Dane

He opened the door to the bedroom and ushered her through, then said to Chris, "If you haven't already, please talk to our guy at the Coroner's office and see what they think we're looking at in terms of the timing for the preliminary finding on cause of death. And don't let him fuck you around. He likes the power trip." He didn't wait for Chris to reply before following Lila into the bedroom and closing the door behind him.

​​

The early evening light softened all the corners in the room—including those on her face. Though she frowned like she was determined to sharpen them.

"What is it?" he said, but kept his tone soft, looking back over his shoulder to make sure they hadn't been followed.

Lila paced the floor on the other side of the bed. His heart sped up a little. Whatever was on her mind, it wasn't a little thing. He hadn't seen her look so agitated before.

"Dane, I dropped the ball." Her hands flew quickly as she spoke. "I'm so sorry, but I failed you."

"What are you talking about?"

She stopped pacing and turned to face him. "Remember back when you were avoiding me and I came to find you that day, to tell you something about the background we were doing on Becky? You'd told me not to tell anyone except you, when I found anything. But things were so weird then. I was having trouble getting you alone. You kept avoiding me. I'd tried to tell you on the phone and you didn't want me to. I wasn't confident about it, and we got distracted by the lawsuit thing…"

Dane shook his head, waiting.

Lila ran her hand through her hair and swore. "Chris interrupted us and to cover, you called me melodramatic, or something. I got angry. We were…distracted."

Inside he flinched at the reminder of how he'd treated her. For weeks. But he didn't remember the specific incident. There had been so many back then. "I'm sorry, Lila, I don't remember."

"Of course not. Anyway, I'd been trying to tell you that I found some notes in the InfoWare system—notes where I couldn't verify author."

"What?" he said, far too quietly.

"There were security notes in the system with no identified author. I figured it was probably you, or Chris. But I wanted to check, because there were several attached to Becky's original security background and they were…unique. But vague. I thought maybe you—"

"The system is specifically designed to log everything by author and source. Where did you find them?"

"That's the thing," she said, her voice too high. "I only found them because I messed up a search. I knocked my laptop mouse and accidentally highlighted the author field and hit the space bar. Usually it won't work without the name filled out, but….it did."

Dane stared at her. "How many were there? What did they say?"

"I didn't count them, but I'd say a dozen—and at least half were attached to Becky."

Dane found he was clenching his hands to fists and made himself stop. He couldn't believe she hadn't told him…but even more, he couldn't believe that someone had found such a simple way around the system.

"They definitely aren't yours? Or a glitch?"

"Definitely not," he ground out.

Lila closed her eyes. "One of them was only one word long," she said quietly. "It's why I remembered them."

"What was it?"

"It was the word 'suicidal' with a question mark."

A wave of rage rocked through him, but he forced himself to stay calm. "When was the last time you looked at them? Have any more been added?"

"I don't know. I'm sorry, Dane. I got…caught up. I forgot about them. I have a note somewhere but… I don't know."

He turned away. She'd been distracted by his behavior. By the anger and fear he'd created in the office. It was one of the reasons he'd always avoided work relationships. But it was too late to lay blame for that now. "I need to see those entries."

"I'll go get my laptop," she said quickly, turning for the door.

"No, wait." He stopped her a hand to her arm and his palm tingled, but he forced himself to ignore it. He had to think. His instincts were on high alert.

What purpose could hidden intelligence notes serve? Why would someone put them in the system if they didn't want them noticed by others?

Think, Dane!

Why was his gut telling him not to let the others know about this? Why did the whole idea of covert notes ring a bell for him? He swore under his breath. His mind was foggy, his skin prickled with desire, and he had two men in the next room getting more suspicious by the minute.

"Not yet," he said through his teeth. "This is going to be a late night, Delilah. But whenever it ends—or when they leave," he said nodding towards the next room, "that's when we'll look. I don't want anyone knowing someone got around our system. There's a very good chance those entries were put in there by someone working with my father. And we have notification settings…" he swore again and clawed a hand through his hair. "I need to see them. But not now. We move ahead as usual. But the very next opportunity, even if it's three in the morning, you bring them to me."

She nodded, her lips pale. "I'm sorry," she murmured.

He shook his head. "It's as much my fault as yours," he said and let his eyes catch hers so she'd see his heart. "I haven't exactly made the last couple months easy on you."

They stared at each other a moment before she broke a small smile. "Worth it," she whispered.

"You're crazy," he muttered, and made himself turn for the door so she wouldn't see the smile twitch on his face. He had more important things to focus on right now than flirting.

But, damn.