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Sadie sighed. “That’s why we have to make sure Beck’s body is never found.”
“No,” Jasper said again, his tone dark. Determined.
“What I’d still like to know,” Sadie said, her voice filled with something like pride mixed with amusement, “is how Bonnie found out? The girl didn’t have the brains to figure it out on her own, so the question is how. How, Jas?”
“I don’t fucking know, Ma, but if you’re suggesting what I think you are, forget it. Cal wouldn’t sell us out, not for anything.”
I wasn’t so sure about that, but for Cal’s sake, I was glad Jasper refused to believe it.
“If he was gonna do it, there wouldn’t have been so much fucking tension between him and Bonnie.”
“Well she found out some way and until we know how, it’s a loose end. I hate loose ends, Jasper.”
Those words were ominous as hell, and I took a step back away from the doors and picked up Ava.
That was too much information and none of it I wanted or needed to know. Hell, just knowing that information put me in danger, which meant it could put Molly in danger. If I ever fucking find her.
I changed the little girl and put her to bed, pacing the length of Cal’s living room in between phone calls, replaying the conversation I couldn’t seem to forget, over and over in my head.
Should I share this information with Jamie? Yes. If I did, would he arrest Sadie and Jasper? He’d have to, right? Bonnie talking to Mueller would definitely give them motive to kill her, but why kill Mueller? Because he was a witness? My mind raced with possibilities but none of them equaled Bonnie and Mueller dead.
“Listen to me, I sound like a bitch who definitely binge watches too many true crime dramas.”
I did watch a lot of crime shows, but who knew how useful they would end up being in my everyday life?
Still, it was a lot to think about. This was information Jamie needed to know, but was I really that girl? The one who sells out her friends for really good cock?
Was I? Are they even my friends?
No. Jamie wasn’t just a good fuck, he wasn’t just a really good fuck, either. He was my friend. My best friend, actually, and this trigger pulling information would be useful to him, but it would also hurt the Ashby’s and they had done so much for me.
Fuck. Fuckity-fuck.
You’re not that kind of family. I hadn’t stopped thinking about those words Sadie said to Terry, because they made me wonder what kind of family I was. I’d barely known these people for over a year and Terry and Emmett grew up with them, which meant I was no family at all.
Which meant I wasn’t safe from shifting winds and changing loyalties.
I wasn’t safe here at all.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jameson
Sitting across from the Nevada Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI early as hell in the morning made me feel like me and my friends had been called to the Principal’s office. The ADIC, Sam Shiner, was a stern looking man with a salt and pepper moustache that was about twenty years out of style. He wore a plain white dress shirt with short sleeves, a leather strap watch and a faded strip on his left finger that explained the frustration and exhaustion he wore like a blazer.
“How in the fuck did you three find out about Richie?” His question seemed to be more amused than worried, which meant maybe he wasn’t dirty.
Maybe.
“Regular investigative means,” Agent Marshall answered diplomatically.
“Right.” Shiner sifted through four large binders like he was searching for something specific, but it was all for show. I had a feeling this whole damn meeting was just for show. “What you need to know is that Richie Mueller was an undercover officer for the past thirteen years. He’s helped rescue tens of thousands of trafficked women and children.”
“Bullshit,” I growled because I already knew how dirty this fucker was, and no amount of cover up would change those facts.
“It’s true,” Shiner said with a sympathetic smile. “I know you’re from this area, Ellison, so you only know what we wanted the world to know. Dietrich Mueller was a dirty priest with access to tons of cash, international connections via the Catholic Church, who also didn’t know he was undercover, which made him an ideal asset for any number of criminals. The truth is he helped the Bureau and dozens of international task force agencies put away hundreds of traffickers all over the world.”
That might be the official story, but I was looking for the real story.
“I’ve met some of his victims, so with all due respect, that’s a bunch of bullshit.”
Shiner shrugged. “When you have a few more years under your belt, you’ll understand that sometimes you have to break a few eggs before you make the perfect omelet.” He sighed. “Undercover work is difficult and sometimes officers and agents have to do shit they don’t want to do, shit that goes against their moral code, shit that makes them sick. But if it means saving a houseful of children trafficked for sex, you might not see things so black and white.”
