Page 49 of Echo, the Sniper (Men of PSI #2)

Dinner was straight-up spectacular, though I was irritated with myself when I eventually gave in to the illogical-yet-frantic need to check the time as I put the finishing touches on the meal.

As the three of us sat at the small round table, I kept checking my phone and everyone’s plates to make sure I had achieved a semblance of perfection at the proper time.

That was when Echo caught me at it and gently gathered my phone, along with Mary Jane’s and his own, and placed them all on the kitchen counter and well out of reach.

He said it was because he wanted us to concentrate on the food I’d made and the people seated around the table, but I knew why he’d done it; he was telling me without words that I was under no timeclock, and there were no insane rules in place that I could never live up to.

Without words, he was telling me that while Dane might still be alive, that part of my life was dead.

He was telling me that I was free.

With every little gesture he made to help me overcome my inner demons, I fell in love with him more.

Relieved of the stress that serving dinner inevitably brought me, a wonderful thing happened.

I was suddenly free to enjoy the meal. It was such a foreign concept I almost laughed out loud, but since I didn’t want Echo or Mary Jane to think I was a total loon, I managed to swallow the urge.

Anxiety trickled away as I found myself enjoying the casual atmosphere while we made our way through the two-course meal—though Mary Jane insisted the cookies-and-cream ice cream in the freezer was our third course, which made the meal officially elegant in her book.

Talk of food brought about the conversation of worst and best meals.

Echo won worst meal with his breakfast of two-day old, pan-fried tilapia and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos—honestly, my stomach rebelled at just the thought—and Mary Jane won best meal with her ecstatic recollection of her first taste of saltimbocca while on her honeymoon in Italy.

Me? This was my favorite meal, but it was because of the company, not the food.

Talk of Mary Jane’s honeymoon led to a wider discussion about travel, which made me realize I hadn’t really been anywhere, whereas both Echo and Mary Jane—a military brat who’d joined the Army herself—had seen a surprisingly large part of the world.

Eagerly I drank in their tales of places I’d only read about, encouraging them to talk of their favorite travel moments while the last drop of savory meat sauce got sopped up with the final pieces of crusty garlic bread.

By the time I brought the gallon of ice cream out with bowls and spoons, night had truly fallen and the worst of the unexpected snowstorm that had popped up died down to a mere flurry.

I couldn’t remember when I’d spent hours sitting at a table, lingering over coffee and dessert, but I knew in my bones that this was how life was meant to be lived.

I had laughed more in the last few hours than I had in years, and it was all because of Echo.

With him in my life, by my side and supporting me in ways I hadn’t even known I needed, I could enjoy being alive in a way I never had before.

I was truly the luckiest woman in the world.

When Mary Jane stifled a yawn, I at last retrieved our phones and could hardly believe how late it was.

I started to clear the table, but Echo was quick to shoo me out of the kitchen, claiming that since I was the one who cooked, he was the one who had to clean up.

I did my best not to gape at him, since I was pretty sure Dane believed his dick would fall off if he ever had to do what he called “woman’s work.

” Before I could mention to Mary Jane that Echo had obviously been raised by two amazing women, she headed toward a room she’d claimed as her own while holding up her phone.

It clearly read “Daddio,” with a picture of a smiling bespectacled man.

“Sorry, gotta take this.”

“Of course.” Waving my goodnight, I decided to head to the room Echo and I had claimed as ours, kicked off my shoes, and reached for the phone’s charger I’d left by the bed.

Then, with nothing left to do but wait for Echo, I hopped onto the cabin’s Wi-Fi and logged into Dane’s digital filing server, Digilife, hoping I could get through the worst of it before Echo joined me.

I knew it didn’t make sense, but I just couldn’t quite stomach the thought of anything having to do with Dane being in the same room with me and Echo.

When we were together, I needed it to just be the two of us.

That was all that mattered to me, and I needed him to know that through both my actions and my words.

It took only a heartbeat or two to recall Dane’s password.

Within moments I found myself staring at a messy hodge-podge of files, all dumped into a single category rather than separated files.

Ugh. That was so Dane. Legal, personal, business, voice recordings—all of it just thrown into one giant digital mess.

With a short sigh, I ignored everything timestamped before the trip to the Cayman Islands, then tried organizing my search between regular files and audio files.

The disorganization didn’t surprise me. While he’d made himself out to be an elite businessman who knew everything, Dane had always been lazy.

More than anything, that explained why he’d become a white-collar criminal.

Cutting corners and breaking laws that other people worked hard at navigating was the only way he’d ever made it as far as he did.

For Dane, crime really had paid.

There were almost double the amount of audio files as there were any other kind—again, showcasing a lazy preference to hit Record rather than document whatever he needed.

I tackled that list first, looking for anything that sent up a red flag.

The sheer volume of files made me inwardly groan, and suddenly I saw the wisdom of dumping all this into the laps of PSI so they could—

Private Security International.

I stared at the audio file in dumbstruck amazement, my heart dropping all the way to my stomach.

Half a second later it rebounded when I realized what the file had to be—Dane hiring the security firm to bodyguard me after the US Marshals Service put him in the Witness Protection Program.

The date was a month before Dane was “killed,” so it was understandable.

Well, sort of. It still amazed me that Dane had bothered to spend money on my safety when he’d never really given a damn about my wellbeing.

But having a private file marked Private Security Int’l was totally understandable.

Then I came to a stop again a handful of seconds later.

Ethan Echols.

Echo?

My heart tripped again as I stared at the screen, and this time it didn’t find its way back to a normal rhythm.

How could Echo’s legal name be in my former husband’s files?

My gaze bounced to the date—ten days before Dane was shot in front of the convention center. Just ten days? That... felt wrong.

Very wrong.

No, it was understandable, I told myself, struggling for calm.

This was probably the day Echo had been assigned to the case as my bodyguard, and Dane was meeting him to discuss what he wanted.

Sure, it was unsettling—if not downright creepy—to see Echo’s name in Dane’s files, especially since Echo had never mentioned he’d ever spoken with Dane.

But again, that was understandable. Once Echo had learned what kind of marriage I’d been trapped in, the last thing he'd wanted was to talk about Dane. He was protective, not just of my physical wellbeing, but my emotional wellbeing as well. That had to be why he’d never mentioned he’d actually spoken to Dane

So it was understandable. All of it.

Only...

Without allowing any more time to second-guess myself, I clicked on the audio file.