Noah turned white.
Hunter looked at his watch. “I have a car coming in five minutes.” He swept the car keys across the table until Noah had to catch them or watch them fall to the floor. “I have a bodyguard and a private investigator watching your son. Both are ready to take him on my call. What’s it going to be, Daddy?”
Noise from behind him had Hunter turning around. “What’s it going to be, Noah?”
Sherman Blackwell stood, scruffy faced and more than a little worn around the edges as he fixed his eyes on the two of them. How much of the conversation he’d heard, Hunter couldn’t say . . . but from the look in the older man’s eyes, it was enough to understand the severity of the situation.
Noah grasped the briefcase and opened it. Inside were stacks of hundreds . . . it paid to have business associates who owned casinos, where cash could be removed and IOUs given.
Noah took two stacks of bills, shoved them in his pocket, and closed the case. He tapped his hands alongside it and said, “For Sheila. I’ll keep her with me until I hear from you. If I leave her here, there’s no telling what she’ll do.”
With the briefcase in one hand, the keys to the Jeep in another, Noah stood.
“Go to John Wayne Airport. I’ll call my people.”
“Who’s Neil?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll be in touch.”
Noah hesitated as he passed their father, and then disappeared behind the door.
Sherman crossed the room, opened the fridge, and pulled a beer he didn’t need from the box. “What’s this about a wife?”
Chapter Thirty
Hunter finally pulled into the gates as the sun was setting.
Gabi was livid.
He stepped from the back of the car and opened his arms to all the activity. “What’s going on?”
With one hand on her hip, and anger in her words, she told him the only reasonable thing she could. “Chaos! Chaos I’m dealing with alone because you’re too busy to bother.”
“I had something to take care of.”
Gabi rolled her eyes and twisted away.
Neil and company had descended on her home like locusts. The garland around the door had been stripped away; the Christmas tree in the living room nearly decimated as they searched for God only knew what.
Neil . . . Lord only knew how Gwen put up with his quiet tight ass. The man offered nothing.
While a team looked over every strand of lights, every inch of garland . . . every decoration she’d had the staff place a few days before, Neil and a few others were inside poking in every nook and cranny of the house.
Before she could make it back inside, the man of the hour met them both out the front door.
“We found bugs that don’t belong to us.”
Gabi stood motionless.
Hunter wasn’t. “Where?”
“Inside the TVs. Audio for the guest room, the master bedroom . . . video with audio in the living room.”
The hair on Gabi’s arms stood up. “Someone has been listening to us? Watching us?”
Hunter was livid. “How did this happen?”
“Sophisticated equipment placed inside the televisions. The technology isn’t something I’ve seen before. My equipment didn’t pick it up. And my stuff picks up an out of place ant.”
Gabi grabbed Neil’s thick arm. “Do you think the deceased boy placed the bugs?”
“I think it’s a high probability. Obviously not for his gain since he ended up dead.”
“Can you trace the feeds?” Hunter asked.
“The transponder looks Internet enabled.”
“If we turn off our Internet, it will stop reporting feeds?”
“I’d need a lab to see if it holds its own hotspot.”
“So whoever is listening . . . watching . . . could be anywhere in the world?” Gabi asked.
“But close enough to rig your car and know when you come and go. No, my gut says whoever did this is physically close.”
Gabi pinched her eyes with her free hand. “What a nightmare.”
“We’ve removed the bugs and are searching for more.”
“Won’t the police want to know about the bugs?”
“I’ll tell them,” Neil said as he turned away. “Eventually.”
He moved back into the house, leaving Gabi and Hunter standing in the driveway.
“You should be resting,” he told her.
“And you should be here. I realize this marriage is a complete farce, but you could at least pretend to care.” She turned, not letting him reply. Instead of moving into the master bedroom full of bugs and men stripping the room, she detoured to the guest room that was void a television and slammed the door.
She flopped on the bed, instantly regretted the force with which she landed, and propped her broken arm on a pillow.