Big Easy Temptation (The Perfect Gentlemen #3)(80)

Did he? He couldn’t stand the thought that he didn’t. “I’ll try.”

“Don’t try. Do. You’re a damn Spencer, Dax. It’s time you started acting like one. We don’t back away from the things we’ve done wrong. We fix them. You’ve spent the last three years of your life hiding and let everything slip away. I want my brother back.”

Damn, Gus was right. He had hidden away and licked his wounds and tried to forget.

He’d been an idiot. He should have stood strong, dug deeper, and figured the situation out. He should have been right back on her doorstep. He loved her. He’d never stopped loving her. If she’d kept up the ruse that she’d betrayed him, he should have made it plain that was unacceptable behavior and dealt with it. He should never have run.

Dumbass.

He’d left Holland all alone, abandoned. He’d left everyone who mattered to him when he really thought about it. And he’d done his father a grave disservice. Gus was right. Spencers didn’t shrink back when they’d done wrong. They faced it. Like his father would have faced a trial and fought like hell to reclaim his name and reputation. “Have you seen the pictures?”

He’d sent them to Connor and Roman the night before.

“Oh, yes. Roman tried to pretend they weren’t there. I guess he wanted to protect my delicate disposition.” She laughed. “But I know his passwords.”

“Augustine!” a masculine voice shouted.

So she was hanging out with Roman. Her voice went low. “You know the man has a weird Magnum P.I. fixation. So yes, I’ve seen them and I don’t believe them. They’re doctored in some way or he was drugged. Look at the sheets and the bedding. Do those look like they belong at a cheap motel?”

He strode to the table and pulled out the file. In seconds, he located the printed pictures, blown up to reveal the image’s finer details. He hadn’t paid any attention to the actual furnishings or appointments, only the two people. “I don’t know a lot about sheets, Gus.”

“Well, I do. Do you see how the sheet has a bit of a gloss to it?”

“Like it’s satin or something? You don’t think the motel had satin sheets?”

She made a gagging sound. “No one has satin sheets, brother. Seriously, leave the seventies behind. I’m saying that the sheets have a nice thread count. Higher than the crap they would have at a no-tell motel. Beyond that, I examined the corner of the third photo.”

He flipped through until he found the image she referred to. It was a picture with the sheets gathered around the couple on the bed. All of the photos had been taken from a single location in the room and captured the same general view. In this one, his father seemed to be on top of the young girl, his body pinning her to the bed. There was no way to miss the scar on his back. He’d taken fire once and the shrapnel left a silvery section of scars on his back, winding around to his chest. For a moment that was all he could see—the seeming proof that his father had been unfaithful and criminal. “I’m looking at it.”

“First off, this photo doesn’t look very active. Stop looking at it like a son and put your thinking cap on. I’m putting you on speaker because Roman’s poking me.”

“Hey, first off, I did not put her up to that crap with the Brazilian ambassador. I knew nothing,” Roman said quickly. “Secondly, I think she’s right about this picture. If these two are engaged in sex, why are his muscles so slack? She’s the only one who seems to have any motion in these photos. Hell, she’s the only one who looks coherent.”

Dax put his cell on speaker and laid out the photos. He’d spent so much time focused on that scar that identified his father. He’d seen these pictures through the eyes of a son betrayed and hadn’t truly studied them as an investigator. He forced himself to pull back.

The muscles of his father’s back were completely at rest. In every photo. The only movement he could discern was the girl’s. She pushed at him as though trying to fight off an attack. But Dax wasn’t convinced that one had actually happened.

“He’s drugged,” Dax said.

“We can’t know that beyond all doubt, but the lax state of the musculature leads me to believe that your father wasn’t as engaged physically as the people who sent these photos want us to think,” Roman said.

“Let me translate the lawyer speak for you,” Gus offered. “These pictures are complete bullshit.”

Roman sighed. “She’s probably right.”

“Of course I am. And I’m also right about the hotel,” Gus insisted.

“What about the motel?” Dax couldn’t think of what she was talking about.

“No. Not motel. That’s the whole point.” His sister was like a dog with a bone, but she seemed to be thinking without all the anger and disillusionment he had been.

“You think these photos were taken somewhere else?”

Dax turned because the voice had come from behind him. Holland stepped in, looking down at the photos.

“Holland? Hey, girl. You understand that you have to fucking answer my fucking calls now or I swear to god I’ll send you a strip-o-gram an hour until you do,” Gus vowed.

Roman cleared his throat over the speaker. “She really will do that. I thought she was kidding. Imagine having to explain to White House security why ten strippers were requesting access to my office.”