Say Goodbye (Romantic Suspense #25) by Karen Rose

            Huffing a groan, Pebbles rolled over to press her face against the wall, shutting him out.

            “Et tu, Pebbles?” he muttered. He closed all of the browser tabs he’d been using to trace that damn e-mail and stared at the image that remained on his screen.

            Tory laughed at the camera, all bubbly happiness and dancing delight as she waggled her fingers to show off the diamond he’d just put on her finger. It was the night she’d agreed to be his wife. A month later, she was gone. The diamond on her finger was gone. The smile on her face, gone. The light in her eyes . . . all gone. All stolen by the brute who’d killed her.

            He drew a breath and stared hard at her face. They’d fallen hard and fast, going from dating to storing toothbrushes in each other’s bathrooms in a matter of weeks. And the only person he’d told was Liza.

            He closed his eyes, remembering the night he’d told her about Tory on a Skype call. Liza had been laughing about something he’d said when he’d blurted it out. I met someone. She’s amazing. Liza’s smile had disappeared, and then hurt had flitted across her face.

            I hurt her. I was clumsy and bumbling and I hurt her. He could see that now, in his memory. He’d either missed it or ignored it then. Either way, she’d schooled her features into a tight smile and had wished him all the happiness in the world. Had even asked all about Tory.

            And he’d told her everything. Well, not about the sex. “Thank God for that,” he muttered.

            Because now . . . now he could see what everyone else had always seen. She’d cared for him then. At least a year and a half ago. Maybe before that.

            Not as friends. Not just as friends, anyway.

            Goddammit.

            He had no idea what to do with this epiphany. He didn’t want this epiphany.

            He pushed back from his desk and paced the length of his little office. He was edgy, felt caged in. He needed to run. The ten-mile route he took around the neighborhood always cleared his head. But he wasn’t leaving her alone. Not when she’d been in a killer’s sights less than twenty-four hours before.

            So, no, he wasn’t leaving her here alone to go for a run. He had a treadmill downstairs.

            He’d turned to go there when his phone shrilled an alarm. He sucked in a startled breath—that was the alarm for Eden’s bank account. Dropping back into his chair, he quickly brought up the offshore account.

            “Whoa,” he whispered. One hundred grand was gone. Transferred.

            He clicked on the transaction and stared at his screen. The money had been wired to a Dr. Ralph Arnold of Sacramento.

            Fingers flying, Tom googled the man and found absolutely nothing of note in the standard search results. No address, not even a photograph. He then checked the California DMV database and found the man’s photo.

            Ralph Arnold was . . . ordinary. Medium height, medium build. Dishwater-blond hair that had grayed at the temples. He could be anyone.

            But he was someone—someone who Eden trusted and needed enough to wire a hundred grand to. Right off, that made the man a definite person of interest.

            Tom unlocked his safe and pulled out the laptop he used for the dark web. He was protected by multiple levels of proxy servers on his main computer, but he’d been taught to be careful by his first white-hat mentor, Ethan Buchanan.

            Ethan had taken Tom under his wing when he’d been a junior in high school. Tom had managed to break into a protected government website and realized how vulnerable he was. He’d backed out quickly and had never been approached by men in black asking questions, but he’d realized that he could have been in real trouble. Life-destroying, going-to-prison trouble. So he’d taken his laptop to Ethan and asked for help.

            Ethan’s brows had nearly shot off his forehead when he’d seen what Tom had accomplished on his own, but then he’d rolled up his sleeves and taught Tom to be a white hat, too.

            Tom owed the man a great deal and thought about him every time he delved into the dark web. Be safe, was Ethan’s first rule. Don’t compromise your everyday workstation.

            Tom signed in on his throwaway laptop and opened the browser that provided entrée into the dark web. He wasn’t going to dig that deep yet. He’d do a quick search, then report the Eden activity to Molina.