Page 78 of Swerve (Boosted Hearts 1)

Somehow, we had to make that work.

“I think we need to go check this place out.”

He tilted his head to the side, studying me. “You planning on telling the boys at the King Agency about this?”

“Not yet. Not unless we need them.”

Harry was in his early forties, solid, ex-military, and from what I’d seen, not afraid of anyone or anything. He knew his stuff, had contacts everywhere, and I liked him. He was a good guy.

He chuckled in a way that didn’t really hold any humor, then muttered, “Okay then, let’s do this.”

“I thought you’d give me more resistance on this.” Honestly, I thought he’d want someone who had been in this business longer than me taking his back.

The guy was obviously a mind reader because he said, “You’re smart, quick, and know how to handle a weapon.” He shrugged. “I trust you, Ruby. You’ve proved yourself to me on more than one occasion. If I didn’t think you could handle this job, I wouldn’t have hired you.”

I was dumbfounded. Flattered. And also feeling a little vindicated. Harry, a professional, a tough SOB, thought I had what it took. I stood. “Right, let’s get to work.”

His mouth straightened into a flat line and he stood as well, sliding on his sports coat. “Think you can handle a visit to your old apartment first?”

I slung my bag over my shoulder. “I can handle it, but the cops have been through it, I doubt there’ll be anything there.”

He opened the door for me. “Probably not, but I want to check it out anyway. Things get missed, overlooked all the time.”

We headed out, taking Harry’s car, and arrived at my old place a short time later. I had a weird feeling; not fear exactly, just a ghost, a shadow hanging around me, filling my head with Scott’s face, the way he’d been when he came after me that night, like he was a completely different person. And I guess that was true. I’d never known him at all.

But I was okay; more than okay, as I tore away the police cordon tape and unlocked the door.

Harry stepped past me and took in the living room. Furniture was still knocked over, the bills I’d had on the table scattered across the floor.

“Looks like you put up one hell of a fight.” Harry’s words shook me back the present.

I glanced over at him. “Would you expect anything less?”

“Nope.” He turned away and started searching the bookshelf.

I headed down the hall, walking into my room. I wasn’t sure how I expected to feel walking back in there, nervous, tense, maybe even a little fear—what I hadn’t expected to feel was . . . anger. No, white-hot rage. Scott had done this to me. He’d come into my life, invaded my privacy, treated me like an object to be exploited. It fueled me, drove me, made me more determined to find out who was behind that sick website, what this Colin Edwards had to do with any of it—to bring them down in a crashing heap.

“I’m going to check out Scott’s room,” I called to Harry.

I heard a grunt over the shuffling of papers and thump of books as I strode to the room at the end of the hall and pushed the door open. I hadn’t been in his room for a long time, not since the night I’d slept with him and he’d videoed it for posterity.

I stood in the doorway and took in the room. It was sparse, nothing on the walls. He had a double bed and a dresser. A small TV sat on top with his porn collection stacked up beside it. We’d lived together for two years and it was like he hadn’t fully moved in, like this wasn’t his home, but just somewhere he crashed now and again.

I opened the top drawer. Boxers and socks. I grabbed a pen, sitting on top of the dresser, and used it to moved things around. No way I was putting my hand on this asshole’s underwear. Nothing. I checked the other drawers, coming up empty as well.

The only other piece of furniture was the bed. I dropped to my knees and checked underneath. Nothing but dust bunnies and a couple suspicious-looking socks. I stood and looked around, this niggling feeling in my gut that I was missing something. I thought about all the conversations between the guys at the agency I’d overheard, what they said about the jobs they’d been on, the places they always searched first. Floorboards?

I took my time feeling for loose ones, going as far as dragging the dresser out from the wall to check the ones under it, as well as behind it. I turned back to the bed. One time Jude told Hunter he’d found what he’d been looking for inside someone’s mattress. A long shot, and yeah, touching that thing was not an appealing thought whatsoever, but I wasn’t leaving here until I turned over every damn piece of furniture. Going by the thumps and bumps coming from the living room, neither was Harry.

Dragging off the covers, I stripped off the bottom sheet and threw it all aside. The top was in good condition, no cuts—and thankfully, no weird stains either. I shoved it up onto its side. Underneath looked okay as well, so I felt around the sides, working my way around the whole thing. I was working my fingers along the top . . .

The stitching had been unpicked. It was small, easy to miss. Hoping like hell there wasn’t anything sharp or disgusting in there, I poked my finger inside. Something cold and hard touched the tip of my pinky. I grabbed it between my fingers and pulled it out.

A pen drive.

Yes!

“I found something,” I called.