Cruel Fortune (Cruel 2)

“Rowe!” I called as I let Totle off the leash, who took off running.

A muffled reply came from his office and then a laugh. I followed behind Totle and found Rowe exactly where I’d expected him, sitting at a white minimalist desk covered with computer monitors. He’d pulled Totle into his lap. No one was immune to my dog’s charms.

Rowe nodded his head at me as the only invitation to enter his sacred workspace. I stepped across the hardwood floor and sank into a bare white chaise that never got used.

“What’s up?” I asked.

Rowe shrugged. “Work. Shit. You know.”

“I do.”

“You’re here for a reason,” Rowe said intuitively.

Totle curled up in his lap and promptly fell asleep. Ridiculous dog.

“I can’t just visit?”

“I’m not Lewis.”

I snorted. “No, you’re not.”

Rowe went back to his keyboard, typing away at the speed of light. The best part about Rowe was that he always gave me space. He never forced me to talk when I wasn’t ready. He never expected conversation when it was better held with silence. He sometimes missed social cues and was entirely obsessed with his creation and all things tech. But he was a great guy, a great friend.

“So,” I said a few minutes later.

Rowe arched an eyebrow.

“Katherine paid me a visit.”

“Pleasant.”

“Yeah. I guess Natalie is in town, and she was photographed at Club 360 with Jane Devney. Katherine came to gloat.”

“Huh.” Rowe slid his chair down to face another monitor and started typing. “This?” He swiveled the monitor, so I could get a good look at it and see Natalie’s face blown up on an enormous computer screen.

“Yeah,” I said softly.

“And you want me to look her up?”

“No.” I sighed and met his gaze. “Yes.”

“Cool.”

“Wait, no. She has me blocked on Crew. If she wanted me to know that she was in New York, then she would have told me, right? Clearly, she doesn’t want me to know.”

“I think, if you’d wanted someone to tell you no, then you would have gone to Lark. But you came here instead.”

He was right. Damn it. I hated how well he knew me sometimes.

“Yeah, but is it a breach of privacy?”

Rowe’s smile was strictly villainous. “If people wanted privacy, they wouldn’t put everything on the internet.”

We all had our own moral qualms. Mine always dealt with sensuality and sex. Katherine’s was in her cunning, devious scheming. Lewis’s was his obsessions and how quickly he could destroy them. Lark had long since relinquished that side of her personality, but at one point, she could manipulate people better than even Katherine. Better than even me.

But Rowe. Rowe’s had everything to do with technology. And the way people used it and how he could use it to bring others down.

“And anyway, no one can block me on Crew.”

Put that way, it was mildly terrifying. I was glad he was on my side.

“I don’t know if it’s ethical.”

“Did you want moral advice or tech support?” Rowe asked. He leaned back in his chair and stroked Totle’s head. “Morality isn’t really my area of expertise, Professor.”

I wavered on a precipice. Did I give in and find out what she was doing here? Or wait around in perpetuity, wondering?

Rowe shrugged and turned away from me, back toward the computer. “I’m too damn curious now. You can watch over my shoulder or not.”

His fingers flew across the keys. And I knew that he was giving me an out. He was going to do it either way. So, I might as well find out. And I struggled with my own moral issues. They’d gotten me to this place with Natalie to begin with. But fuck, I needed to know.

“All right. Here’s her account,” he said.

I leaned in and watched the last year of her life scroll past on the screen. It took about a minute.

“What the hell?”

He pulled up a side screen that featured her activity. “Looks like she’s gone dormant. The account is active, but she’s not on it. Her last sign-in was several months ago.”

“Why would she do that?”

He didn’t say anything. We both knew the reason anyway. Me.

“She’s added a handful of connections. Let me check those out.” He skimmed through the new people she’d added to her account. “Almost all of these are from Charleston. One lives in Savannah and one in New York City. Does the name Gillian Kent sound familiar?”

I shook my head. “Never heard of her.”

Click.

We entered Gillian’s profile.

“She’s an editor for Warren,” Rowe said.

My eyes narrowed further in confusion. “Why would Natalie be friends with a Warren editor? Do you think she published a book?”

Rowe pulled up a second screen and searched to see if there was any news of Natalie publishing, but it came up empty. “Doesn’t look like it.” He went back to Gillian’s profile and did a cursory scan. “But…”

He zoomed in on a picture she’d posted yesterday at Club 360. It was a full party with a giant sign that read, Congratulations, Olivia. I scanned the picture but didn’t see Natalie or Jane in attendance.