Page 56 of Midnight

Eldredge nodded. “Understood. I know Asher Kingston. Got quite the reputation and all good. I know of Gunner. Homicide hotshot, they call him. Asher is methodical. Gunner is persistent. They’ll get their man. Rest assured that Starpoint Security is here for your father.”

“Much appreciated,” Dylan said, and left the hospital, relieved beyond words that the security aspect had been taken out of his hands.

He was tired, worried about the Brandt connection to the shooting, and hungry as he headed to his hotel. Once he was in the room, he ordered Thai food from DoorDash, took off his boots, stretched out on the bed to wait for it to arrive, and fell asleep.

He woke an hour later to a knock at the door, then rolled off the bed to retrieve his food. He ate his solitary meal with the TV for company, while missing home and Angie. He knew she was going to a birthday party for a friend of theirs this evening, and he was waiting for her text to let him know she was home safe before he laid his head down again.

* * *

Sunup came to West Texas, bringing with it anotherblustery, cold day without the threat of snow.

Nora was puttering around the kitchen while her coffee was brewing, learning how to manage with her bandaged hand. The pain pills were keeping the worst of her misery at bay.

When her phone rang, she knew before she picked it up it was going to be Ash, and it was.

“Hey, you. I’m fine. I love you,” she said.

Ash laughed, and the sound of his voice made her ache for him.

“Love you more, and I have a technical question. Neither Gunner nor I are proficient in tech problems, but I have a question. Right after he logged in on his laptop, the screen froze. He tried to turn it off and on again, but as Coach Teters used to say when I got a wild hair to call a play on my own, ‘Boy, that ain’t happenin’.’”

Nora burst out laughing. “Is Gunner there?”

“Yes.”

“Then put your phone on Speaker so he can hear me, and I’ll walk him through it. There are a couple of things we can do before you need to panic. Sometimes a simple power surge can cause something like that. Are you ready, Gunner?”

“I’m listening.”

“I’m assuming you’ve already tried to turn it off and nothing is happening.”

“Yes, I did try that,” he said.

“Then we’re going to try Control/Escape. Press down on the Ctrl button and the Esc button at the same time. Hold them down and see if the screen reacts. If it does, release the keys, then tell me what the prompt says.”

“Holding, holding, holding, hold… Oh! Yes, hot damn, girl, you’re the best. It tells me it didn’t shut down properly and is giving me prompts.”

“Can you follow those prompts without confusion?” sheasked.

“Yes, yep, doing it now. Oh man, okay… It’s rebooting,” Gunner said.

“Then you should be good to go. If you have any other problems, just give me a call. I’ll come over and check it out more thoroughly,” she said.

“Just think… When you and Ash get married, we’ll have our own tech genius. Can’t beat a deal like that,” he said. “Okay…it’s up and running like normal now. Thank you so much.”

Ash was laughing as he took the phone off Speaker. “Well, now you know where you stand in this family,” he said.

Nora was grinning. “Being indispensable is job protection. Stay warm. Love you.”

“Love you more. I’ll see you sometime today, if that’s okay with you?”

She smiled. “Totally okay, just come prepared.”

“Prepared for what?” he asked.

“For me. You turned on all the want I’d stored away, and now I can’t think of anything else.”

“Lord,” he muttered.