Chapter Twenty-Seven
Trace
Two weeks later
The sky waspitch black, and I looked at my watch. It was later than I thought. I rubbed my eyes and sent a quick text to Cierra telling her I was running late. She was volunteering at a women’s shelter that night and we’d made plans for her to meet me at my place. Grabbing my briefcase, I switched off the lights and headed down the hall.
Everything was quiet as a tomb, which was to be expected on a Friday night. I nodded at the security guard, and as I headed to the revolving doors, I remembered I’d left the Dowling file on my desk. I groaned and debated about going back. I’d been trying to snag that account for the past several weeks. My grandfather had been working to get Dowling onboard as a client for years, but he hadn’t been able to win him over. Meeting with Fred Dowling was huge, and I’d wanted to go over the key points of the campaign Velocity was proposing before our meeting on Monday morning. There was no choice—I had to go back up and get it.
The plus of being in a virtually empty building was that the elevators were fast. I hurried down the hall to my office, where I saw light spilling out onto the carpet. I paused, pretty damn sure I’d switched off the lights when I left. I glanced around searching for the cleaning people, but they weren’t on the floor; besides, it would’ve been impossible for them to have cleaned my office in the short time I was gone. Deciding I must’ve been mistaken, I ambled onward.
What the fuck?I stopped in the doorway. The paperwork from the Dowling file was spread across my desk, and Ms. Pierce was bent over, taking pictures of the documents with her phone. I stood transfixed, waiting for what I was watching to make it to my brain. It finally did.Well I’ll be damned. Ms. Pierce is the leak.Keeping guard at the doorway, I didn’t move a muscle.
As if sensing me, Ms. Pierce whirled around. Our gazes locked and her face went as white as death, her lips trembling. After several tense minutes, she cleared her throat. “I’ll have copies of the file ready for you first thing Monday morning.”
“Don’t insult me. I want to know who the fuck is behind DTG.”
She shrugged.
“Now!” I was next to her in a flash, grabbing her phone and squeezing her upper arm hard. “I’m not in the mood to fuck around. You’re going to tell me who you’ve been working for.”
She broke down, crying hysterically. Half of what she said I couldn’t understand, so I eased her into a chair and waited for her meltdown to stop. It finally did, and she took the tissue from the box I gave her, wiping away the wetness from her cheeks and blowing her nose. Looking down at her hands in her lap, she grabbed another tissue and began to tear it up in tiny pieces.
“I didn’t want to do it. Honest. It was just that I needed the money so badly. My brother’s a drunk and my mother’s addicted to pain pills. I’m the only one who works, and money is so tight. Their disability checks go to booze and pills. I know people say it’s not my problem, that they’re grown up, but I can’t turn my back on my family. When you love someone, it’s not just during the good times, but the bad ones too. You have to believe me. I was desperate, and Cory offered me so much money.”
My ears pricked up. “Do you mean Cory Bracker?”
She nodded. “I was having lunch a few months ago and he came over to me. It was super crowded in there and I was sitting at a table for two. It was at Luthey’s. The food’s real good. Have you ever been there?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers. A bad headache threatened to attack; I could already feel the dull throbbing in the base of my skull. “No. Go on.”
“Anyway, he asked if I wouldn’t mind sharing my table with him. One thing led to another and he asked me out. He took me to real nice and expensive places, and then he asked me to help him out. I didn’t agree to do it at first. He had to work real hard to convince me, but he kept offering me more and more money that I couldn’t refuse. I hated doing it.” Her voice cracked and a few tears slipped down her cheeks. “Being broke makes a person do a lot of things they’re ashamed of.”
“Where does he live?”
“I don’t know. We never met at his place. He’d take me to real fancy hotels.” She looked down at the floor. “I know what you’re thinking, but I’m no whore.”
“I don’t care about your sex life. What’s his number?”
“It’s always something different. He uses burner phones.”
“Are you supposed to meet him tonight?”
She shook her head. “Tuesday night. After your meeting with Mr. Dowling.”
A long pause filled the space between us. I had to find out what Cory Bracker’s game was. He was fucking Ms. Pierce, stalking Cierra, and trying to ruin Velocity. And the common denominator in all of it was me. For some reason, he was out to get me.
“Did he tell you why he wanted the information?”
“He said you owed him. He wasn’t too fond of you.”
“I don’t even know him.”
“Well, he knows you, and he has it in his head that you’re the cause of all his problems.”
“What time are you meeting him on Tuesday?”
“Around seven. He’ll call me and let me know where. What’s going to happen to me?”
