“Think of it as my way of making sure you were really okay. You don’t have to like it, but it works, so I use it,” he explained.
“Got it. For future reference, I don’t have a problem taking the life of a man who was about to kill one of my friends or family members. This motherfucker had his gun trained on Avery, after he hit her, twice. He tried to kill me and her kids. I don’t have a single ounce of regret about killing him.”
“Good. Phoenix called a few minutes ago with some information. Apparently, Mark Pruitt was terminated from his job as highway patrolman for ‘not following department policies.’ Not sure what that means, but Byte is going to try to find out.”
“When was he fired?” I asked.
“Two weeks ago. Why?”
“The police report for my wreck and the witness statements didn’t make any sense. I’m wondering if he altered them to help cover his tracks. And if he did, did he mess with the reports for Claire’s accident as well?”
Copper rubbed his chin. “Seems like a good possibility to me. I’ll mention it to Phoenix so Byte will have something more specific to look for. Spazz has been looking through Mark’s home computer to see if he has anything of interest stored on it.”
“He’d be a fucking idiot if he did,” I said.
“Or overly cocky, which it sounds like he was,” Bronze added.
“How’s Avery?” Copper asked.
“She’s hanging in there right now, but I don’t think the weight of it all has had time to fully hit her yet. Someone she thought was a trusted family friend was betraying her for years. That’s going to have some kind of effect on her.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help,” Copper offered.
“Thanks, Prez.”
A knock sounded at the door before it was pushed open and Spazz entered the room with his laptop. “I think I may have found something.”
“You think?” Copper asked.
Spazz placed his laptop on the table and started to explain. “He doesn’t have much saved on his machine, but he does have a lot of pictures and videos saved to a cloud. I haven’t been through them all, but there’s a shit ton of pictures of Avery. At first, I thought the videos were just porn clips he’d downloaded, but then I noticed the dates on them. The first one is from a few months ago and they’re all exactly one week apart. Again, I haven’t watched all of them, but I did watch a few minutes of the first one and, well, you can see for yourself.”
Mark appeared on the screen with a sinister grin on his face. He stepped to the side and revealed a woman standing with her back to the camera. A woman with long, auburn hair. “Take off your clothes, Avery,” Mark instructed.
“The fuck?” I roared.
Spazz held his hand up. “Just wait.”
“Fuck that!” I said and pushed away from the table. No way in hell was I going to watch whatever the hell was playing on his screen.
“It’s not her,” Copper said.
My eyes darted back to the screen and I couldn’t hide my shock at what I saw. The woman was facing the camera completely naked, and it most definitely wasn’t Avery. “Holy shit!”
“Isn’t that your ex-wife?” Bronze asked.
“Yep, that’s Kelly,” I said in disbelief. “What in the hell is she doing?”
“Looks like she’s about to fuck the dirty cop,” Bronze stated.
“Shhh,” Spazz hissed.
“How did it feel when your boyfriend used your pussy as a get-out-of-jail free card?” Mark sneered.
Kelly’s lips curled up in a devious grin. “It was my idea,” she purred.
“Was it now?” he asked as he walked toward her. “Bend over, bitch. Let’s see why your boyfriend keeps you around.”
When Mark thrust into her and started calling her Avery, I’d seen enough. “Turn it off,” I barked.
