Page 38 of XOXO, Little Butterfly (The Storyteller’s Bodyguard #2)

Tristan

Birdie is completely absorbed in the screen. Her dark hair falls like a curtain around her face as she hunches over her laptop. I’ve secured it first and made sure she can’t use the internet. I can’t afford another one of her impulsive solo plans .

The blue light illuminates her features, casting shadows that pronounce her cheekbones more.

Her lips are slightly parted in concentration.

She’s beautiful when she’s thinking. Hell, she’s always beautiful, but there’s something about the way her mind works—the intensity, the determination—that mesmerizes me.

I sit across from her with my own laptop. She’s scrolling through the list my team curated. Eighty-seven names. Faculty, staff, third parties and janitors who have worked at or for the school during her time. Even their male family members are included. Anyone with a dick is on that list.

Her fingers work methodically, making notes in the margins of a notebook beside her. Her pen taps against her bottom lip every few seconds, rubbing there, instead of her usual index fingers.

She has no idea she’s wasting her time.

The stalker isn’t some creepy professor or administrator from the school.

The man who has been watching her, following her, leaving those twisted little gifts and notes, killing for her, brings her coffee and takes her out to dinner.

The man in her mind she’s secretly building a future with and hopes she can trust to keep her safe.

Detective Jacob Torrance.

How could she see that footage of the man in the hoodie and deny the truth?

She even made me verify Morrison’s whereabouts at the time of the breach, and I complied.

She spoke to Marcus directly, and he sent her the security footage of every single detail on Martha’s Vineyard.

None of them left the house. Marcus confirmed, beyond doubt, that he was doing rounds at the time of the breach and personally accounted for each detail.

Still, she sifts through names like she’s chasing ghosts. Her brows hook deeper with each scroll, each note she scribbles. She’s trying to solve a puzzle that’s already been solved, refusing to look at the piece that fits too perfectly.

I’d laugh if I didn’t want to put my fist through a wall.

I get up and lean against the kitchenette counter, arms crossed, pretending to make coffee.

What I’m really doing is maintaining a casual distance while I study every micro-expression that crosses her face.

The way her eyebrows furrow when she seems to recognize a name.

The slight shake of her head when she dismisses someone as unlikely.

The unconscious way she worries her lower lip with her teeth when she’s deep in thought.

She’s so focused, so trusting in the process. If only she knew how close the truth really is.

I’ve suspected Torrance for weeks. The timing of his arrival in her life, his transfer to Oak Bluff right when the stalking escalated.

The way he always seems to show up just after an incident, playing the concerned protector.

The convenient way evidence keeps appearing and disappearing.

The access he has to police databases and equipment.

But suspecting and proving are two different things.

I thought capturing him on screen would be enough, but Birdie won’t let herself believe Torrance, the man she’s allowed herself to trust, to dream with again, is her stalker because then the world she’s built around him collapses, and she’s not ready for that kind of ruin, not after every other man in her life has let her down.

She glances up suddenly, catching me staring. “Find something interesting on the wall behind me?”

Heat creeps up my neck. “Just thinking.”

“About what?”

I need Torrance gone. Whether he is the stalker or not.

Not just because he’s a threat to her safety, though that would be reason enough.

I need him gone because every day she stays with him, every day she looks at him with those trusting eyes and accepts his protection, is another day she’s not seeing me.

She sets down her pen and stretches, her sweater riding up slightly to reveal a strip of pale skin above her jeans.

I force myself to look away. “Any names stand out?”

“A few.” She turns the laptop screen toward me.

“Mr. Henley, head of my department, was eerily supportive during Aaron’s fiasco.

Sam Crane, a fellow teacher, seemed a little too interested in my personal life during office hours.

And there was this IT guy, Sumesh Kapur, who always made weird comments when I needed help with computer issues. ”

I scan the names she’s highlighted, knowing none of them are right.

However, I nod instead of walking over to her, shaking her and telling her it’s fucking Torrance.

She’d defend him. Make excuses. Maybe even stop trusting me entirely.

I need to be smarter than that. I need to let her discover the truth herself, or at least think she has.

“I’ll cross-reference their whereabouts this year—airports, ferries, credit card activity—and see if any of them has set foot in Massachusetts. ”

She scoffs.

“What?” I ask.

“You’ve done that already, haven’t you?”

Insulting her intelligence with a pathetic lie won’t do me any good.

“We…have. Yes. My team vetted all of them. That’s why it took a little longer to get the full list.” I point at the screen.

“See, the names are color-coded based on the information we found. The green ones are clear, yellow ones are inconclusive and the red ones are the names that couldn’t be traced. ”

She turns the laptop back to her side. “Two greens and one yellow.”

“Which one is yellow? I’ll double che—”

“No, you won’t. You think this list is a waste of time.”

“Nonetheless, I’ll look into any name you suspect myself, Birdie. You have my word.”

Our eyes meet across the space between us, and for a moment, something electric passes between us. Understanding, maybe. Or just the weight of secrets—hers she doesn’t know she’s keeping, mine I can’t afford to tell.

She leans forward. “Where are the students?”

“Hmm?”

“The list of students that were enrolled in the school when I taught there. They’re not included in the list you gave me.”

Clearing my throat, I retreat to the coffee maker. “That was a harder list to make.”

“The hard lists are usually the important ones.”

Nothing gets past Birdie Abel. “You’re absolutely right.”

“Please tell me you have that list. I’d flip if I had to wait again—”

“I have it, Birdie. I just didn’t want to overwhelm you with all the names. It’s a much bigger list than the one you have. How about you finish going through the names you have and then I’ll send the rest?”

She looks back at the screen. “Just send it over, Tristan.”

I pull my phone out of my pocket with a sigh and send her the file. “As you wish. The names are segregated by class. The ones you taught and the ones you didn’t. Their family members are included, too. Same color code applies. Knock yourself out.”

She’s writing down notes again, back to her methodical search. I pour two cups of coffee and set one beside her laptop. She doesn’t look up, but when she reaches for it, our fingers brush.

It’s barely a touch—skin against skin for less than a second—but it detonates something in me, like my body has been waiting for this exact contact.

The effect is immediate and devastating.

My pulse kicks up. Heat spreads from the point of contact like wildfire through my veins.

That single brush of her fingers is enough to unravel me, and yet I crave it. I ache for it.

I want to grab her hand, hold it, feel the warmth of her palm against mine. I want to thread my fingers through hers and never let go.

Instead, I step back like I’ve been burned.

Soon, I promise myself. Soon, I’ll have more than a fleeting touch and scorched tension. Soon, she’ll know the truth about everything, who she can and can’t trust.

Soon, she will be mine. Once Torrance is out of the picture, once she realizes what he really is, she will be mine.

Going back to my own computer, my mind races through the possibilities. I need evidence against Torrance, something solid enough to convince her. Something that can’t be explained away by coincidence or circumstance or by a skilled liar with a badge.

I need something irrefutable. Something that will shatter her faith in him completely.

His phone records, maybe. Financial information. Travel logs that match up with the stalking incidents. Where the fuck has he transferred from? Why can’t I find those records anywhere?

I read somewhere that cops sometimes work under different aliases for security reasons, like if they work on sensitive cases that put targets on their backs.

What if Torrance transferred after one of those cases and Jacob Torrance isn’t his real name?

That must be why the precinct won’t reveal his information, and his name doesn’t pop up in any database.

Puta madre, why haven’t I thought of that?

A text from Marcus buzzes with an update on the Torrance situation. I’ve had him digging deeper into Detective Douchebag’s background, looking for anything that might serve as proof.

The text says one thing. Torrance isn’t at the precinct. He’s been on emergency leave since yesterday.

Could you be any more sus, pelotudo?

In front of me, Birdie makes another note.

She’ll exhaust every lead there first before seeing what’s right in front of her.

She’s trying so hard to solve this puzzle, to find safety in logic and lists and methodical investigation.

She doesn’t understand that some monsters can’t be caught with spreadsheets and color-coded databases.

Some monsters wear badges and bring you coffee and wish you goodnight.

While she’s chasing shadows in academic databases, I’ll be gathering the real evidence she needs. The kind that will bring her back to me, where she belongs.