Page 27 of Filthy Liar

This city is rocked by scandal on a weekly basis.

As a reporter, I cover the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The ugly is so much more common than anyone realizes. At any given moment, someone is drifting shell-shocked through everyone else’s regular life, but atthismoment, it’smysomeone, and that’s so much harder than the academic understanding that bad things happen all the time.

Stiff and silent, Caroline sits beside me holding her jacket together. I tried to get her to change, but she’d been the smart one. “They’ll need to take my clothes as evidence,” she said.

So strong. I’d have crawled into the shower and washed it all away. Once upon a time, I’d have known better, but the last few years have done a number on me. On my faith in the system to treat any survivor with dignity, or to deliver any kind of justice when it comes to sexual assault.

We’d talked for a hot minute about going straight to the hospital or calling the metro police, but as much as we trust Detective Browning, it would only take one person slipping and the story would spin out of control.

So now we’re going to the lions’ den because they’ll rip the heart out of anyone who dares to hurt us.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. The saying felt like the truth until my friend was wronged.

Now I want vengeance.

Familiar nausea rises, threatening to paint the inside of the cab. My skin crawls at the thought of owing Jason a favor. But he’ll find a way for Caroline to report this rape to the authorities on the quiet and get her in and out of a hospital without any media attention. He has all the connections I don’t, that I could have had but gave up to be a rogue freelance journalist. Now I’m a nobody.

So despite all my misgivings, I gave the cabbie the address I know by heart.

Once upon a time, for a brief, hot summer, that address held my hopes and dreams. Now… well, it’s been a while since I’ve stepped through the door. So that complicates this a bit.

Never before has the phrase “the devil you know” been more appropriate.

I sigh and squeeze Caroline’s hand, careful to avoid pressing on the nasty bruise developing around her wrist. She has a matching one around her neck, and while I haven’t seen them, I know she’s got matching ones on the insides of her thighs.

She should be able to call in the FBI to protect her here. She can’t, and that makes my blood boil.

Vengeance looks pretty good right now.

I drive that thought deep, hiding it beneath what Caroline actually needs. Support and steadiness.

We turn the corner.

Cole Parker is in front of the building, watching for us. My former boss. He steps forward as the cab rolls to a stop and opens the door, helping Caroline out of the car. I can see his eyes taking in her battered appearance. The bruises. The ripped shirt. The scratches on her legs. She was wearing almost everything she’d had, except her underwear.Because they’d been so badly torn, they’d fallen off her as she vomited into the toilet.She’d told me to find her the big granny panties she wore when she was on her period, because she knew she’d be turning those over, too. I have the ripped ones in a Ziploc bag in the sling bag I wear across my body.

“Let’s get you upstairs,” he says quietly. A total contrast to his bulky special forces build and the cold, killer stare he’s perfected. I relax for the first time in two hours.

Their offices occupy the second and third floors of the three-story building, above a closed coffee shop, a 24-hour copy place, and a laundromat. Nothing has changed in five years.

Well, everything has changed.

But their offices are the same.

We take the waiting elevator, the seconds ticking by quietly as we ascend to the third floor. Cole uses his keycard to open the doors when we arrive.

As soon as the elevator doors open, I know Jason is here. I can’t look at him just yet, so I fix my gaze on the familiar space. Behind the desk—mydesk, once upon a time, before I fucked everything up by taking my panties off for the man I’m not looking at, and fell for him, and gave up the first scoop of my career—is a passive-looking young fellow.

Is he who he says he is? Would they ever be tricked again? No. Jason would have been furious when he discovered I wasn’t the community-college-grad Ellie. Livid that he hadn’t seen through my documents, that the fake ID I’d paid so handsomely for had actually put one over on the great Horus Group brain trust.

Pivoting, I sweep the lobby until I register where Jason is standing in the doorway to the main conference room. What is he thinking? Did he ever miss me here, or was I nothing once I was gone—collateral damage. Cut losses.

Two can play that game. I keep going, seeing what’s the same and what’s different in the space, but I stop my assessment before I get to his office at the end of the hall where we first had sex.

His hands on my hips, inching my skirt up to my waist. The wet press of his mouth on my neck. The hard brand of his—

“Ellie,” he says, his voice hard and sharp.

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