He’d go to confession, say the required number of Hail Marys, and hope that would expunge his soul enough he could still end up in heaven.
“Everett, are you even listening to me?” Pennington’s angry voice interrupted his dark thoughts of missing and abused children.
“Sorry, you cut out for a minute there.”
“I said, you’d better hope he finds that woman before she talks. Because if we go down, you’re going down with us,” he threatened.
Guys like Pennington never took care of their own dirty work, which was why they’d signed a contract with Leonard and had agreed to his demand to hire Vinny. The guy assumed Vinny’s sole responsibility as the head of security for Human Rescue Alliance was to protect all of the people involved in their sick and twisted little venture. First and foremost, he was loyal to Leonard and was his eyes and ears into what was happening at HRA.
His old friend had unfettered access to all of the systems and every square inch of the HRA facilities. There wasn’t a boardroom or executive office that didn’t have one of Vinny’s cameras installed in a place no one would think to look. He’d also seen to it that their private vehicles were bugged. Unfortunately, they’d never given any thought to putting a camera in the Cavanaugh woman’s office or they might’ve found out about her sooner.
To ensure the computer side of things was covered, Vinny hired his sister’s kid, Samuel, to work in the IT department. He was only nineteen but had a decent grasp of computers.
Initially, the kid had been concerned about breaking the law by snooping around in HRA’s system. He’d quickly changed his mind when Leonard told him how much he’d be making.
A short time later, Leonard learned that someone had created a list of all the shit Pennington and his buddies had been doing and kept it on the HRA system. Samuel had assured him that the only reference he could find to Leonard or his company was their contract.
The kid also figured out that Charlotte Cavanaugh had accessed that very same file. He was still working on identifying the person who created the troublesome list in the first place.
Whoever it was knew way too damn much and would be dealt with after they took care of Cavanaugh.
“Don’t worry, Pennington. Vincent and his people are good at what they do. We’ll find her and make sure she doesn’t talk.” He was sick and fucking tired of this guy breathing down his neck and decided to tell him so. “In the future, when you’re making threats to me, you might want to remember that I know all of your dirty little secrets. I also know what it’s like to have nothing and how to survive in prison. Can you say the same about yourself?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Hawktooktheon-rampand sped up to merge into the midday traffic. Charlotte had been fairly quiet since they left the office, which was fine. He wanted her to control the tempo of any conversation they might have.
As he worked his way to the left lane, she finally broke the ice. “How long have you worked for OSI?”
“About three years, almost a year of that with Remy.” Cole had approached him about working with a K9, and Hawk had jumped at the chance.
He and Remy were both trackers, so it made sense for them to be partnered up.
“Isn’t it difficult, what you do?” She added, “I mean, I know it has to be very dangerous.”
“It can be, but we train a great deal and have decades of experience between us.” The hardest part of the job was seeing how horribly the victims were treated. “I’m very fortunate to work with an amazing group of people.” He glanced over his shoulder to the back seat. “And of course, Remy.”
The dog lifted his head from where he was sprawled across the seat, looked at them both with sleepy eyes, then yawned and returned to his nap.
“He is so adorable.” Charlotte smiled, stretched to reach over the seat, and stroked her hand down his back. “He looks at me with those big brown eyes and I just want to give him all the treats.”
“He’s a master charmer, that’s for sure.” He was also a major asset to the team with a one hundred percent success rate. “Remy and that powerful sniffer of his have helped us find enough evidence to bring down a lot of really bad people.”
“I know he’s an electronic storage detection dog, and I was absolutely blown away when Dulce told me some of the things he’s found and where.” She gave Remy a final scratch behind his ear, then faced forward. “But how does it work exactly?”
“ESD dogs are trained to detect triphenylphosphine oxide, a compound used to prevent electronics from overheating, and hydroxycyclohexyl phenyl ketone, a compound found in CDs, DVDs, Blu-Rays, and floppy disks.” During their training together, Hawk had been impressed by how quickly Remy mastered his skills.
“That’s quite a mouthful.” She tried unsuccessfully to repeat them and shook her head. “Nope, can’t do it.”
“I couldn’t either, at first, but now they’re second nature to me.” He flipped on the blinker and headed toward the northbound highway onramp. “He’s located SD cards, external hard drives, tablets, cell phones, computers, and USB flash drives in some of the most unbelievable places.” He told her about the ones he’d located in their most recent mission. “Almost every single one he’s found contained CSAM.” Child sexual abuse material.
“I’ve been a licensed therapist for almost eight years and a victim advocate even longer, and I will never understand the level of evil one must possess to produce or watch that wretched stuff.” She shook her head in disgust. “Those poor children carry the physical and emotional scars for life. For that, I think people who victimize children should be putunderthe jail, notinit.” She was absolutely beautiful as she spoke with such passion and, yes, contained fury. “As a therapist, I should probably be interested in identifying the root cause to such deviance. But in my humble opinion, there is no cure, no redemption from that kind of malevolent behavior.”
“You’ll get no argument from me there.” Hawk drove onto the highway.
“So, what did you do before joining OSI?” Her curiosity about him was heartening. But he also saw it for what it was—a way to keep the conversation from steering toward her.
“I was a deputy sheriff in Snohomish County, Washington. Before that I was a forward scout in the Marine Corps.” Hawk hoped she didn’t ask more about his time in the Corps. She didn’t need to hear about that dark period of his life.
