Colton Christmas Protector (The Coltons of Texas #12)(35)
She wanted to know what secrets her father had been keeping, what lies he’d told her and how deeply he’d sunk himself into criminal activity, but her heart gave a sore drub of dread as she dragged a chair in to sit next to Reid as he worked.
While the laptop booted up, he gave her a searching look. “You don’t have to stay up. I know you’re tired.”
She scoffed. “As exhausted as I am, I may never sleep again. Getting shot at was...terrifying. I’m afraid to close my eyes. I keep seeing it replay.”
He reached for her hand and squeezed it. “I know. I wish I could do something to help. Give it time. The images may never disappear, but they’ll fade.”
She gave him a weak, weary smile of gratitude. “Where did you tell your family you’d be tonight?”
“I didn’t, really. I gave Zane a quick rundown of what was happening, just in case.”
Just in case?
He must have misread her worried expression, because he hurried to add, “I didn’t give him details, and he doesn’t know where this house is. I trust him. But someone needed to have an idea what was happening.”
“In case we’re killed the next time the shooter comes gunning for us?” She hated the quaver in her voice.
Reid leaned toward her, pulling her against him. He stroked her back and massaged the base of her neck with strong fingers. “You’re safe now, Pen. I’m going to protect you and Nicholas. I swear.”
The laptop chimed, indicating it had finished start-up, and Reid backed away from their hug. She immediately missed the comfort and security of his arms around her. After a day as unsettling and topsy-turvy as she’d had, the thought of curling up on the sofa with Reid’s body wrapped around her in a protective and reassuring embrace appealed more than it had any right.
Reid plugged the thumb drive into the side USB port and loaded the list of files. She canted closer to read the list on the screen.
“Two thousand twenty-three files?” Her heart dropped when she saw how much material they had to weed through.
“And that’s just what I could get downloaded before the butler showed up and we had to cut and run.”
“It’ll take forever to go through all those files.”
“Welcome to the scintillating world of a police detective. A lot of what I did on the job was tedious paperwork and combing through archived documents or computer files.” He clicked on a folder and a whole new list of files appeared.
“That’s what Andrew used to tell me when I worried about the dangers of his job. Didn’t make me feel better, though. I knew it only took one bullet, one witness interview or suspect apprehension gone awry to negate all the desk work in the world.”
He cut a silent but meaningful glance her way, then turning back to the computer and continuing to scroll he muttered, “And then it proved to be his partner that did him in. Not a suspect’s bullet at all.”
She huffed a sigh. “I shouldn’t have brought him up.”
“Andrew will always be a factor between us.”
She ignored that truth, saying, “Are you now claiming responsibility for his death? I thought that whole speech you gave me earlier today was to shift blame away from you.”
His eyebrows drew together, and his jaw hardened. “Oh, I take responsibility, all right.” He paused a beat as he clicked through a few of her father’s files, then added, “It just wasn’t murder.”
Penelope glanced down at her lap. She spun her wedding ring on her finger without really seeing or realizing what she was doing as she sorted through the tug-of-war of emotions stringing her as tight as a hunter’s bow. A few hours ago, when Reid had made the same claim regarding Andrew’s death, she hadn’t wanted to hear it. She’d clung to the idea that he was to blame so she had a target for her anger and her dismay over the unfairness of her loss.
Now she felt a pluck of sympathy for Reid, for the guilt he lived with. Her anger had shifted inside her. She was angry with the shooter who’d tried to kill them today, necessitating that her life and her son’s be disrupted and that they hide out like cowards. But the lion’s share of her fury and confusion and hurt focused on her father. If even a portion of their initial suspicions proved true, her father had been living a lie for years. Had he gotten wind of Andrew’s investigation of him? Could her father be the one to blame for the agony she’d suffered in recent months?
She raised her attention back to Reid’s laptop, where lists of files scrolled up the screen. When she groaned softly, he chuckled and cast a side glance at her. “What? You were thinking he’d have a file labeled Incriminating Evidence or Proof of My Illegal Activity?”
She snorted her derision. “Oh, no. My father would never be that cooperative. I’m just wondering how we’re supposed to process all this. Where do we start?”
“After I make a backup of the whole thumb drive,” he said, even as he dug another memory stick out of a desk drawer, “I usually make a first cursory pass through, scanning file names and types. I sort out what appears useless and what might prove helpful and make new folders. As I finish with a file I move it to a folder for reviewed items, but I preserve the integrity of the original material. A lot of times, all the information that incriminates a person is saved in the same place.”
“Sounds time-consuming.”