When it was over, when the passion began to settle, I picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, wrapping her in the sheets on my bed. We lay together in silence, just clinging to each other. And then we fell asleep, our relaxed breathing mingling in the small room.
I think maybe it was the intensity of her confession, the memories that unfolded around me as I listened to her apologize for the mistakes of her past. Maybe it was just that I was thinking about it before I fell asleep. Whatever it was, the nightmare came as I lay there with her. The sight of people dying, of limbs being pulled from innocent bodies, of a mistake that never should have been made.
I cried out, jerking away from her as I jumped out of the bed.
The nightmares wouldn’t just disappear because I had a new life, a new future. Lying with Pepper wouldn’t change the mistake I made.
I never should have brought her here; I never should have let her into my life. My mistake would come back to haunt her some day. I couldn’t do that to her.
Chapter 16
Pepper
Nolan was nowhere to be found. He’d said he would be here for me, but he wasn’t. I was sitting across from Detective Snider, my palms sweating as he read my Miranda Rights to me.
Tierney, Gray Wolf’s legal counsel, sat on my right while Kipling sat on my left. Nolan convinced me that going to Kipling would be the best thing we could do. He would know how to proceed. It was no surprise when he suggested we go straight to Detective Snider. Nolan told me he would come with us to the police station, but he wasn’t here.
Just like Colin.
“I understand you have information on the robberies that have been taking place in Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, and here in Austin?”
I glanced at Tierney, not sure what I should say or do. She simply nodded, gesturing for me to speak.
“I do.”
“What kind of information?”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek, trying to figure out what I should say. I knew what everyone expected me to say, but was that really the right thing for me to do? Was any of this really a good idea?
“Ms. Dennison?”
I looked up, watching Detective Snider as he watched me. He was a thin man, almost sickly looking, but he had the kindest green eyes I think I’d ever seen. Nolan trusted this man. Maybe I should, too.
I took a deep breath.
“I am the woman who helped this man steal customer information from the financial planning business in Dallas.”
Snider didn’t react. He simply watched me, waiting for me to continue. I took a deep breath and spilled the entire story, just as I had last night for Nolan. I didn’t leave anything out, deciding I was done with secrets. I couldn’t pretend this hadn’t happened and I couldn’t hide behind the idea of ignorance or false innocence. I knew what I was doing when I did it. I just hadn’t known how it would end.
When I was done, everyone was silent.
Snider finally reached over to turn off the digital recorder he’d been using to record my confession.
“You did good, Ms. Dennison.”
I shook my head. “I should have turned myself in a long time ago.”
“Maybe that would have stopped the crime that happened here, maybe it wouldn’t have. We have no way of knowing. But you did come to us on your own free will. And that says a lot.”
I nodded.
“I understand your sister is in the hospital.”
I looked up, caught a little off guard by the kindness in his tone.
“You should go be with her, Ms. Dennison.”
“You’re not going to arrest me?”
He studied my face for a long moment. “No. But don’t leave town.”
Tierney smiled at me as Kipling stood, helping me to my feet with a hand under my arm. I was shaking as we walked down the long corridor, feeling as though all the people in the building knew what I’d done. Shame burned hot on my cheeks.
Tierney tried to talk to me all the way back to the compound, but I didn’t hear a thing she said. All I could think about was my uncertain future. What if I was charged with this crime? It was a first class felony. I would go to jail for a long time, and when I got out, I would be a felon. I would have trouble getting a job; I wouldn’t be able to vote. I would be a marked woman, someone no one would want to know. I would be alone.
I’d really be a screw up then.
We pulled up to the front of the main house. David was standing in the doorway before we even got out of the car, watching us with his hands on his hips. Dread washed through me, burning in my chest like heartburn. I didn’t want to go into the house; I didn’t want to see the disappointment I knew would be in his eyes. I didn’t know him well, but I’d learned enough about him these last few weeks to know that I respected him and I’d do just about anything to earn his respect. I’d clearly blown that one out of the water.
“If you could wait for me in my study, Pepper,” he said.
I just nodded, not bothering to try to make excuses. What was the point?
I waited for the better part of an hour. David was talking to Tierney and Kipling, I guessed. Everyone knew the whole story now, how I was a fool who trusted a man I’d barely known a week. They all knew what an idiot I was. I was almost happy to be hiding in his office, away from the knowing stares of David’s staff. They were Nolan’s coworkers. How mortified he must be to know that they know.
I found myself wondering where Nolan was. I couldn’t really blame him for bailing. It was humiliating, what I’d done, and it probably finally occurred to him how it would blow back on him when people found out we were together. So that was probably the end of us being together. I’d be lucky if he so much as looked me in the eye again, let alone wanted to be alone with me.
Humiliating wasn’t even the right word for it. It was so much worse than that. I wanted to disappear. The only reason I didn’t go out and jump in my Jeep was because I knew Ricki would look at that and say that I was just doing what I’ve always done. When the going got hard, I got going. Just like Mom. And I couldn’t do that. I didn’t want to be like Mom anymore.
I was curled up on the couch, my arms wrapped around my legs, curled up so tight that I was as close to the fetal position as a grown woman could get. That’s how David found me when he finally came to join me. He walked over to the couch and settled down beside me, watching me with an expression I didn’t know him well enough to read.
“How’s Ricki?”
He inclined his head slightly. “Bored and ready for this baby to come.” He smiled. “She was asking about you. She has little memory of the seizure itself, but she remembers you being there afterward. She told me to thank you.”
“I’d like to see her, but I don’t want to upset her.”
“I don’t think it would.”
I shook my head, turning my head away from him. There were tears building in my throat, burning it. I could already imagine what Ricki would say when she heard about what I’d done in Dallas. It would confirm everything she thought she knew about me already.
David touched my arm. “Hey. You okay?”
I shook my head again because my throat was closing up. I was choking on my own emotions, choking on everything that I’d done wrong and everything I wished I could change.
“I know this has been a rough day. A rough couple of days. But it’s over now.”
“It’s not. What is Ricki going to think when she hears about this? When they arrest me and put me in prison?”
“Don’t worry about that.”
I looked at him, my eyes wide with surprise. “What do you mean, don’t worry about it? All the other women they caught doing this are in jail.”
“Because they wouldn’t turn on this man who put them up to helping with their robberies. They never gave them anything, not even the name he used, the color of his hair, the color of his eyes. The only thing they managed to get from these ladies was the fact that he liked to buy them a bottle of Cristal on their fi
rst meeting.”
My eyebrows rose. “That’s his thing, I guess.”
“You told them what name he was using, what he looked like, where he stayed while he was in Dallas, what profession he claimed to have. You’ve given them so many leads that it will take months for them to follow up on it all.”
“What does that mean, then?”
“Didn’t you talk to Tierney? Didn’t she tell you the deal she and the detective discussed?”
“She was talking in the car, but I…I wasn’t listening very closely.”
David touched my leg, a smile on his handsome face as he studied mine. “You will likely be charged with accessory to a burglary. But the detective believes he can get the DA to knock it down to a misdemeanor. With a little community service, you’ll probably only be on probation for a couple of months. And then they might be able to expunge it from your record.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.” He patted my knee. “You did the right thing, Pepper.”
“I helped a man steal people’s financial information. I deserve to go to jail.”
David’s eyebrows rose. “Is that how you really feel?”
I laughed, a humorless sound. “I feel like I should have gotten in my Jeep and disappeared the moment the cop let me walk out of the police station. Like I can’t face the people in this house, let alone Chase and Ricki and you. You let me into your home without knowing what I was bringing to the party. It’s just…it’s not right.”
“You are Ricki’s sister. We would have welcomed you here no matter what you’d done.”
I shook my head once again, but he cupped my jaw in his hand and pulled me close to him, tugging my head onto his shoulder. After a moment, I moved into him and let him hold me.
“We all make mistakes, Pepper. When I first met Ricki, I was star struck because I knew who she was. I knew everything about her because of her days as a hacker and my days at the FBI. I actually studied her hacks, studied everything about her. And then we met and I thought it was love at first sight. She thought I was safe because I was in a wheelchair. I thought I was putting her at risk for the same reason. So I had the surgery to fix my legs…and she left me.”
I straightened a little so I could see his face. “I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah. We were apart for a long time. She was afraid of being with a whole man, a man who could hurt her the way your father had done.”
A single tear began to roll down my face. “I didn’t know that.”
“Your sister is not perfect. She’s far from it. She was a criminal, hacking systems she had no right to be inside of, releasing information that had the FBI chasing after her. And then she went legit, but she couldn’t have a normal relationship not only because of your father, but because her hacking partner, the woman who came up with the code that her business was based on, had committed suicide. She was a mess.”
“I can’t even imagine.”
“She was. But then we found each other and we made each other better.”
I brushed a hand over my cheeks, wiping away my tears. “But her mistakes were nothing like mine. This is just part of a pattern of stupidity.”
David touched my knee. “You’re young. You’ve had very little guidance from responsible adults. You practically raised yourself in an atmosphere of anger and violence. You have a right to fuck up a little.”
“Tell that to Ricki.”
“Ricki knows that. She feels guilty for leaving you behind.”
I ran my hands over my face, wiping my tears away again. “Why would she feel guilty?”
David shot me a look that told me he thought that question was utterly stupid. “Because she’s your sister, Pepper. She was supposed to protect you, but she ran away and protected herself instead.”
“He never touched me.”
“He might have if he hadn’t gotten sick.” He leaned forward a little. “It doesn’t matter that he never touched you. You were witness to all that violence and you shouldn’t have been. No child should have to see those things.”
I got up because I suddenly felt overwhelmed, as though there was a weight on my shoulders, pushing me down and making me feel almost as though I was suffocating in a cage of my own making. I paced, tears just rolling down my face. I didn’t even notice them, not until I felt them dripping from my chin onto my shirt.
“She said I was just like our mother.”
“Ricki lashes out when she feels cornered or when she doesn’t know what else to do.”
“She doesn’t want me around. I’m just a reminder.”
“You’re her sister. She loves you.”
I shook my head. “I should go find somewhere else to stay until this is all over. I should get out of your house, away from you and Chase and Ricki. I shouldn’t—”
David grabbed me by the shoulders and forced me to face him. “Listen,” he said, his tone changed from the easygoing tone to the boss reprimanding his staff voice. “You are not going anywhere. Until that man is found, you will stay within these four walls. We don’t know how closely he’s monitoring the developments in this case. We don’t know where he might be or what he might know about what you did today. As long as that man might pose a threat to you, you will stay here where we can offer you protection. Understand?”
“Why are you doing this for me?”
“You’re family,” he said, wiping more of my tears away. “That’s what family does.”
Then he hugged me, pulling me close against his chest. I have so rarely been held in a man’s embrace that it felt strange. But it was nice. David was a good man.
I just wished I felt like I deserved to have a man like that in my life.
Chapter 17
Nolan
“His name is Colin Pierce,” I said, glancing through the notes I’d jotted onto the word processing program on my iPad. “The night manager of the hotel coughed everything up the moment the detectives told him they knew the name Colin Lester.”
David nodded, running his hands over his exhausted face as he listened. “He’s using his real first name with these women?”
“He did in Dallas. Doesn’t mean he did with the other ladies. Detective Snider confronted Ms. Rivera with what I learned in Dallas, but she continues to refuse to give them any information.”
“Why?”
I shrugged. “I guess he was that good.”
“Then why did Pepper turn on him?”
“Because Pepper’s good people.”
David cracked a grin, glancing at me briefly as he stood. “She is good people. She’s just fucked up by a lifetime of stupidity.” He sighed heavily. I knew he’d been at the hospital most of the night last night and was headed back when I caught him going out the door. Having his wife in the hospital was a burden he really didn’t need right now. But, again, it was a burden no one needed at any time.
I watched him pace for a moment. “Do they think they’ll be able to make an arrest any time soon?”
“Getting his real name was just the first step. He lives under so many aliases that there’s no telling what name he’s using right now. The cop in Dallas, he already had figured out one of his aliases. John Callendar.”
“John Callendar? How’d they figure that out?”
“I guess he actually did play cards with one of the guys who worked at the financial planning business and that’s the name he used.”
“He made contact with people from the business? Is that how he figured out where to find the information he wanted so quickly?”
“That’s where he learned he couldn’t do it remotely. Their system was actually quite hacker proof. They’d had a specialist set it up. He had to hack it from the office. But…” I leaned forward a little, stretching my sore back.
“What?”
“I think he would have done it from the office anyway. I get the impression this guy gets off on the game, on the danger and the adrenaline rush.”
“Possibly.”
“And the women? Why use them? It seems to me he could get into the building without the distraction on the guards. Why put someone in a position where they could identify him?”
“That’s part of the danger. He gets off on it.”
David nodded. “He likes to use vulnerable women, women who’ve been hurt or damaged somehow. I bet that’s why these other women have been so loyal to him. Because he was the first man who was this good to them.”
“You might be right.”
“He made a mistake with Pepper though. She’s damaged, but she’s also smart. And strong. And independent. And she has an incredibly strong sense of right and wrong.”
I nodded, wondering what he meant when he said that Pepper was damaged. I knew her childhood was difficult, but…there must be more to the story than I knew.
David dragged his fingers through his hair and sighed. “I appreciate you going out to Dallas and checking all this out for us. Was Detective Snider properly appreciative of the evidence you brought him?”
“He was. He said he’d already talked to the district attorney on Pepper’s behalf, and he was pretty sure they’d offer her a reasonable plea deal in exchange for her testimony should they catch the guy.”
“Good. She deserves a break.”
I couldn’t help but agree with that.
“Do you know where she is right now?” I asked.
David gestured to the ceiling. “Up in her room. She was upset earlier, so I sent her to take a bath. It always seems to help Ricki.”
“How did she handle the interview? Detective Snider said she was very forthcoming, but I didn’t ask what he meant by that.”
“Tierney says she was very honest and she answered every question he posed to her.”
“Good.”
CHASING PEPPER (Gray Wolf Security, Texas Book 5) Page 11