“We killed it,” AJ answered with a laugh.
“Funny,” Jay said. The rest of us laughed. Cate rolled her eyes.
“Gear up,” John ordered.
We holstered our blue training pistols and slung our blue training rifles. The training guns fired non-lethal projectiles and were perfect for close-quarters training with or without human targets. The plastic paintball-like rounds were bullet-shaped and had a colored, water-soluble marking compound. We used them because they were faster and more accurate than paintballs.
They hurt more too.Pain is a great training aid.
“Let’s go,” I said, before putting on my protective face shield.
We lined up outside the door. When John was in position on the catwalk, he gave the order to begin.
I signaled to Maxwell; she signaled Jay. We were ready. After silently counting to three, Jay ripped the door open, and we went to work. Maxwell was better than I expected, and Jay was exactly what I expected from a spec ops guy. It was our first training run of any kind, so it wasn’t as smooth as I’d like, but it wasn’t shit either.
When we got back to the front, Jay gave his former team shit. “Which one of you idiots shot a hostage?” he asked, taking his mask off.
“What are you talking about?” Jack asked.
“Poor kid had a hole in his head,” Jay said, grinning.
“You sure that wasn’t you?” AJ asked.
“Wait, I didn’t see a kid,” Doug said.
“Didn’t anyone teach you to identify your target before you fire?” Jay asked.
Before things spiraled out of control, Maxwell reeled Jay in by saying nothing more than his name. “Jaden.”
“He’s fucking with you.” I put their minds at ease.
AJ punched Jay in the arm.
Jay returned the favor.
I just shook my head and watched.
Not what I expected from a small-town family private investigation company. But I liked it.
Back in the office, I showered before scouring the internet for everything I could find on Ashley York. Ignoring the guilt and my conscience calling me a stalker, I scanned her social media accounts and looked into her work history.
I justified my actions by reminding myself that everyone in this day and age did a social media search for the person they were interested in.
Ashley’d be disappointed when she tried to find me. I didn’t have a social media presence. I wasn’t even listed on the SSI website, since they’d removed everyone from the About Us page after what happened with Jay and Cate.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Ashley was an open book. Some things I knew from our conversations, like how she’d lost her parents young in a car accident, she was a marketing major in college, and she worked for a marketing firm in Dallas.
In Vegas, she said she’d never been married and didn’t have kids.
Thankfully, the search gave me no reason to believe that either of those things had changed. Not that it mattered, despite what Jay said, I didn’t expect her to forgive me. She was less than receptive when I explained why I had to lie, and I couldn’t, wouldn’t, bother her with the details.
Even if it’d make it easier for her to forgive me. She didn’t need her innocence shattered with my horrific war stories.
“Back to work.” I forced myself to focus on the task at hand.
Ashley spent a lot of time on social media.Not surprising given her career. Making it easy to research the last few months of her life.
The most recent posts caught my attention.
