Page 35 of Rules of Engagement

Chapter Nine

While waiting for Maddox to arrive, I pulled Solomon's phone from my bag. I tapped the screen and it came to life, showing the time and date before it requested the password. "There's a six-digit passcode," I said.

"Your birthday," said Lily. "Or try his birthday."

"That obvious?" I wondered as I tried them both. "Computer says no."

"Isn't that one of those fancy fingerprint reading phones?" asked Lily.

"Yeah. Now that you mention it, I never see Solomon entering a passcode. He just taps it."

"Problem solved," said Lily, pointing at Solomon's hand.

I scooted over and raised Solomon's hand. I pressed his forefinger on the small panel on the phone and the lock screen disappeared. "I feel like such a creep," I said.

"Pah! You'll get over it."

"Do you ever look at Jord's phone?"

"Sure. He looks at mine too. Neither of us care. The passcode is Poppy's birthday on both of our phones. Did you find anything?"

"A really nice photo of us both for his screensaver," I said, turning the screen so Lily could see. The photo had been taken at our recent engagement party and it was a lovely shot, both of us looking terrifically happy.

"Aww," cooed Lily.

I opened Solomon's text messages. He had several conversations available. I ignored mine, having already partaken in those conversations. There were other messages between him and Anastasia, Damien, all the PIs, and Lily. "You and Solomon text?" I asked.

"I helped with the engagement party, remember? Plus, where do you think he got that photo?"

"The party was beautiful." I smiled at the memory, my eyes filling with tears. Solomon had organized it as a surprise and enlisted Lily's help with the subterfuge. I wiped the tears with the back of my hand before they could fall and took a deep breath and continued to scroll through the messages. "There's nothing here. Oh, he sounds slightly annoyed at Damien."

"What does it say?"

"Damien asked him to co-sign a loan and Solomon said no and told him it was time that he stood on his own two feet. Then Damien said he was sorry he asked and it wouldn't happen again. Then there's another one immediately after that where he told Solomon he would regret the opportunity and Solomon replied, it didn't sound like an opportunity and he thought Damien should pull out of the deal." I looked up. "He never mentioned any of this to me."

"It doesn't sound like it's worth shooting someone over."

"No, it doesn't," I agreed, skimming through the other texts. "The stuff between Solomon and the PIs is all case-related. He invited them over when we went out last weekend and there is a group text regarding poker night. Something about taking some time off after we get married. Oh, that's nice! Solomon wants to take me on a long honeymoon."

"I wonder why," said Lily, giving me a big, exaggerated wink.

I didn't want to think about why. Or about when and if, and I didn't want to think about if at all.

"I'm going to check his emails," I said, hitting the mail icon. The mail app took over the screen. I scrolled to the bottom of the screen, then again, and again. There had to be hundreds of emails, if not more, and there was no way I could read every single one. Instead, I moved to his folders, looking for anything that said "threat." There were folders for me and all the employees, others for family members, as well as inactive and active cases. I clicked on a folder marked “personal.” Solomon stored various emails pertaining to us, from gift receipts to reservations and more. I decided not to click on them. Knowing how much he paid for things couldn’t help solve the case in any way.

Lucas probably had programs for searching an email account quickly, but I had to take the longer route. Into the search box, I typed "death threat" and a few results returned, each email marked with a folder and all of them were inactive cases. I clicked through several, noting the death threats had all been issued to the clients. Next, I tried "threat" and the search returned even more emails. Threat assessments, perceived threats, bodily threats, property threats, mouthy threats, and empty threats, but none were apparently aimed at Solomon.

I tried various permutations of threats, including innocuous, abstract, intimidating phrases someone might say like, "you'll get what's coming to you" or "I'll get you for this!" but nothing.

"I should probably leave the email searches to Lucas," I said. "I can't find anything that suggests someone might have threatened him."

"What if no one did? What if someone just waited for an opportunity and took it?"

"Then we'll never find them." I sighed, a terrible sense of hopelessness overwhelming me. "Maybe I should use the million dollar check to pay for another hit man on the dark web for whomever shot Solomon and let someone else deal with it."

"You can do that?" Lily gasped.

"I'm sure someone can. Not me though, even if it is a tempting idea. Plus, it was pointed out that the shooter might not be behind this. Someone might have paid them, but if that's the case, we need to find the shooter and go higher up the food chain." I turned my attention back to the phone, opening app after app, searching notes and documents but eventually tossing it onto the bed in frustration. "This is useless!"

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