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“Very fast.” Blake nodded. “Which meant they were actively watching those accounts.”
She reached out and turned one monitor toward him. “I saved this before the crash. At the time, I thought maybe the system had gone down for the usual maintenance.”
“You don’t anymore?” He leaned forward, studying the timestamp.
“After what happened to Carol?” Her brows rose high. “Not a chance.” Devon pointed to an entry near the bottom of the screen. “The maintenance process started before I lost access. Could be normal, but I’d like to know for sure what triggered it.”
Blake examined the record without touching her keyboard. She appreciated that he didn’t try to take over. He simply waited while she walked him through what she’d found.
“There’s no other user attached,” he observed.
“Exactly. But there is a reference number. Which, I know, might lead us absolutely nowhere.”
“Or somewhere.”
Devon’s attention returned to her screen. They chose to divide and conquer. Blake worked through archived system documentation while she compared timestamps and access data.
The office seemed to settle around them as they worked. The faint hum of computers joined footsteps in the hallway and the occasional voice in the distance.
For the first time in a while, Devon truly felt like she was doing something that truly mattered.
Not that she hadn’t been useful before. She’d gone to college, then built a business from scratch, solving problems for clients who came to her for help. But walking someone through a few troubleshooting steps and using her skills to bring a killer to justice were two very different things.
Beside her, Blake muttered something about cutting the delivery person’s tip if they didn’t hurry up and show. Devon grinned but then spotted a line of text that made her straighten.
“Hold on.”
Blake swiveled his seat toward her. “What’ve you got?”
“The maintenance process didn’t just run. It requested a status report first.”
“On what?”
“An alert queue. I can’t see the contents but look at the time.”
He compared the entries, his expression turning sharp. “That request came in while you were still connected to Carol’s account.”
Devon’s stomach tightened because he was right. Someone had been alerted to her presence in the system while she was still on the phone with Carol.
“They were alerted the minute I got in.” She slid her gaze to his. “That could be how they knew Carol was involved. She’d given me permission to use her account to gain access.”
Blake’s pretty blue eyes turned solemn. “Dev.”
“I know what you’re going to say, and I don’t blame myself for what happened to her.” Not fully, anyway. “She had a problem, and it was my job to help her fix it. If she really was murdered, that’s on her killer.” She swallowed. “Not me.”
It had taken months to let go of the guilt she’d carried after her abduction. Being used as bait to lure your best friend into a deadly trap could do that to a person.
Through time, countless prayers, therapy sessions, and meaningful conversations with both Janie and Blake, Devon had finally realized she wasn’t to blame for what happened. And she wasn’t about to shoulder the burden of an innocent woman’s death because someone else chose to have her killed.
“I just want to know who did this,” she murmured.
“So do I.” Blake’s voice was quiet. But something hard lay beneath it when he added, “We’re going to keep looking.”
A knock sounded at the partially open door. Claire Sullivan stood outside with a folder tucked against her chest.
“Sorry to interrupt, but I have the updated visitor procedures Emmett asked me to distribute.” Her gaze shifted to Devon. “And I wanted to make sure you had everything you needed.”
“I’m good, thanks.” Devon smiled. “Although I might steal this chair.”
