Chapter 3
KYLE
“Stop!” I shouted, slicing a hand through the air, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Alex’s eyebrows shot up as his thumb hovered over his phone.
“Doc? Something wrong?” Ava asked before she took another sip of her soda, her demeanor completely calm.
I, on the other hand, suddenly felt like I was on the verge of committing seventeen different crimes.
I ran a shaky hand through my hair as I popped up from the bench and paced behind it. “This feels…wrong.”
“Wrong?” Ava asked with a crinkled nose.
“Like an invasion of her privacy. I mean, she didn’t give me her number. She clearly doesn’t want me to have it.”
Alex shrugged, setting his phone down on the table. “We don’t know that. Maybe she’s just cautious. Plus, this is really more about Ava thinking something is fishy than your love life.”
“Ace is right,” Ava said, the straw still between her lips. “She’s hiding something.”
“Okay, well…maybe we should let her hide it,” I suggested.
Ava set her cup down, her features sharp as she stared at me. “Are you sick?”
I screwed up my face, crossing my arms as I stopped my ambling. “What?”
“Seriously, my dude, you are a perpetual line-crosser, but suddenly, you want to shut down the investigation.”
I pressed my lips together. She had a point. Boundaries and me weren’t the best of friends. I regularly crossed them even when I knew it would invite trouble. But snooping on the woman I hoped would have found me somewhat interesting seemed…wrong.
Or maybe I was afraid it would squash the minuscule chance I had to develop a relationship with this woman. An image formed of her angry and disappointed face when she found out Alex hacked into her phone and gave me private information about her life.
“Consider this a safety check,” Ava said as I contemplated it. “We just went through a really dangerous battle with The Board. I don’t want you caught up in something you shouldn’t be.”
“You think she’s Board?” I asked.
We’d dismantled the so-called Board. They weren’t a threat anymore–at least not to my knowledge. But what if there were lingering members who hoped for revenge?
I raised a finger in the air. “I didn’t see a tattoo on her wrist.”
“Neither did I, but that doesn’t mean anything.”
I collapsed onto the bench again, my lips tugging into a frown. A fleeting memory of her eyeing Alex shot through my mind. “You think that’s what this is, don’t you? That I’m being used.”
“There’s one way to find out,” Alex answered, showcasing his phone.
I gnawed on my lower lip, weighting the pros and cons. Pro: I’d have a better idea of who she was. Con: I’d find out she already had an awesome boyfriend. Pro: I’d have a way to contact her. Con: I’d be labeled a stalker.
I shook my head, burying my face in my hands. “I don’t know if I want to know. Maybe I’d just like to live in this fantasy world that this beautiful woman was actually interested enough in me to sit down and eat with us.”
Ava reached across the table, her expression consoling as she squeezed my hand. “Doc, you’re going to find the right girl for you. And Nattie may be it. But let’s just make sure she’s not someone who is out to hurt you. Isn’t it better to know before you fall in love with her?”
I winced at the words, my mind trying to answer the question honestly.
Alex clicked his tongue, his features turning surprised. “Dude, you can’t be in love with her yet. Come on.”
“I’m not,” I shot back. “But the potential is there. I just…don’t want to find out that she’s got a really cool boyfriend. Oh, or maybe she’s in a fake marriage that has turned real–that has happened way too many times to me.”
“All right.” Alex raised his hands in the air, signaling defeat. “I’ll delete it.”
He snatched his phone from the table, tapping on the screen.
My heart seized. If he deleted her information now, we’d probably never get it back. All of my hesitation went flying out the window in a single instant. I needed to know if I had a shot. And I needed a way to find this woman. I couldn’t lose this chance.
I couldn’t explain what I felt, but I knew I wanted a chance with Nattie Burgmont. Maybe I was too desperate, but I didn’t care. I’d had too many heartbreaks already.
“Wait!” I said, my breath catching in my throat.
Alex flicked his blue eyes up to meet mine. “Yes?”
“Don’t delete it. Probably should check her out…just to see, you know? She’s probably seeing someone or married. Or a former Board associate looking to kill me–or you.”
“No one has to know,” Alex said as he waved his phone in the air before he tapped on it to access Nattie’s phone.
“She can’t tell you’re doing this, right?”
“Not unless I want her to know,” Alex murmured, his eyebrows pinching as he stared at his screen.
“Yeah, don’t let her know. On the off chance that she’s actually interested in me, I really don’t want to screw this up.”
Ava shifted closer to Alex, resting her chin on his shoulder as she peered at his screen. I lifted my chin, too, even though I couldn’t see over the top of his phone.
I was dying to know what he was seeing. Were there thousands of male contacts? Flirty text messages? Pictures of her with a guy?
“Well?” I prompted.
“It’s weird.”
“Weird?” My stomach clenched. “Like weird or weird bad?”
“Just weird,” Alex said, still scrolling. “No pictures. No contacts. Almost nothing.”
“Almost nothing?”
“There’s a set of calls between her phone and another number along with a series of text messages with that same number.”
I screwed up my face. “That’s it? Only one number?”
Ava bobbed her head as she poked a finger at Alex’s phone. “Check for social media apps.”
“None,” he answered with a shake of his head. “It’s like she’s only had the phone for five minutes.”
“Maybe she has,” I postulated. “Maybe it’s brand new.”
“Usually you transfer your stuff,” Alex answered.
“Maybe her old phone was lost or destroyed, and she couldn’t.” I found myself searching for any excuse that could normalize this odd situation.
“Or she’s using a burner,” Alex murmured.
Ava snatched the phone from his hands, scrolling on it.
My heart rose into my throat. “What are you doing?”
“Reading the texts.” Her jaw unhinged a moment later, her features twisting in surprise.
“What?!” I asked, my fingers tightening into fists.
“There are like three texts. It’s like she deletes them regularly.”
“Read ‘em, babe.” Alex leaned an elbow on the table, propping his head up in his palm.
“The first one says Searching now…will send info when I have it. She answered Thanks. The last one says Stay safe.”
“Stay safe?” Alex asked.
I’d noticed the odd words, too. Was Nattie in some sort of danger?
“That’s what it says. I mean, that totally could be a euphemism, like…love you or take care.” Ava shrugged as she sat Alex’s phone on the table.
Alex puckered his lips, and I rubbed my chin. There were so many unanswered questions. The foray into her phone had done us little good. I didn’t want to push any further, but I really had hoped to find out more.
“So, the mystery deepens,” Alex said. “Looks like we’ll have to take the limited information we have and see if we can track down anything else.”
My heart lifted as he said the words. “Really?”
Alex shrugged. “I’m thoroughly intrigued, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. I mean, I was intrigued when I saw her, but I didn’t want to push you to keep tracking information.”
“Sounds like our gaming sesh will be delayed while we follow up on our limited leads,” Ava said, grabbing our trash and tossing it in the nearby bin.
“Let’s head back to the little old casa and see what we can dig up on Miss Nattie Burgmont and her mysterious phone contact.”
Within minutes, we were back in Ava’s Barbie pink SUV heading back to what they called “their little beach house.”
In reality, the mansion was big enough to house twenty people without them ever having to interact. With Alex’s level of income, they could afford the best.
I wasn’t exactly hurting as the son of a billionaire–even if we had a difficult relationship–and a doctor. And I planned to use every last bit of the perception of wealth that came along with being besties with a tech billionaire and having an energy mogul as a dad to win Nattie over.
I needed all the help I could get.
We pulled into the driveway and filed into the house, settling in their clean, modern living room that overlooked the pool and the beach.
I eased into the armchair as Alex grabbed his laptop. I wrung my hands as I waited, both eager and desperate to know more about Natalie Burgmont.
“All right, Nattie,” Alex said as Ava scooped up their little chihuahua, Gizmo, and snuggled closer to him.
I stared at the two of them–a perfect couple. I wanted that. And I hoped whatever he was about to find on Nattie wouldn’t ruin my chance.
“First thing I’ll try is reverse searching those numbers,” Alex said as his fingers pounded across the keys.
A curse escaped his lips, and Ava shot me a glance. “Burners.”
I hung my head. We wouldn’t get any information from those. With every keystroke Alex made, my hopes diminished. I’d never see this woman again.
“Now, I’ll just do a search for any Natalie Burgmonts and see what we come up with,” Alex said.
We spent over thirty minutes searching for information on the mystery woman. We didn’t find anything under the name she’d given me no matter what spellings we’d used. And we’d tried everything–even Nataly with a y.
As Alex closed the lid of his laptop, I crossed my arms, pacing the living room floor. “Okay, well, there are a thousand reasons she could be using a fake name and have a burner phone.”
I shrugged. “Like she’s…
“A drug dealer,” Alex filled in.
“What?” I answered, ceasing my ambling as I screwed up my face.
“A criminal may hide their identity,” Ava said. “Alex has a point.”
I pressed my lips together, shaking my head as I resumed my pacing. “Okay, fair enough. But she could also be a victim.”
“Ohh, Witsec?” Alex asked, his tone growing excited. “I could hack into their records and do a search.”
“Or maybe it’s not that but it’s like…running from an abusive ex, you know?”
Ava poked a finger at me. “Could be. I’m not sure if we’d be able to track that down.”
“That would be…difficult,” Alex said. “Easier if we had a picture of her. I could run it through facial recognition, see if we get any hits and can trace her through that.”
I collapsed into my chair with a heavy sigh. “Yeah, well, that’s probably not going to happen. I doubt I’ll be lucky enough to run into her again, and I have no idea where she went when she ran off.”
I bit my thumbnail, angry at myself. “I should have followed her.”
“Whoa. An hour ago, you didn’t want to snoop on her phone, now you wanted to stalk her.” Ava kicked at me playfully.
“Well, an hour ago, I wasn’t desperate. Now, I am. And when I’m desperate, I do really dumb things.”
Alex’s phone chimed as I let my head fall into my hand, rubbing my forehead. Things were looking grim. The first woman who had intrigued me had disappeared. My shot at love had dried up in less than twenty-four hours. I really didn’t have much luck with this at all.
I slouched down, prepared to slip into a depression over my inability to find happiness when Alex said, “How dumb of a thing are you willing to do to see her again?”
I snapped my gaze to him, my brows knitting tightly. “Are you asking for a list, or is this a scale of one to ten type of thing?”
“Would you pretend that you were out walking the beach right about now?” Alex asked.
What a ridiculous question. If I thought Nattie was outside on the beach, I’d be racing out the door to run into her. “Of course. If it was that easy–“
“It is. I set up a proximity alert for her burner. She’s outside.”
My heart stopped as my lips parted. “What?”
My eyes went straight to the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the pool. Nattie was on the other side of them.
A thick pane of glass in the sliding door was the only thing separating me from seeing the woman I’d wanted information on.
My heart rose into my throat. Could I find out more, or was I about to get my heart broken?