She was out here at the front of the house. Alone. He glanced over her shoulder at the edge of the woods, searching for any suspicious drones in the sky. A potential shooter watching. But as Keenan had mentioned—someone could be watching from a distance.

“I need to go,” she said. “My sister needs me. She was upset when she couldn’t find me after her meeting today.”

I know the feeling. He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out the keys. “Let’s get out of here then.”

“You’re not going to tell your friends goodbye?”

“They’ll understand.”

Once inside the vehicle, he put the ranch behind them for now. “Thanks for coming with me. I’m glad you got a chance to meet Terra and Erin, my closest friends in the world.” He’d just made it sound like he’d taken her to get his friends’ approval. He hadn’t meant it that way. He quickly switched gears. “What did your sister say?”

Mackenzie blew out a breath. “She has postponed the funeral and asked for an autopsy, stating her reasons were due to family genetics. The county coroner didn’t conduct one, just made the call based on Rowan’s heart disease.”

“That will tell you something.” Alex hoped the man wasn’t murdered. The county coroner, Emmett Hildebrand, would call on the Montana state pathologist to do the autopsy, and that would include toxicology. “But it could take a couple of months. Maybe three to get the results.”

“And that’s time I don’t have. If this was murder, we will get justice for my brother. In the meantime, his troubles are over, as the saying goes. My sister is running a tech company now in his place, and she’s walking around scared. I don’t know if her fear is unrelated or if it has to do with the warning about the cybersecurity threat. I need to find out more.”

This all seemed highly unusual for a cybercriminal. At what point did someone who committed crimes with their digital skills turn into a violent criminal who committed actual murder? What had she left out in her explanation to him? Like the memorial vandalism, this felt more . . . personal. He’d give her time to tell him the rest. But not much time.

“How will you do that?”

She leveled her gaze at him. “If I can’t get Nora to let me into the system, then you know what I’m going to do.”

Yep. “Hack into the system to stop or prevent a catastrophic attack. Just what is going on at Hanstech that’s so sensitive?” He might as well get right to it. “Mackenzie . . . do you know who is behind this?”

“No.” The word came out short and clipped.

Why didn’t he believe her?