Page 175 of Forever Relentless

“If she were assaulted or hurt under my roof, there would be hell to pay. She was in the locker room; there are no cameras there. There are cameras everywhere else.” He held my look. “I watched every tape, every angle, she went in, alone. It was empty. No one else came in or out; the last person to leave that locker room left it three hours before she was even in this building. The building was closed. She came out dressed exactly the same, no signs of struggle. No signs of a fight. Tiffany Preacher was alone in there.”

“No.”

“Yes.” He looked away. “We searched every inch of that place. That one of my team could hurt her, like she said she was hurt? Not on my watch. Not in my house. No fucking way. We searched it. The police searched it. We found only one piece of physical evidence of her in there, and one circumstantial.”

He waited, and I needed to know. “Do I have to guess?”

He gave me a flat, unimpressed glare. “There were secretions on the bench outside Sterling’s locker.”

Secretions? “What does that mean?”

“We don’t know, but it is likely,” he looked repulsed. “The police believed she’d . . . pleasured herself there.”

I didn’t have anything to say to that. “No. She was hysterical. Traumatized.”

“We also found her underwear in Sterling’s bag.”

“What?”

“The female officer who pulled them from his bag said they were fresh. They think she left them as a souvenir.”

I couldn’t think. This is not what I was expecting. “Are you saying she broke in, masturbated, and then slipped her underwear into his bag?”

“That was the conclusion the police came to, yes.”

“Why did no one say anything?” I demanded.

“Because she was gone that night! She tried to file three statements, but not one of them made sense. Sterling was insistent that he take her home, so I let them go.” He shook his head, looking out at the quiet office outside. “I let them go.” He sighed. “Nothing happened to her. If something did, it didn’t happen here. It didn’t happen that night.”

“You paid her off.”

He laughed. He tipped his head back and laughed. “Who the fuck told you that? That is utter bullshit.”

I’d guessed it. And right now, I couldn’t remember if Diana or Briar confirmed it.

“Why didn’t you tell Mason this?” I demanded.

“I never saw that boy again. He stayed away. Hell, he wouldn’t talk or take a call after that car crash. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have said he was guilty.” He glanced back at me. “After the car crash, he dropped out. Gone.”

This was too much information. “I can’t process all this.” I looked up at him. “There is no way in hell you’re the good guy here.”

Sutherland chuckled. “No. I’m not the good guy. But I don’t let sexual predators or rapists in my building.”

Either Sutherland was the best liar I’d ever met . . . or we’d got it all wrong.

And I hated it, but I believed him. Fuck, I really did.

Maybe Tiffany hadn’t been attacked in that locker room. Maybe Mason hadn’t been framed the way we thought. Maybe every piece of the story we’d built had been wrong.

But a girl had still died.

And everyone in this building had still found a way to survive it except her.

He tapped the desk. “The posts come down. Your roommates reel in their attitude. The Sterling girl goes quietly. Be the leader in the outside world that you are on the field.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. I didn’t know what to do.

“I need to think.”