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“I’m just trying to cover all my bases,” Jim states. “I don’t really believe any of these people would betray you, but things the informant has overheard leads me to believe someone is feeding them information. Someone who knows you and your family very well.” An unsettled feeling comes over me at this news. Could someone we know be feeding the Brotherhood information?
I send off a text to Kelvin, asking him to look into every employee at Invictus. We need to find our mole, sooner rather than later. It’s hard for me to believe that one of my own would turn on us, but I have to be certain. Marley’s life could depend on it. Voices draw me out of the dark mood this new information has sent me into. Marley and Shelby are making their way into the dining room. They’ve been up in Shelby’s room catching up. Marley is beaming with happiness as they enter the room, and I have to say it looks really good on her.
“Hillary called to say she won’t be able to be here until a few days before the wedding,” Marley is telling Shelby. “She is out of town on business, at the moment. Do you remember when we snuck out of school to go prom dress shopping?” Shelby grins, nodding her head.
“Oh yeah, I haven’t forgotten that,” Shelby agrees. “We thought we were so cool and slick. We made sure to be in home room so the school wouldn’t call our parents for missing school. As soon as first period was over, we headed out a side door.”Marley grins looking over at me. The women take up chairs around the dining table, making themselves at home to continue their conversation.
“We thought no one saw us.” Marley looks at me conspiratorially. “Little did we know that the principle had been at a meeting that morning so he was just arriving at the school as we were leaving. He spied us before we got off school grounds. He shouted at us, but we took off at a dead run.” Marley and Shelby are giggling like they are school girls again. I feel a presence behind me and glance over my shoulder to see Bo, Rosco, and Dalton enter the dining room. They slip into seats quietly not wanting to disturb the girl’s story.
“Oh yeah, we were running like the devil himself was after us.” Shelby laughs, but then suddenly quiets. She looks down at her hands. I almost don’t catch her next words. “That came later.” Marley reaches out to squeeze her hand. The women exchange a look that I can’t read, but something heavy is in that look. Shelby suddenly brightens. “We had so much fun that day!” Marley nods, but some of the happiness has left her. What had happened that took away the good day they’d had? “I’ll never forget how Hillary got choked while sipping her root beer float. She blew ice cream out of her nose!” Shelby turns to look at me, her face full of mirth, until her eyes land on something over my shoulder. I turn to see Bo is just behind me. Marley is cracking up at the memory and doesn’t notice the sudden shift in her friend’s mood at seeing my brother. What the hell happened between them on the ride over here?
“We all about choked when that happened!” Marley howls with laughter. “What did you even say that caused her to laugh anyway? I totally missed it, and then we were so tickled I never did ask.” Shelby’s face flushes a deep shade of red.
“Hillary had been giving me shit all morning,” Shelby begins, looking at Marley. “You know that.” Marley nods her agreement.
“Yeah, I don’t know what had gotten into her that day,”Marley comments. “She had a mean streak going on for sure.”
“She kept teasing me about Thomas Miller.” Shelby’s face scowls with disgust.
“The gangly kid with all the acne?” Marley queries. Shelby nods and shivers.
“Yes, she wouldn’t let it go. Just because we were assigned to be lab partners, she decided that Thomas liked me, and she was determined to make my life miserable because of it. He had zero interest in me, nor I him, but that didn’t stop Hillary from making stuff up to get at me. I’d finally had enough. I knew a secret about her that she didn’t think anyone else knew. I just dropped the truth bomb on her.”
“What was it?” Marley asks breathlessly, obviously intrigued and wrapped back up in the drama of their past. It’s cute to see her this way instead of worrying about someone trying to take her and use her to kill hundreds or thousands of people.
“Hillary wasn’t the innocent little cheerleader she tried to portray,” Shelby whispers as if someone from their high school days might be nearby and over hear her. “I caught her in a very compromising position one night after a ballgame.” Marley’s eyes widen, shock evident on her face.
“How compromising? She always made a big deal out of saving herself for marriage.” Shelby is nodding along as Marley speaks.
“I know; that’s why what I caught her doing was so shocking,” Shelby admits. “She didn’t know I’d seen, at the time.”
“Come on Shelby! Spill it!” Marley demands. “What did you see?” Shelby shudders before she continues.
“She was in the boy’s locker room. The coach had asked me to take his playbook to his office after the game, because his wife wasn’t feeling well, and he just wanted to take her home. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be down there. When I pull open the door, I heard sounds…I didn’t understand what I was hearing, so I continued toward the coach’s office in the back. Just as I cleared the corner, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Hillary was…” Shelby’s eyes are wide.
“What?” Marley asks. “You can’t just leave me hanging!” Shelby glances in my direction, her face heating with another blush. Marley notices and grabs Shelby’s face getting her attention again. “Don’t pay any attention to them, just look at me and tell me what she was doing.”
“Hillary was on her knees on one of the benches. She still had her uniform on, but Billy Eddison was buck naked in front of her, and she was…doing things to him, while Sawyer Sullivan was going at her from behind.” Shelby is barely whispering as she finishes her tale. Marley’s eyes are nearly bugging out of her head.
“No! Really?” Shelby just nods. “So what did you say to her that day?”
“She kept hinting that I was doing stuff to Thomas, which wasn’t happening, by the way, so I’d finally had enough. I said, ‘At least I’m not giving Billy and blow job while letting Sawyer fuck me from behind in the boy’s locker room like some 2-bit whore’.” Marley squeals out her laughter.
“No, you did not!” Shelby just continues to nod. “How did I never know about this?”
“I’m not one to spread gossip; you know that,” Shelby insists. “I made my point. Hillary abandoned all talk of Thomas and me after that, and I kept her secret until this very day. I shouldn’t have disclosed it today, but I figure so much time has gone by no one is going to care now anyway, right?”
“Yes, and you know I’ll never tell a soul,” Marley assures her, “besides, we all heard about Hillary’s dalliances when she left for college. Went completely wild, well I suppose she just gave up trying to hide her wildness.”
“I know it’s not such a big thing now, but at the time it happened, I was floored at what I’d seen. I would never have said anything if she would have left me alone.”
“I know, but you guys worked all that out right?” Shelby nods with a smile.
“Yes, after that, she stopped picking at me, and we got along great,” Shelby continues. “We even met up to hang out at college, too.” Shelby’s face drops as she remembers something. “At least we did a couple of times, but I couldn’t afford to be a party girl, so I just focused on studying and making good grades.” The women chat on a few more minutes, and I try to focus on the reports Kelvin has been sending over as he vets each employee.
“What are you working on?” Bo asks, leaning over to peer at my computer. I turn it so he can see better.
“I asked Kelvin to run all our employees again,” I confess, noting Bo’s surprise at my answer. “Jim, Agent Morris, said he thinks we might have a mole in our organization. Someone knew too much about my schedule, our comings and goings, even operations at Invictus. Someone has leaked that information, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Maybe even someone on the outside is manipulating an employee for information. I don’t know yet, but we are going to look at everyone.”
