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“Yeah, before coming out here.” She’s sleeping soundly, wearing the ring I bought her, although I keep those details to myself. “Why?”
“Paperwork isn’t filed yet?” he asks rather than answering my question.
“We’ll get it postdated and turned in tomorrow.”
“Good.”
“Why did you want to know if I’d checked on her?”
“I didn’t feel comfortable checking the cameras and Aria was asleep. Wanted to make sure she was all right.”
A tinge of something warm flows through my chest. It’s quickly extinguished though.
“Any thoughts from the interrogation?”
“Not so much an interrogation as it was a threat.”
Carter only grunts a laugh, tilting the whiskey bottles to read each label. “Someone had to know Mauer was poking around and they didn’t tell us.”
He pauses, his brow raising as he looks from the bottles back to me, “You sure?
Nodding I elaborate, “He has info going back almost a year. There’s no way at least one of the cops in our back pocket didn't know. The question is, why didn’t they tell us?”
“Someone else is paying them off?” he guesses, and his guess is as good as mine.
“Could be.”
“Let’s pay a visit to some friends tomorrow and see what we can find.” I nod and before I can pour a glass, he tells me, “We got a message from N about the rat too.”
“What did he say?” N is a big deal on the West Coast, friends of ours work for him and he’s someone we trust…well as much as we can trust anyone outside this house.
“It wasn’t just Scarlet. There’s at least one other woman but it’s someone in the bureau. One of their men got wind that they picked you up today because someone told them.” He pauses only a second before asking me, “Who knew?”
Adrenaline courses through my body, “Nate told the men at the bar he’d be with me.” I swallow down the pissed-off feeling. “So it could be anyone.” Frustration rings over me but the one thought that causes tension is that Braelynn could be lumped into that group. She could have told them and given them a heads up. I swallow the lump in my throat. “Obviously Braelynn knew but—”
“It wasn’t her,” Carter cuts me off with a hand on my shoulder.
“You checked her phone?” I question and shock is present in my tone but also hurt. He didn’t trust her, but then again, I already knew that didn’t I? Not only that, but my first thought was, when I’m back in the room, I need to check the monitoring device.
“Yeah…just to cover our bases. She didn’t send a single message or make a single call. It’s not her. It couldn’t have been. I believe her and I trust you on this. It’s not Braelynn but there is another rat.”
“You believe her now?” I ask him and he only nods. Relief floods through me as Carter pours two glasses of whiskey. The crystal tumblers clink as he picks them up.
“We’ll figure it out,” he says and passes me mine, “we always do,” he adds before clinking the glasses and downing his.
He sets his down on the counter as the amber liquid soothingly burns its way down my throat. “You tell the others?”
“Of course, they all know it wasn’t her,” he tells me, looking me right in the eye.
Some part of me wants to break down and stop fighting simply from knowing I’ve won that battle. It wasn’t my naive girl. But the other part of me feels nothing but rage. “It’s the same person who set her up to take the fall. I know it. I know it is.”
Carter pats my shoulder again, firm and indicating agreement.
“We’ll handle it tomorrow. Sleep well.”
I tell him good night and stare at the whiskey bottle a little too long, realizing her name is cleared. That my brothers believe her.
I didn’t realize how much I needed them to believe her until this moment. Emotions I’d rather not acknowledge swarm me as I make my way back to her, knowing all too well the war isn’t over.
