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In any case, I was at a loss. Purpose burned inside of me, but I had no direction in which to steer all this energy.
The phone in my pocket buzzed, and I answered it greedily, anxious for anything that could get me out of the circles I was walking in.
“Hey, Noah,” I said, answering. “Any luck?”
The investigator’s voice was gruff. “I have something you might find interesting. The target spoke with someone today who slipped her an envelope filled with money.”
“What?”
It was about time she branched away from her mundane existence.
“Their conversation took place in an arcade, so it was too noisy for me to get close or overhear what they spoke of. She peeked inside the envelope, and then, once she was in her car, I was able to see her pull several stacks of hundred-dollar bills from within.
“I can’t be sure without seeing for myself, but I would guess it held at least ten thousand dollars.”
I whistled. That was no ordinary transaction.
“They were buying her out? For what?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. I’ll keep looking into it.”
Who could Pris have been meeting with? I needed to talk to Ella. She might have some ideas.
The night Pris had attacked Ella, she had said something about me. About how I wasn’t at liberty to be with her or anyone else.
Not for the first time, I had a sneaking suspicion that this had something to do with The Pact.
I didn’t want to be skeptical. I didn’t live by gut feelings the way Adrian claimed to, but I had an unmistakable feeling about this.
“Did you get a picture of the man she met with?” I asked.
“He wore a mask and a hoodie,” Noah said. “Check your email. I’ve sent you the images I was able to take from their interaction.”
While still on the call, I sank against one of my office’s leather seats and examined the pictures within the email Noah had sent. Sure enough, I recognized Priscilla Malus stalking between brightly colored arcade games and sliding into the table near the frozen yogurt bar.
The man she met with kept his head down. He wore orange surgical gloves on his hands, a surgical mask, and the hood of his sweatshirt was pulled up to cover his eyes.
I swore. This would do us little good if we couldn’t see what the tool looked like.
“Do you have any techniques for discerning situations like this?” I asked. “Did you follow him or anything?”
“He slipped away. My tail was Miss Malus, so I kept tabs on her, sir. It was how I knew there was so much money in the envelope.”
I swore again. “Sounds like I need someone tailing whoeverthis guy is now.”
The problem would be finding out who he was in the first place. And to get this douche to stop tailing us.
Who was he? Who did he have in his network?
Before their wedding, Gabby had been attacked. Adrian had mentioned dissolving The Pact, but then he’d gotten swept up in his wedding plans. We’d tried looking into the Wolf Industries company that he suspected had been involved as well, only to meet dead ends with each supposed new lead.
Then we’d gotten lazy. Like me, Adrian had assumed that, with Will back behind bars, the attacks would stop.
I couldn’t ignore the facts. Pris had known about The Pact. Since I didn’t know her from Adam, she’d found out about it from someone else. Someone who was keeping tabs on my dating life.
Someone who’d bribed her with large amounts of money to intervene and sabotage Ella on his behalf.
It was all speculation on my end, but I couldn’t help my suspicions.
