Unauthorized Affair (Unauthorized #1)(44)

“I know. I still question his motives though. If he hates his dad so much, why hasn’t he ever given up anything on him? Unless …” His eyes flashed.


Jen looked at him questioningly, and then she caught his excitement. “Hurry!”



***



Forty-five minutes later, a beat-up pick-up truck pulled into the stall next to Jen and Hunter. Coleton got out. Jen ran to him and hugged him. She cried into his neck. It seemed now that the tears were coming they wouldn’t stop. Coleton kissed her on the cheek and ran his hands tenderly through her hair. Finally he pushed her upright, gently. “Jen, we shouldn’t stay here long. I’m leaving town as soon as I give you this. My life is forfeited now, unless you guys do your job.” He threw a hard look at Hunter.

“What do you mean?”

“My dad has to know I was involved last night. He doesn’t stand for anyone crossing him, family or no. In fact it’s worse if you’re family. I have to leave town before he finds me.”

Jen’s face crumpled with guilt. “I’m so sorry, Coleton.”

“Don’t be. This has been coming for a long time.”

He reached in the window behind her and handed her a thick five or six inch thick file folder, plus a canvas bag. The edges of the bag held smudges of black dirt. He reached in the window again and pulled out a box. He handed it to Hunter. “I went through all of my dad’s houses that I have access to and dredged up every memory I could think of. It’s all in there. You should be able to do something with that.”

Hunter came around the car and looked into the bag. “You’re going to have to testify, you know that right?”

“Yes, but I can’t testify if I’m dead. I’ll contact Jen. She’ll tell me when you need me.”

“We could protect you.”

Coleton shook his head. “You can’t protect me. Not against my dad. You put him and everyone involved with him in jail, and then maybe I’ll be OK. But they have to stay in jail.”

Hunter nodded. “Thank you.”

Jen hugged the folder to her chest and gave Coleton one last kiss and hug. She told him how sorry she was with her eyes. He nodded. “Don’t be sorry, Jen. None of this is your fault.”

He jogged to his truck and pulled out with a small salute to Jen. Jen looked down at the file in her hands and hoped it was worth everything they’d paid for it so far.





Chapter 23





Jen looked around at her friends at the table, a smile on her face. She felt like things were almost back to normal. Ivy and Ryker had their heads together over a piece of paper from Coleton’s file, Sgt. Sadler was acting irritated, and Hunter had just run out to his car to get files. They were all together again, in the safe house, and thankfully Ivy had no injuries from her ordeal.

Hunter came back in and started gathering loose pieces of paper and shoving them back in Coleton’s file. Some of it still had fingerprint dust on it from being fingerprinted and logged by the evidence clerk the day before, and he absently wiped his hands on his pants, trying to get the dust off. “Look guys, I know that is more interesting, but the Chief wants our final reports on what happened at your houses two days ago by the end of today.” He slid folders full of paper across the desk to each of them. “This is our priority. When we’re done, we can work on the Savoy file.”

“OK, but look at this first.” Jen handed him a crumpled, brown, paper bag from the box that Coleton had given them. His eyebrows went up and he looked inside. He pulled out a wallet and opened it. Shock registered across his face, and then resignation. “I knew it,” he whispered, still looking at Eric P. Bainbridge’s driver’s license. Jen touched his hand.

Ivy slid a piece of paper at him. “And check this out. It suggests there’s a mole in the police department. Someone they planted in 1997 and now he’s high enough in the ranks that he can tamper evidence and access any computer record. And get this. He’s Savoy’s cousin.”

Sadler snorted in what? Indignation? Derision? And suddenly the images came flooding back to Jen for the first time in almost a day. But it was a new group of images this time. Her, in Ivy’s kitchen, peeking out at the man in the living room.

“Jen, what’s wrong? You look sick,” Hunter said, grasping her arm.

“I don’t feel good, Hunter. Can you help me to the bathroom?”

“Sure, here.”

He pulled her up and took her outside of the room, her feet barely touching the ground.

As soon as the door closed behind them Jen pulled whirled on him, putting her mouth up to his ear and pitching her voice low. “I’m not sick. I know how they got our addresses. Mine and Ivy’s.”

Hunter grew still, serious. “How?”

“I saw the man holding a piece of paper. I could only read part of it but it said -ton street. And he told whoever he was talking to on the phone that the finally found it, like maybe the address had been wrong. I think they looked for her first on Clifton St., just like we did—”


Hunter talked over the top of her, his eyes as wide as hers. “When we picked her up in the cleaning van. Oh God, Jen, if you’re right … Stay here!”

He walked back in to the office. Jen shifted back and forth on her feet, nervous energy filling her. She heard Ivy ask something, then a muted male voice. Then he came back with a folder in his hands. He took it to the couch and opened it.