ll go change.” Tessa headed to the bathroom.
“I’ll catch Trees up on our theory,” Zy called to her retreating back.
“Theory?” Trees asked once they were alone.
“We think we figured out who our mole is. Let’s call the bosses, so I can explain this all at once.”
They wandered to the kitchen together and sat. Zy dialed Hunter, who answered on the first ring. “You got something?”
“Yeah. You sitting?”
“Just a minute. Logan and Joaquin want to hear this, too.”
Trees wasn’t surprised they were all up in the middle of the night. Their lives had to be pressure cookers right now.
It wasn’t long before Hunter spoke again. “We’re all here.”
“Tell us what the hell is going on,” Logan demanded.
“Long story short?” Zy began. “Our mole is Tessa’s ex-boyfriend. Here’s our timeline. Last January, we think Aspen planted spyware on Tessa’s laptop since she was using the machine while Tessa was on maternity leave.”
Trees scowled. “How is that possible? She could barely find the button to turn the machine on?”
“The way I heard it, she wasn’t good for much but answering phones,” Joaquin drawled.
“It must have been an act.” Zy leaned in. “At the time, Colonel Edgington hired Aspen to temp after Tessa’s ex, Cash, recommended her.”
“Yeah,” Hunter confirmed. “I don’t think Dad knew anyone else.”
“That’s how the mission last March, the one in which I was injured, went south,” Zy explained. “Tessa returned a couple of weeks after that.”
“I reformatted her computer then, which wiped out whatever spyware Aspen put on it,” Trees added.
“Exactly. And every other mission went off without a hitch until August twentieth, when One-Mile was captured in Acapulco,” Zy said. “It’s no coincidence that Cash moved back in with Tessa to ‘co-parent’ Hallie on August ninth. Around that timeframe, emails started leaving Tessa’s computer in the middle of the night, when Cash was supposedly gaming for work, a job that seems like a bullshit cover.”
“Go on,” Hunter prompted.
“The mission in September to rescue Walker turned out okay because Tessa was in Tennessee when her father died. She’d locked up her computer at the office, where Cash couldn’t get to it. But Tessa was back and taking her computer home again when Emilo Montilla received the address and floor plan of Valeria’s safe house in St. Louis at the end of October. I helped Tessa boot the asshole from her house for good in mid-November.”
“That explanation makes sense, but there are holes,” Logan pointed out.
“Exactly,” Trees seconded. “Laila was nearly taken from what should have been a secure location in Orlando nearly a week ago. How do you explain that?”
“That’s the one hole in our theory,” Zy admitted. “I don’t know how to account for it.”
“Hang on. I think I might.” Trees reached for Tessa’s laptop, searched through the code on the back end, and found exactly what he was looking for. “The spyware is back. And this version is more advanced. It allows the user to search through our servers.”
Hunter Edgington swore something long and ugly.
“Cash must have reinstalled it.” Zy looked like he wanted to kill the motherfucker.
Trees wouldn’t mind getting in on that. The asshole had fucked Laila’s peace of mind for a buck.
“The little son of a bitch,” Logan spit out.
There was just one problem… “If they had every keystroke and could break into our servers, why did they kidnap Hallie and make Tessa cough up information?”
“What?” the trio of bosses exploded at once.
“On Tuesday, Tessa was approached in the EM parking lot by a man we can’t identify. He offered her money for information. She refused. She woke up the next morning, and her baby was gone. They’ve been using her to extract information from Tessa since.”