Page 86 of Unspoken Confessions
“She had an in with one of the guards at the gate. She got him to plant a device on the SUV once she figured out we’d be there for a while. He did it while checking you on the way in from when you took Nick off-sight to jog.” I remembered that day. The guard made sure to get close to the SUV, so close that he leaned his arm on the top of the door frame as he insisted on checking my license. Fuck! “She got him to put one on Nick’s and Jen’s cars too. Remy is going to head out there and remove them later. I sent Nick a text letting him know and told him we’d take care of it. Guess it doesn’t much matter now, though.”
I grunted, thinking back to how I could have missed that. I checked the SUV a few times to make sure there hadn’t been a GPS tracker put on.
“I see you thinking about it. Remy found it on top, hidden on the inside of the roof rack.”
Right, because who checks the roof for shit like that. Fuck.
“Remy said it was high quality one too, long battery life.” I glared at him and he cleared his throat. “Right, sorry. Anyway.”
There was a long stretch of silence. I stared down at the folder willing my hand to shift through the pages.
“Look, I know you want to beat yourself up about this whole fucking thing,” he said and I cut my eyes up to look at him. “But everyone is fine. Nick is safe. Jen will heal. The lady and her baby weren’t injured. Reed is going to take care of them and Nick has his life back. You’re out of that job you didn’t want to do in the first place. So there’s no need for you to hold on to anything.”
“I’m still having to deal with you,” I shot back. He let out a short laugh under his breath and then shrugged. “And a woman is dead.”
“Yeah,” he said looking a little lost on how to make that part of it sound like a good thing. “We all make choices. Okay, fine, maybe she wasn’t right in the head. Maybe she needed help. But either way, she chose to pull a gun. She chose to shoot at him. And, now, I’m no psycho analyst person—”
“You mean psychologist?” I cut in, my brows pinched together in a way that said he was crazy.
“That too,” he went on without missing a beat. “But she was fucked up. She was going to kill him. Hell, the way she was staring you down, she was probably going to kill you too. She was there. She saw you protecting him. And she was probably threatened that you were protecting him from her. Then she saw you get close. Oh, yeah, she is the one that took those pictures, by the way. There’s a whole bunch Remy was able to get off her phone.”
I snapped into work mode because if I thought about all the shit he was laying on me, I was sure I’d lose it. I’d end up back at Nick’s, raving about how I was never going to let him out of my sight. And I’d beat myself up for not being more forceful when we suspected it was her.
I was done listening, but apparently Remy and Austin had been having an in-depth conversation back there about all the things Remy had found.
I saw the look in his eyes like he was just waiting for me to ask.
“What else did he find?” Yeah, I took the bait.
“A lot.” His eyes went wide like he still couldn’t believe some of the shit he’d heard or seen. I wanted to know, but at the same time, I didn’t know if I could handle it. “Not to make light of it because it’s fucked up, but I can see how it was easy for her to ask her step-father to get her into… that place. I don’t know and I’d rather not think about it. Remy said there’s pages of messages between her and her step-father. Not the family-way kind. And it seems that whatever happened with her and her step-father or the fact that he ended it, sent her on this spiraling path that led her to do what she did. Not making excuses for her actions, but I guess I’m saying I can see how… never mind.”
He pointedly snapped his mouth closed and shook his head.
As much as I wanted to figure out why she’d done thing, why she’d targeted Nick, I knew there were too many pieces we’d never have. Seemed too simple to chalk it up to ‘she was batshit crazy’ and maybe a little disappointing, too. But she was dead and all the wishing and wanting wouldn’t help us understand why things had played out the way they had.
It was over and that was what I needed to focus on.
“I’m headed out with Cade in a bit.” I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to say that. The only excuse I could come up with was that I desperate to move the conversation somewhere else.
“Jumping right back in, huh? Think that’s the best idea?”
“It’s what I need to do right now,” I said flatly.
He nodded as he rocked back on his heels.
“You want to come along?” I asked and hated myself instantly.
“Did you really just ask me that? For a moment there, it sounded as if you voluntarily offered to work with me.” He smiled wide and though it looked so fucking cocky that I wanted to punch him in the face, I studied it hard for a long moment. Just under the surface was a ray of hope. Like he’d secretly wished all this time that, at some point, I’d want to work with him.
“Do you want to go or not?” I asked instead of acknowledging anything that I’d just figured out.
“Fuck yeah.”
“Don’t make me regret asking you,” I grunted.
“I promise to be on my best behavior.” And with that, he lazily saluted me, turned around, and walked off. It was probably smart that he’d left before I had the chance to change my mind.
What the hell was I thinking?
More importantly, why was I slightly smiling and feeling a little relieved at this tiny breakthrough that we’d just had?
