Keeley was working on a homework a.s.signment on her computer when she needed to go to the bathroom. Upon her return to the table, Molly had taken her spot and was sprawled across the keyboard.
"Come on, I was using that," she complained. "Move, kitty!"
She tried nudging the cat to no avail. Molly had turned into a statue. Frustrated, Keeley was about to pick her up and move her by force when a pair of arms wrapped around her from behind. Aaron was home.
He slumped over and buried his face in her shoulder. Was he shaking?
"What"s wrong?"
"I might have some bad news," he admitted.
"What kind of bad news?"
"You might want to sit down for this." He led her over to the couch and made sure she was comfortable before continuing.
"Someone sent Cameron a share transfer doc.u.ment today, telling him to congratulate me and consider it a gift. Not only do they know about my dummy shareholders, they seem to know about you."
She sucked in a breath. How? n.o.body knew where Aaron lived and whenever they were out together in public it wasn"t usually the kind of places members of high society would be.
"But if they gave you shares…they must know you"re going against your father. The enemy of your enemy is your friend, right?"
Aaron shook his head. "I would think that if not for the fact that I"m pretty sure it was sent by the man who fathered Lacy"s baby. Because he…he had a hand in killing you."
Keeley"s jaw dropped. He never told her that! Come to think of it, he never told her a thing about the father of Lacy"s baby other than that it wasn"t him.
She hadn"t given any thought to who it might be. With all the information Aaron dumped on her that day, it was low on the list of her priorities.
"I think you"d better explain."
So he did, beginning with how Lacy approached him begging to take responsibility for her baby because someone tricked her into thinking he was Aaron. He knew it was a load of c.r.a.p from the get go. The way she approached it made him think that she knew who the true father of the baby was and that the man had put her up to this to get inside the Hale family.
"…they didn"t know I was planning to send you away to be safe. I"m almost positive they killed you to pave a way for Lacy and that man"s child to end up with me. She threw a fit after you died about me not taking responsibility and my father made all sorts of threats.
"It was a mess. Lacy didn"t back down until I demanded an amniocentesis paternity test. That was when she finally confessed it wasn"t mine. She knew she would be busted anyway and didn"t want an invasive procedure done on her. She went crazy and killed Max shortly afterward."
Keeley had no idea so much drama went down after her death. She knew Lacy killed Max but that was it.
"What makes you think it was sent by the father of Lacy"s baby?"
Aaron rubbed his forehead as if warding off a headache. "Aiden looked into it. The last phone call the former shareholder received was from the same number Lacy has been calling regularly since I publicly humiliated her in April.
"It didn"t belong to anyone in her usual social circle so we got suspicious. I always knew the father of her baby wasn"t in the circle or I would have found him sooner. It"s still just a theory but it makes sense. I have no idea how long they were working together in our last life but it could have been this early."
Keeley frowned. That was an awful lot of speculation but she couldn"t deny it was too coincidental. Knowing Lacy"s nature, she would never a.s.sociate with anyone outside of high society without an excellent reason.
"Who"s your suspect?"
"His name is Graydon Meyer. Have you heard of him? He"s a big name on the tech scene these days."
She hadn"t. Out of curiosity, she pulled out her phone and did a quick search. All of the blood drained out of her face when she saw a picture of him connected to an article. She knew that face.
Graydon Meyer was that guy Gray who helped her with Ryan a couple weeks ago! She even chatted with him briefly about getting married because he noticed her engagement ring. But that shouldn"t have been a problem…unless he already knew who she was beforehand.
"I think this might be my fault," she said in a small voice.
"Why on earth would it be your fault?"
Keeley explained the story briefly and the temperature in the room dropped so drastically that she s.h.i.+vered. She apologized immediately and he thawed on the spot.
"No," Aaron said with a shake of her head. "I"m not mad at you. You said all you did was say you were getting married and what your first name was. There"s no way he would have been able to put that together unless he already knew who you are to me."
But how did he know? They hadn"t exactly been high profile since meeting up again last year. This man must have been looking into Aaron already. The real question was why.
And if Graydon Meyer was involved in her death, why had he helped her out the other day? The pieces weren"t quite fitting together.
"Do you think…something changed on his end in this life? A reason he wouldn"t be against us?"
Aaron frowned. He obviously hadn"t considered that. "But then why would he still be working with Lacy?"
That she didn"t know. She was just tossing out ideas here. None of this made sense. Besides, Aaron and Keeley were the only ones reborn into this timeline. Anyone not directly touched by them should have gone on with their lives in exactly the same way as before.
Or…touched by someone who had been touched by them. There could be a ripple effect going on here.
"I"m not sure. But what if something did change that made it so he"s on our side? You said he congratulated you and gave you a gift that would actually help you out…what if it"s not a threat?" she guessed wildly.