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19
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“That all of it? Everything you found.” I confirm with a clean-shaven man standing on the opposite side of my desk. Tipping back in the chair, I fight the urge to pace my office.
Trig sits on the leather couch with his dog sprawled over his lap. He’s stroking Tallulah’s ears. It’s early. There’s no bass from the sound system pumping or music to disguise the conversation we’re having. But it isn’t as if we’re unaccustomed to speaking in code or talking around subjects.
The clean-shaven man huffs. “You lucked out, most of the stores downtown have internal cameras only. Nothing watching the doors from the outside. I only found two cameras monitoring the sidewalk near the boutique. One tape we confiscated from the owner after Ms. Cooper filed her police report. The other is the town of Brighton’s CCTV, but the log files were corrupted around the same time that Miss Cooper’s store was vandalized. Funny how that happens.”
“Hysterical,” I agree.
Trig meets my gaze. He shrugs. It wasn’t him who messed with that video.
“The evidence you confiscated from the other store owner?”
“What evidence? No one can pinpoint where that store’s external surveillance footage disappeared to. But I don’t recall mentioning our investigation found any evidence of wrongdoing.”
It’s my turn to laugh. They lost it. Intentionally.
“Trig?” My attention is back on my business associate.
“What he’s saying matches the sources I have,” Trig says.
I open the drawer and toss a fat envelope onto the desktop. The guy reaches for it. When he opens his jacket light glints off his badge on his belt. He stuffs it into his breast pocket.
“I appreciate your department’s thoroughness and your discretion.”
“Anytime,” he replies, showing himself out.
Trig and I remain silent until we are certain he’s off the premises. I look at Trig, waiting.
Trig has things to say. Things I don’t want to hear. Trig has made choices he regrets and moving his business assets under another surveillance firm will give him a measure of security.
There’s a guy Trig met while he was serving overseas. A muckey-muck with family connections at some big corporation with government contracts. I own part of Trig’s company and all it takes is my signature for him to gain the peace of mind that the shit we’ve done won’t come back to haunt him.
“You paid off a cop,” Trig hisses.
I nod, tipping my chin and raising a brow.
“Where does it end for you, Jake?”
I thought it would be over by now. In a moment of weakness, I’d convinced myself when I fired Holly while dancing with her at her wedding that I was ready for a clean break. An hour later, I insinuated to Gavin Laughton that his fiancé and I were having an affair, setting the ball in motion again.
“You kept secrets from Kimber. I did what I did to protect Paisley.” She’s loyal. I can’t bear to see her trust broken.
“Don’t bullshit me.”
My tongue finds my back molar. I’m finished talking about my girlfriend. I may not be the reason Paisley left Gavin, but it was because of me that he wound up in front of her store that night.
“If you sold out to Walsh right now does that mean you’d drop Cary’s inquiry about his sister?”
“The sources I’m using to scope out Addie Powell’s background are perfectly legal. None of the info I agreed to share with Cary is stuff he can use against her. You heard me. I’m done. I’ve been done since Rex Stanton and Holly’s deadbeat ex, William, blew back on us.”
“You’re being ridiculous. That was small. It didn’t blow back on us.”
“It could have hurt people I care about, Jake.” Legs spread, Trig leans forward and puts his elbows on his knees. His hands loosely clasped, he stares me down. “Where is the line? When did we move it? And what happens when we cross so far over it in your quest to make Brighton’s elite pay for treating your parents like crap thatourfamilies pay the price? Doesn’t this shit with Paisley teach you anything? When she finds out, what will you have left?”
“Stop bringing Paisley into this. She’s smart. She’s heard enough rumors to know what I’ve done.”
