Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
ALEX
At the end of the day, I sat down at my desk in front of the trio of monitors my brother affectionately referred to as The Cockpit. This setup was one of the few things I’d brought with me from home. I could do most of what I needed with less, but after years of being responsible for gathering digital intelligence, I preferred having all my tools at my disposal. It had been a while since I’d flexed these intellectual muscles. The last time had been on Isobel’s behalf, digging into her manager to get some of the information needed to free her from a shit situation. I considered this thing with Ciara’s ex to be in the same category.
Finished with her dinner, Saffron pawed at my leg. With one hand, I scooped her up and set her in my lap. She’d already begun to put on weight, and her fur was soft and healthy. Amazing what a couple weeks of consistent food and good care would accomplish. Her little body arched into my touch as I stroked along her back while my multitude of programs booted up.
I’d start on the surface, scraping the data publicly available about this twat. People were always revealing more about themselves than they realized on social media. Even deleting posts and emails wasn’t enough. The internet was forever—especially for someone with my skill set.
I opened a browser, and Saffron climbed onto the desk. She angled her little head at the screen, then looked at me as if to ask what the hell I thought I was doing.
“Look, I promised Ciara I wouldn’t rough the bawbag up, and that I only wanted to know who I should be listening for references to. She doesn’t need to know that I can ‘listen’ in a multitude of places the average person has no access to.”
The kitten slowly blinked at me in a tone that felt unmistakably judgmental. Or maybe that was my own conscience poking at me.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m doing this to protect her. She makes out like what this guy is doing is no big deal, but I can tell it bothers her more than she’s letting on, or we wouldn’t be in this fake relationship to begin with.”
The kitten’s tail swished, and she leapt. Startled, I jerked my head back, but she landed on my chest. Her claws made little pinpricks as she climbed up to perch on my shoulder like a wee gargoyle.
“Am I to take that as you’re okay with what I’m doing?”
She rubbed her head against mine.
Taking that as her blessing, I opened a browser.
Ciara wanted to see the best in people, myself excluded. If she was with this guy for a while, she might not want to believe he was anything but a good person. But there was a significant line between “I miss you and want you back,” and the kind of harassment he’d been pulling for this amount of time. She hadn’t spelled it out, but I had a feeling that there was more she hadn’t told me. I hadn’t pressed because I didn’t think she’d open up more if I did. So I’d do my own research.
A quick Google search for ‘Brodie Drummond Braemore’ told me he was an independent agent for an insurance company. It might be the sort of job with a set schedule, or it might give him some flexibility in the middle of the day. I wasn’t sure. Filing that away, I headed over to social media. His posts were full of photos of him and Ciara. All old. There was nothing more recent than five months ago, which lined up with the breakup.
Out of curiosity, I toggled over to look at Ciara’s profiles. She had a better sense of security, as most of her profiles were private, but nothing from her public feeds showed Brodie at all, even before the breakup. I wondered if she’d always done that or if she’d scrubbed him from her social media. I could’ve hacked in to find out, but I wouldn’t invade her privacy like that. Instead, I switched back to Brodie and worked my way backward, trying to get some idea of how long they’d been together.
The earliest posts went back about a year before the breakup. In the beginning, she’d looked happy. I wanted to tell myself she didn’t look as happy as she had the last day I’d seen her in Edinburgh, when we’d both been looking toward the future and seeing each other again, but maybe I was lying to myself about that because part of me saw this guy as a rival. Still, over the course of the year, I could see the smile start to become more forced, the body language less close. She’d known for months before she’d broken things off that it wasn’t a good fit.
I worked my way backward, digging into Brodie’s browser history. The man spent an inordinate amount of time visiting Ciara’s social media pages. Multiple times a day. Lots of time on old photos of the two of them. Even visits to the Ardinmuir Event Planning website. I didn’t like the additional signs of unhealthy fixation. There were also visits to dating apps. Was he looking for someone else? That would be a positive step.
But when I dug deeper into those, I found multiple profiles with fake names and details that were clearly designed to match with Ciara. None of the profiles had photos, but I was able to match them all as coming from the same IP address.
What did Brodie think would happen if one of the fake profiles did match with her? That she’d suddenly see the error of her ways and change her mind? Not bloody likely. As I knew from first-hand experience, she wasn’t a woman who tolerated lying. Not that I’d lied overtly, but lying by omission was still a thing.
I was just about to hack my way into Brodie’s email when someone knocked on the door of my flat. Toggling the screen to go dark, I set Saffron down and went to answer the door.
Callum and Finn were on the other side.
“What’s up?”
“We need to talk,” Callum announced.
Everything in me tensed. “What’s this about? Is something wrong with the business?” We’d poured so much into this already. If we were running into financial difficulties?—
Finn strode inside. “Oh no, this isn’t about the business. This is about you and Ewan’s baby sister.”
Well, shite.
Callum shouldered his way past me, too. “When were you planning on telling us you were dating?”
I’d known I’d have to tell them something, but I’d hoped to have more time. “Where did you hear that?”
“Down the pub. Someone mentioned they saw you snogging her right there on the high street.” Callum said this as if I clearly ought to have used better sense.
It seemed my plan for getting the gossip mill going had backfired on me. Making a judgment call in the moment, I shut the door. “It’s fake. Ciara’s ex isn’t taking no for an answer, so we’re faking a relationship to get him off her back.”
Both of them sobered immediately.
“Is it that bad?” Finn demanded.
“Do we need to take care of things?”
I well knew what Callum’s version of taking care of things would entail.
“No. She’s been very, very clear she doesn’t want that.”
Finn’s gaze tracked behind me. “Is that why you’re doing a deep dive on him?”
I turned to find Saffron walking across the keyboard. The screen had lit back up, showing all the windows of my search. Swearing, I scooped the wee monster back up and cuddled her against my chest, where she couldn’t do any more damage.
“I have a bad feeling about the situation. I think it’s probably worse than she’s letting on and that it has the potential to get worse. A couple of days after he found out we were dating, her car was keyed. The timing feels very reactive.”
“How long until he jumps from going after her possessions to going after her?” Finn mused.
“He was already invading her personal space and trapping her against her car the day I came up on them and intervened.”
“Is that why she asked you? Because you were there?” Callum arched an expectant brow.
“Probably.” No reason to share the details of our previous connection. “I stepped in, pretending to be her boyfriend. This keeps the story consistent when it gets back to him.”
“Makes sense,” Finn agreed. “What does Ewan think of all this? Have you talked to him?”
I worked to school my features, because what Ewan would think was something I’d been concerned about for years. “No.”
“This is his sister, mate. Do you think it’s wise to keep it from him?”
“I’m following Ciara’s lead on this. She doesn’t want him to know. I’m hoping when he does find out—because I’m under no delusion that he won’t—that he’ll understand that I’m looking out for her.”
My friends exchanged a look that clearly questioned my general intelligence, but they didn’t call me on it.
“Look, can I count on the two of you for your help in this? As extra pairs of eyes?”
“Of course. He’s our brother. That makes her family, too.” For Callum, it would always be that simple.
Relieved to have my team on board so far as they could be, I relaxed. “Thanks. Do you lot want a beer? We could do some more brainstorming about potential business names.”
“Och, that sounds perfect,” Finn announced. “I was thinking Tartan Trekking Company.”
I went to the fridge. “Did you come up with that with or without alcohol?”
Finn dropped onto the sofa. “Fuck off, Echo.”
Grinning, I grabbed three beers and settled in for some friendly ball busting with my best mates.