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Ripley shook his head. “Too dangerous for me right now. I can’t blow my cover with my other targets. Besides, somebody needs to stay here with you.”

Carrie smiled wryly. “Yeah, I guess Tom isn’t much in the way of protection.”

“I heard that,” Tom said from his place in front of the laptop.

Ripley shook his head. “Nope. Somebody has to make sure you behave,” he said with a wink. A memory of Peter telling her Ripley would have paddle her ass for putting herself in danger had he known she was his came rushing back to her.

“I guess I shouldn’t stick my tongue out at you then,” she said.

Ripley just shook his head and laughed. “Can I tell you a story? I kind of overheard Peter being a jackass on his way out the door.”

“I don’t care about that right now,” Carrie said as she choked on a sob. “I just want him to be OK.”

Ripley put his arm around her. “He will be. He’s a tough cookie.”

“I guess if we have time to kill, I’ll listen to a story.”

“Peter’s dad was a police detective in the city.”

Carrie nodded. She knew that much.

“Several years ago, not long after Peter fell for Gina Whitman, his dad went undercover to try and take down a drug dealer. It was personal. Pam, his youngest daughter had fallen in with a bad crowd and this dealer had her hooked on drugs. Detective Mercer’s partner was a color outside the lines kind of guy if he thought it would help clean up the streets. Things went terribly wrong and several police officers died in a raid, including Mercer’s partner. But it turns out the partner had set up the raid without proper paperwork.”

Carrie scrunched her nose and forehead. “That all sounds really shitty but what does Gina Whitman have to do with this?”

Ripley patted her head. “Patience, little one. I’m getting there.”

She smacked his arm away and said, “Only Peter gets away with calling me that.”

“Fair enough. Whitman had a short-lived show on one of the local channels. She had been following a string of misconduct stories in the police department. She set her sights on Peter’s dad because she had bad intel that told her he was the source of the misconduct that led to the illegal raid.”

Carrie closed her eyes because she was pretty sure she knew what he was going to say next.

“Peter tried to set her straight, but she wouldn’t listen. To make matters worse, she convinced Detective Mercer and his wife to do a sit-down interview. It was her status as their son’s girlfriend that persuaded them to say yes. I wasn’t in country, so I didn’t see the footage, but apparently she did a hatchet job on the footage and made both of them look like really shitty people.”

Carrie’s mouth dropped. That didn’t sound like Gina at all, vicious sometimes but to alter footage that way? That was incomprehensible. “Peter told me she got his sister killed. I don’t understand.”

“Oh, that’s where the story gets really nasty. Gina was convinced that his dad was dirty, but after the initial interview happened, Peter went to a competing news agency and told them about her being his ex-girlfriend and that she had a conflict of interest thinking it would make her back off. She backed off, but not before she passed all her notes to another news agency. They ran with the story—including the part about Detective Mercer being on the path of vengeance for his little girl’s drug problem. Pam not only saw the story, but she got harassed endlessly. She’d been trying to get clean for a few months, but the harassment caused her to relapse and she overdosed. Some people think it was on purpose. ”

Carrie blew out a long breath. “Boy, I stepped on all kinds of his triggers tonight. Now I feel like an asshole,” she said.

Ripley shook his head. “Peter needs to heal from that and realize that not every member of the press is like Gina Whitman and not every news organization is predatory.”

Ripley’s phone buzzed, and he stood to answer it. Carrie held her breath, praying for good news about Peter.

He looked a little grim when he ended the call. “They found the location where Peter is being held, but they don’t have a safe way to rescue him just yet. Looks like it could be a long night.”

Carrie texted Olivia and Darci and asked them to come and keep her company while she waited. A half hour later, Olvia was on Gage’s doorstep.

“Come here, you,” she said, pulling her into a hug.

“I didn’t mean for you to leave work early,” Carrie whispered as she laid her head on her friend’s chest.

“Are you crazy? My good friend is hurting and needs me.”

Carrie felt a twinge of hurt that Darci still hadn’t called her or checked in.

They walked into the living room together. Olivia paused when she saw Ripley, who was staring at her.

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