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"The current DA in Boston," I said and nodded when I saw his expression of surprise.
"Seriously?"
"Yep. There's an ongoing FBI case, but it's stalled. He has a lot of power, as you can imagine."
"No shit," he replied and stared off in the distance.
"Dig up as much dirt as you can on Spencer Grant as fast as you can. I can pay you handsomely."
"That's always an incentive."
Twenty-four hours later, as I sat at a hotel in Alexandria, doing my own research on Spencer's past, Bill called me with some usable intel.
"I got some stuff for you," he said. "We should meet somewhere private."
I agreed and we met later that evening at an Irish pub in DC.
"So, what have you got for me?" I asked, impatient to get to the good stuff. I took a long pull on my glass of Guinness and waited while Bill did the same.
"Spencer was quite the big religious leader in Alexandria when he was living there, and was known as a pious man among his colleagues," Bill said, licking the foam off his lip. "It took some digging, but there was an incident in his past that I found alarming. He'd gone through a messy divorce and his ex made an allegation that he was abusing their daughter, but then, when the court date was scheduled, she withdrew the charge and nothing more was said. Typical of these kinds of cases."
"Let me guess: the allegation was true but he threatened to ruin her if she went through with it."
"Something like that," Bill replied, raising his eyebrows.
Bill finished filling me in on his findings, taking out a reporter's notepad and flipping through pages.
"Grant still owns a few properties in Virginia, including a cabin near Chesapeake Beach. The address was linked to some chat logs of staff at the modelling agency."
"That sounds very suspicious. You got an address?" I asked. Bill nodded and wrote it down on a sheet of paper, ripping it out and handing it to me.
"You shouldn't go there alone," Bill said. "No vigilante stuff, Hunter."
"Don't worry about me."
We finished our beers and I drove back to my hotel room, deciding to take a drive out there the next day, check it out. I wasn't above a little breaking and entering to see what I might dig up that could incriminate Spencer.
The Virginia coast in October was wet and cold. I knew my way around the locale and felt comfortable driving the streets. I retraced a few of my old visits to the area, even went to stand and stare at one of the battleships in the harbor.
My life had been good before Sean's death, before I took over the business, and I wished now that I could go back to it, back to the days when I was in the Marines, getting ready to teach the incoming officer selection course. But I couldn't.
This was my life now, for better or worse. I had to make the most of it.
I pulled into a narrow back road that ran beside Spencer's property, trying to remain invisible to anyone who might be in the cabin. I didn't think Spencer would be there. It was off-season so the cabin should have been empty. From where I parked, I could just see the house and the circular driveway in front. It resembled a log cabin, with rustic cedar and a stone fireplace. Totally innocuous, in other words.
I wondered, as I sat in the rental car and debated whether to break in, if Celia and I would have become a couple had Greg not come along.
While I mused on Celia and her possible likes and dislikes in men, I was surprised to see a car drive up the lane. I was glad I'd had the forethought to park on a different street out of sight but with the cabin in my line of vision. One of the cabin doors opened and a tall, gangly young girl left and walked to the waiting car, whose engine was still running.
Who was she?
Then I saw her face straight on before she got in the back seat, and I got a sick feeling in my gut.
Her long fair hair was a mess, her makeup was a smeared, there was lipstick on her cheek, black streaks under her eyes.
She was no more than twelve or thirteen by her height and physical development, but the makeup was sickeningly adult. The car drove off and I was just about to follow it when a man appeared at the cabin door, wrapping a scarf around his neck before striking off on foot. He must have parked somewhere else and walked to the cabin.
I got out of my car, pulled up my own collar against the wind, and followed him.
