Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
“Listen, lady,” she hisses in a low voice that actually promises violence. “I have two kids. I’m not getting pulled into whatever mess he made.”
“He didn’t make this mess,” I say quietly. “He was trying to expose it.”
“Then expose it,” she snaps. “But leave me out of it. I can’t orphan my children.”
The line goes dead and I pull my phone away from my ear, staring at it thoughtfully before lowering it to the desk.
She absolutely has information but that’s a dead end for now. I could just show up on her doorstep and try to get her to talk, and that’s still a possibility. I’ll have to talk to Cole and see what he thinks.
Just the thought of Cole warms my skin. Last night we fell so easily into bed with each other, it was as if time had been standing still for us and restarted right where we left off. I particularly enjoyed making him see stars with that blow job, and oh, did he pay me back for it. He made me orgasm twice before flipping me over on my stomach and driving into me from behind. That’s one of the aspects I loved most about our sex life… the way he took control.
The way he dominated me.
“You look deep in thought.” I jolt, glancing up to see Josie approaching, tablet and folder tucked under her arm, coffee in hand.
My face flushes since I was thinking dirty thoughts but I play it off. “I tried to make contact with Erik’s sister,” I say. “She knows something but she’s too scared to talk. I’m thinking of getting Cole to drive me to her house to see if I can get her to change her mind.”
“Well, put that on hold for now,” Josie replies evenly, setting her stuff down beside me and taking a chair. “I’ve got information on the Strategic Asset Protection Group.” She slides a stack of printed summaries across the desk.
“What did you find?” I ask, taking the papers and flipping through them. They’re all printouts from secure websites that I suspect might have been hacked. This is all information I would have never been able to access on my own.
“They’re not some fly-by-night LLC,” Josie says. “They’re legit and very similar to Jameson. Government contracts. Extraction operations overseas. Disaster response. Executive protection. But they only recruit former Special Forces, leaning heavily on mercenaries. On paper? They’re elite.”
I skim the top sheet and see awards, defense commendations, partnerships with federal agencies. They look… respectable.
“When you look at all that, it’s hard to believe they’d be dirty,” Josie says, then offers me a wry smile. “But I don’t believe in halos.”
“Neither do I,” I murmur.
I flip the page and see a dossier on the founder and CEO, Jason Pelham. There’s a photo of him. He’s handsome in an off-kilter way. Strong features, but a pockmarked face. I see he’s forty-seven, holds an MBA from Stanford, and was a former defense logistics consultant to the US government.
“He’s based in San Francisco,” Josie says and I look up at her. “Married. Three children. Enjoys skiing and competitive amateur golf.
“Sounds like a regular Joe,” I murmur, focusing in on the personal bio. “But there’s always more if you know where to look.”
Josie chuckles. “Let’s see what you got, Miss Investigative Reporter.”
I shoot her a wink and start tapping away on my laptop. I start with his profile on LinkedIn, which is sparse but polished. He’s wearing a suit and tie in his profile pic. I next move to Instagram but there’s no account. I don’t bother with TikTok and instead turned to my tried and true… Facebook. It seems no matter who you are, most people have at least an account that one of their family members insisted they get so they can keep up with family information.
And bingo… he has one. His profile pic is the same one from his LinkedIn profile. He has no other photos, no other posts. Looks like Jason Pelham created his account and then promptly forgot about it.
His bio line is short and sweet. “Married to Rebecca. Father of three. Grateful.”
Rebecca.
My fingers pause over the keyboard and a connection fires in my memory. I quickly click open a file I’d built on Gavin DelRey, the CEO of RainVest. I flip through corporate filings, peer-to-peer connections, charitable foundations. I scroll to the family section and scan my notes.
There it is… he has a sister and I found a few mentions of her from his own Facebook profile I researched a few weeks ago.
He had some posts where he mentioned his sister “Becky,” although she wasn’t tagged.
“Do you believe in coincidences?” I ask Josie, looking up from my screen to meet her eyes.
“Nope,” she replies. “What do you have?”
I ignore her for a second, doing a search on Facebook for a Becky DelRey. Nothing. Rebecca DelRey. Nothing. Rebecca Pelham. Nothing. Becky Pelham. Nothing.