Page 103 of Cruel Kiss
And…
And…
And…
98.1% Likelihood.
My husband did it.
That's what it says. Not in those words. But that's what it means.
I don't move. I sit at the island with my hands over my mouth as I look at the verdict my own machine gave me.
One room over, the man it just convicted plays with my children.
29
CALI
98.1% Likelihood.
The number sits there. It doesn't blink. It doesn't apologize. It justis.
I built this thing, so I know better than anyone exactly how good it is. I've watched it catch a man who thought he was too smart to be caught—and then do itagain.
It.
Does.
Not.
Miss.
So I should get up. I should call Mercer back and tell her she's right, and that I need her to help me and my children get away from this murderous monster before it's too late.
But before I can make up my mind to do that, I hear his feet on the stairs.
"Cali?" Ronan's voice floats down ahead of him. "They're finally asleep. Isabella was out before her head?—"
He comes around the corner into the kitchen and stops.
He sees my face first.
Then he sees the laptop.
Then he sees the folder fanned across the island in Mercer's neat, damning spread, and it all makes sense to him at once.
He goes very still.
"Cali," he says, "what is that?"
I turn the laptop around so he can see it. The dashboard. The clean timeline. The little dots that follow him around like a shadow on every night I could name. The number, big and red, sitting at the bottom like a verdict.
He looks at it for a long moment. His jaw grinds. His hands, at his sides, curl and uncurl.
"Todd's dead," I say. "Mercer came by and told me. Someone shot him in a motel outside Harrisburg two nights ago." I swallow. "Somebody spoofed radio codes to pull the feds off him first. And then somebody sent Mercer a burner map that pins a phone next to you on every single relevant night I could vouch for. Plus a payment trail that runs through shells six deep." I can't stop this last part: "The good ol' Akov pattern."
"Is that what you think it looks like?"
