The Alpha’s Fated Choice (Alpha's Fated Encounter Trilogy #1)

None of this makes sense to me. Who was Rita monitoring? What doses? I wonder if Elsa knew about this; the two of them were very close. Confused and alarmed now, I murmur, “What are these messages about?”

“She was a spy,” Alex says thoughtfully. “Do you have any idea who she was spying on?”

I shake my head mutely.

“Did you find the other phone you were talking about?”

I take Rita’s black cell phone out of my pocket and hand it over to Alex. He opens it and then curses. “It’s one of those.”

“One of those what?”

He grimaces as he fiddles with the phone. “Messages delete every twenty-four hours. It’s a new technology out on the market. My own pack security uses it. It’s also password-protected, and if you try the wrong password even once, all the phone’s data is automatically deleted.”

He closes the flip phone, looking irritated. “Well, this was a dead end.”

“Here. Give it to me.”

Alex’s eyes narrow. “Don’t try a random password. I just told you, if you put in the wrong one—”

“Rita used the same password for everything,” I explain, looking at Alex. “I don’t know if she was a spy or not, but even her bank password was the same as her email password. She never really adapted to technology. My gut says that she didn’t take the security aspects of this phone very seriously.”

I type in the name “Elmer,” but before I can press enter, I can feel the tension emitting from Alex.

Becoming exasperated now, I say, “Even if the password is wrong, you said the messages would delete after twenty-four hours. Do you or your people know a way to hack into this phone?”

He lets out a gust of air. “These phones are not hackable. Maybe you’re right. We’ve got nothing to lose.”

I press enter, and almost instantly, the screen changes.

“I’m in.”

Alex gives me a surprised look. Clearly, he hadn’t expected it to work.

“Who’s Elmer?”

“Rita’s deceased husband. He died on the front lines.”

I start to scroll through the phone. The inbox is empty aside from one message. There is no number or name indicating who sent it, but the message by itself is strange.

“If you try to double cross me, remember that I know what happened to Elmer. Give me the identity of that man. This isn’t the time to let your morality shine. Of course, there are ways I can get what I want from you.”

I hand the phone to Alex after reading the message aloud. “You were right. She was up to something here. And retirement wasn’t it.”

Alex is tapping buttons on the phone, and I look over his shoulder to see what he’s doing. He opens a folder, and there’s another message—one that I missed.

“You shouldn’t have warned her.”

Short and simple. But an ominous warning.

I feel sick to my stomach. “What was Rita involved in?”

Alex is silent as he searches the phone for other messages. Unfortunately, these two are the only ones we find.

“What number did she call you from tonight?” Alex asks me.

“Her house phone. She had a landline in her study. Why?”

“I have a feeling this second message is referring to you. What time did you get the call?”