Page 11 of Guarded By the SEAL
Teslyn got out of her seat and crossed to the girl, squatting down to her level. “What about your daddy, honey?”
Ivy’s stare was fixed on Wyatt, her brow drawn low over her eyes. “Who’s that?”
“This is my friend, Wyatt. Don’t worry, he’s super nice,” Teslyn lied.
Ivy looked like she wasn’t so sure, and Teslyn quietly deemed the girl an excellent judge of character.
“She said not to tell anybody,” Ivy said to Teslyn. “She said nobody else could know.”
“Nobody else could know what?”
Ivy’s eyes shot to Wyatt, then she leaned forward and whispered in Teslyn’s ear, “That my daddy is a conger man.”
Teslyn shook her head, not understanding. “A conger man?”
Ivy nodded.
Wyatt’s chair squeaked as he rose to a stand. “A congressman, Ivy? Is that what you meant?”
Ivy’s lips flattened into a tight line. Teslyn turned her head, she and Wyatt sharing a concerned look. It wasn’t possible. How could Marilyn evenmeeta congressman, much less sleep with one? There weren’t a whole lot of politicians creeping around the bayou looking for a good time. Still, she shuddered to think what could be at stake if it were true.
Wyatt walked toward them and squatted down beside Ivy, those eyes that had been so steely and frightening just moments before now exuding gentleness and safety as he asked, “Your daddy was a congressman?”
The girl nodded again, her blue eyes wide. “My daddy is a congressman. He lives in Washington, D.C.”
CHAPTER7
The rain had stopped, the backyard of the safe-house now illuminated by a full moon through a thin layer of clouds. Wyatt paced the wet grass, his cell phone in his hand and Logan on the line. “The kid sister says her father is a congressman.”
Logan whistled. “Oh, shit.”
Wyatt’s eyes shot to the second-floor balcony of the main bedroom suite, where Teslyn and Ivy were sleeping. A spiral staircase ran from the balcony to the patio below. “Oh, shit is right. Given Marilyn’s record of prostitution, anything’s possible. But according to Teslyn, the mom said she and the kid’s father went to high school together. See if you can find out where. Marilyn also said she was blackmailing the father to keep Ivy’s existence a secret.”
“She pissed a congressman off enough to kill her,” said Logan. “Seems possible to me.”
“Check her bank accounts. See if the poorest woman in town recently came into some money. I also need you to check into the daughter for me. Teslyn McGregor. If I’m going to be taking her word as gospel on this thing, I need to be sure as hell she isn’t an arsonist or a kidnapper.”
“About that,” hedged Logan. “There’s video of the sisters at a truck stop in Mississippi.”
Wyatt scowled. “How far from here?”
“Eighteen miles.”
“Fuck.” That was nothing. It was damn near next door. “The authorities will be checking hotels and rental properties.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
Wyatt’s already long day was about to get a hell of a lot longer. “We’ll have to get on the road tonight. Put as much distance between that truck stop and these two as possible.”
“So, you believe her?”
Did he? He’d been asking himself that question for the better part of an hour, going over every word Teslyn had said, her body language, and physical tells. He’d been trained to detect lying, but it was an inexact science at best, better to inform other decisions than as proof-positive in and of itself. For the most part, he felt Teslyn was being truthful—but not entirely. When she’d discussed her reasons for leaving her hometown, she’d displayed classic hallmarks of deception.
“I don’t know,” he said.
He was keenly aware he could be arrested, charged, imprisoned. A conviction for aiding and abetting a fugitive would erase everything he’d ever worked for in his life.“She’s lying about something. That’s why I need you to research the hell out of this one, Doc. If Teslyn McGregor has so much as a traffic ticket, I need to know about it. Check into her past in Mississippi, too. Anything that might explain why she left town.”
“You got it.” Logan hung up.
