“I’m guessing passwords?”

“Yup. And grocery lists, and reminders, and anything else they need access to. Although, personally, my phone calendar is much more incriminating than my notepad.”

“So, if I want to know where you’ll be this Friday night, all I have to do is steal your phone?”

“Well, that, and figure out the code to unlock it. But his phone isn’t locked.” I opened a browser on Hunter’s computer, then clicked the drop-down menu listing his favorites. And sure enough, after three listings for what could only be porn sites, he’d bookmarked the power company, the water company, his mobile service provider and…his bank.

I clicked on the bank link, and while the page loaded, I scrolled through his cell-phone notes for anything resembling passwords. There weren’t many choices, and the third one, titled FNB, consisted only of a seven-digit alphanumeric code with a pound sign at the end.

“First National Bank. Got it.” Hunter turned out to be no smarter than the average bear.

I typed his account number into the bank site, then his password, and when the site had “verified” my stolen identity, I clicked on My Account. Where I discovered what I already knew—until the week before, Mr. Hunter had been in dire financial need, even more so than I. But his banking activity since the big deposit was sparse.

The bank had auto-removed the overdraft fees he owed, and he’d paid a couple of utilities online. But other than that… “Nothing.” I looked up to find Cam chopping peppers on a plastic cutting board. “There are no big withdrawals. His bank balance is just over $49,500. Nothing in savings.” I frowned as he scraped the peppers from the cutting board into the skillet. “So, what? The transfusions were free?”

“Or he paid by credit card.”

“There were no credit cards in his wallet, and based on his banking history, I’d say that’s because his credit is less than stellar.”

“So maybe the transfusions were free for him.”

“Someone else paid….” Shit. The only reason someone else would pay for Hunter’s superpowers was to help him carry out a job they’d commissioned. Which meant… “The Tower syndicate paid for Hunter’s upgrades. They didn’t just hire the monster—they created him.”

Fourteen

“Did you know about this?” Liv watched carefully for my reaction, obviously fully aware that my body language might say things my mouth wasn’t allowed to.

But this time, I had nothing to hide. “Nope. Whatever Tower’s up to, it’s above my pay grade.”

She looked as if she wanted to believe me. As if she was working really hard to convince herself that I could be trusted. But we both knew I couldn’t be. Not so long as my enforced loyalty to Tower trumped everything else in my life. Including her.

But I was telling the truth.

Frustrated, I set my butcher knife on the counter and met her suspicious gaze with an open one of my own. “Liv, if there’s something I can’t tell you, I just won’t say it. But I’m not going to outright lie to you.” That much, at least, hadn’t changed.

“Unless Tower tells you to. You’d have to lie then, right?” Her brows rose in challenge, and suddenly I hated Jake Tower more than I’d ever hated anyone in my life. Including previous incarnations of my own hatred for him.

“Yes. If he told me to lie to you, I’d have to. But unless he got really creative with the orders, I wouldn’t have to make you believe it. I’m not going to go out of my way to make him happy, after what he’s done to Anne and her family.”

She almost smiled, and some small bit of tension inside me eased. “So, you’re working under protest now?”

“Silent protest. But yes.” Because open protest would only get both of us killed. “And anyway, I haven’t had any communication from Tower directly or indirectly all day.” Which was interesting, considering the fact that I’d been seen all over the west side of town with her.

“What do you think that means?”

I shrugged and resumed chopping. “I think it means that we were allowed to track and kill Hunter because that benefited the syndicate—we were cleaning up their mess. But if we step over whatever line they’ve drawn for us, they will redirect my attention to something Tower considers more worthy. More syndicate-spirited.” And Liv’s interest in syndicate business would be noted. And monitored.

Nothing good ever comes from being monitored by the Tower syndicate.

“That means we’ve hit a dead end on the money trail for now, then?” she said. “Because if we keep digging into their involvement, they’re going to hit your manual reset button.”

I laughed. “Pretty much.” And the reset button, for the record, was the back of my sku I set the spatula down and met Liv’s gaze, letting her see that I was serious. “But I’m not saying we should give up on the money trail or the transfusions. I’m just saying that if we dig for clues directly beneath the syndicate, we’re going to come up right under Tower’s feet. And he’s going to stomp on us.”

“So we should approach them both from another angle? Pursue leads that don’t originate within the syndicate?”

“Exactly.” While the skillet sizzled behind me, I picked up Hunter’s phone. He hadn’t gotten a single call since his fortunate demise, which was no shock, considering he’d only been dead a couple of hours. “I suggest we start with this. Maybe someone he knows can tell us where he got the transfusions, or who actually hired him. Even if they don’t know what they’re really telling us.”