Page 50 of Storm Warning

She rephrased her search terms and hit enter. She would see what popped up.

Five minutes later, her computer beeped, signaling a hit on her requested search terms. Riley scanned the screen, her mouth gaping at what she read. No, this couldn’t be right.

“Riley? Everything all right?”

She shook her head.

“What’s wrong?”

Unable to speak, she turned her computer so Andre could read the screen.

He looked at the screen, and seconds later, his hands clenched into fists. “You have got to be kidding me.”

Riley shook her head. “The bots caught three sites mentioning the same thing.”

Andre jabbed a finger at the computer. “This makes no sense. Who in their right mind would put out a hit on you?”

“I don’t know who is responsible, but I learned something else. There’s a deadline for the job. If the freelancer doesn’t kill me in the next 72 hours, he’ll receive nothing for the work.”

He scowled. “How much are they offering?”

Riley swallowed hard, unable to believe this was happening to her of all people. She deliberately kept a low profile everywhere she went so she wouldn’t run into this kind of trouble. She couldn’t figure out how this had happened. Where did she slip up? “The contract is for $500,000.”

CHAPTER NINE

ANDRE GROANED. “Idon’t believe this.” What on earth had possessed someone to put a $500,000 bounty on Riley’s head? “If we don’t discover who wants you dead, the attempts will keep happening, and one day the attempt will be successful.”

“And might take you out or one of my teammates, too.” She rested her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands. “This is my worst nightmare come to life, losing people I care about.”

“We’ll find out who set this up and stop them. I won’t let them hurt you, Riley. They’ll have to go through me to get to you, and I’m a tough soldier who’s lived through many missions more dangerous than this one. This time, however, the stakes are higher than at any other time in my life.” Andre wrapped his hand around her nape. “I won’t fail you. I give you my word.”

She turned into his arms and hugged him tight. “While you’re watching my back, I’ll watch yours.”

“We’ll do this together, Riley. Together, we’re an unbeatable team.”

“Then we’d better get started. Iona and Elias will relieve us in a couple of hours. I’d like to have some answers before I try to sleep. Otherwise, I won’t sleep much at all.”

“Same.” Unanswered questions bugged him until he couldn’t focus on anything else. This time, however, he had to zoom in on his own problem. He and Riley had agreed to divide and conquer. Andre knew Riley was burning up the Internet,searching for anything she could find to help Chris, and now she was hunting for the person who wanted her dead. While he wasn’t a computer geek, he had a lot of experience as a homicide detective. One piece of advice always applied. “Follow the money, babe. If you figure out who supplied the reward money, you’ll have your answer to who has targeted you.”

“Copy that.” Riley rubbed her hands together, her gaze fixed on the computer screen.

Andre would also have his next target. No one would attempt to harm his woman and get away with it.

He refocused on his computer screen and clicked on the next file. Andre grimaced at the name. Harlen Ludlow was a first-class monster, charged and convicted of two murders. A jury sentenced Ludlow to life in prison. He should still be a guest of the state.

Andre clicked on one of the Fortress databases and entered Ludlow’s name. The result popped up in seconds. His eyes widened as he read the information presented.

He sat back, frustrated and angry at the findings. Unbelievable. How could this happen?

Riley paused with her hands hovering over the keyboard. “Is something wrong?”

“Oh, yeah. You could say that. A criminal I arrested, who was convicted of two murders, is out on a technicality following a successful appeal filed by his attorney.”

“Technicality?”

“Yeah. One of the crime scene investigators allowed a key piece of evidence to be cross contaminated with evidence from another case.”

“And no one caught the cross-contamination during the trial?”