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But if she was a suspect, police surveillance would make sense… if Paddy played along. He could only hope he’d stopped her from saying too much. The guy surely had an endgame in case he was outed. Perhaps one that involved her mother.
Jenny’s tear-filled eyes flashed in his head. Forgive me, Beauty, he thought. Forgive me.
“Did you fuck with your security cameras, brother?”
Ronan turned, chest still bare, but at least he was wearing pants as Paddy slipped through the door and pulled it closed behind him. Shit. Why was everyone coming to his hospital room?
“Can we do this after I take a shower?” Ronan stretched his back, shoulder twinging. He winced. Jenny was right—he needed to suck it up.
“Nah, I think we need to do this now,” Paddy said, lips tight, thick arms crossed over his chest. “Your fancy security company didn’t catch anything. The bomb squad’s been out there all morning. They said someone had to be there personally to rig the device, but all we’ve got on your feed is a blank door. If you tampered with it to hide that you took that girl home… I kinda need to know.”
That girl. He was asking about Jenny. “I didn’t take her to my house, Paddy. I took her to a motel well outside the city to question her. No one could possibly have seen us.”
Paddy’s eyes widened.
He didn’t want to lie to his partner, but he needed information. If the killer was as smart as Jenny seemed to believe, he’d likely try to ruin Ronan’s reputation since his assassination plot had failed. Provided the guy didn’t just haul off and try to kill him again, which story would come back to bite him? Would it be that he’d covered for her with Ortega, which would indicate that Jenny herself was bugged? Or that he’d taken a witness to a seedy motel, which suggested a device on Paddy? If it was both, the hospital room was suspect, and he’d look more deeply into hospital personnel for leads. Once they were out of here, he could explain… but right now, he had to appear natural.
“So… my cameras?”
Paddy blinked, but his eyes had hardened. “If it wasn’t you, I guess someone hacked them.”
Ronan frowned. “No, that’s impossible. Charles is very careful to ensure that our data can’t be hacked from the outside.”
Nothing was fully hack-proof. But Ronan couldn’t say that out loud.
“Well, Charles is right to push for safeguards—they kept you alive. The only reason you got out with a couple scrapes is because of the steel-reinforced doors and trimmings that were part of his security plan.”
Ronan nodded, albeit reluctantly. “And if his other safeguards are as good as he says… Maybe someone inside the security company was in on it. Let’s start there.”
“It’s bigger than that,” Paddy said. “Because guess who else doesn’t have a single grainy video of our killer?”
Ronan cocked his head. “You… got the feeds back from the traffic cameras behind the club?”
“Bingo. Whoever messed with your cameras also gained access to the traffic cams. It’s not just the security company we need to worry about. I think our guy?—”
Fuck. “Stop, Paddy. You’re giving me a headache.”
If Ronan was right and this guy was some tech genius hacking into their shit, he couldn’t know that they suspected. They needed to make sure their perp didn’t notice the noose tightening until his feet were swinging.
Paddy’s brow furrowed—what do you know, Ronan?
Ronan shook his head, then cut his eyes at the ceiling. Paddy’s gaze flicked from him to the corners of the room, then back.
“I think we need to look harder at Jennifer Crandall,” Ronan said, hoping his partner would understand what he was doing. Not all the way, but enough to get them out of there.
Paddy’s arms dropped to his sides. “I agree,” he said slowly. “It’s not a coincidence that you were attacked right after Mercer. And the only connection between you two is that girl. We’ll pick her up for questioning, run her prints.”
Ronan’s mouth went dry. Paddy was playing his role perfectly, but his heart had stopped at the mention of fingerprints.
The killer didn’t seem to mind that Jenny was a suspect—the way he’d set up Mercer’s death made it appear that he wanted her to be a suspect. Why else would he kill the man in that club?
But that also meant that he didn’t mind if they knew who she was. Which meant he didn’t care if they knew who he was. And no one thought they were that far above the law.
Why hadn’t he seen this before?
Jenny hadn’t hidden the killer’s identity to protect him—her real identity was more threatening to her than to their killer. What did he have on her? It had to be significant for her to deem it safer to play this monster’s game rather than come forward. If they ran her prints… would they have to lock her up for something else?
Luckily, Paddy didn’t wait for him to reply.