Page 125 of Reveal

“So I’ve been told.”

“Christ,” Abel mutters and grabs the paperwork from the table. I move forward to watch him take a pen and X out a paragraph of the document. He initials the change and hands the pen to Noah, who does the same, before holding the pen out to me.

With my eyes locked on his, I take the pen, scan the paragraph that has been crossed out, and initial beside theirs and add a date beside it.

From there I proceed to take a seat and go word for word through the deal. I skip the standard boilerplate and focus on the specifics, despite their grumbling that it’s all there.

When I’m satisfied, I take a deep breath and throw up a silent prayer that I’m doing the right thing here, that I’m not missing some huge loophole that’s going to land me in jail, and sign my name.

I slide it back across the table with shaky hands.

“Now it’s your turn,” Abel says with an edge of impatience and a lift of his eyebrows.

I walk to my office, grab my own stack of papers from the top drawer of my desk, and return to the two agents sitting at my kitchen table.

“That’s the proof?” Abel asks with skepticism.

“Yes.” I push the call log across the table. The one I was originally given without any of my notes on it.

“What’s this?” He dismisses it immediately.

“It’s a call log.”

“No shit, Sherlock. Do you care to expand here?”

“That log was given to me some time ago. I didn’t know what it was, what secrets it held . . . just that it pertained to Carter Preston and that he’d be in a world of hurt if this fell into the right hands.”

“So you lied to us then about having something else on him?” Abel questions.

“Do you want me to continue, or do you want to argue semantics?” I defer, hoping he’ll let that tiny detail go.

“Where did you get it from?” Noah asks, and I breathe a cautious sigh of relief.

“A generic email account sent from an IP address located at a New York public library. I can get my PI to turn over to you the details of it, as I’m sure your reach is much farther than ours was.”

Noah and Abel exchange a glance and look back down at the log. “I don’t understand—”

I cut Noah’s words off when I slide across the table a different version of the same call log. This time it’s covered with my notes.

I find immense pleasure in watching their eyes widen as it dawns on them just what this is . . . and intense satisfaction knowing I’ll be the one who put Carter Preston in his rightful place: behind bars.

“So this is—how did—I don’t have . . .”

I step around the side of the table. “I researched when the vote was. I noticed all these calls going back and forth took place in the weeks leading up to it followed by a flurry the day of.”

“Okay . . . ,” Noah says.

“That number right there is the CEO of Alpha Pharm.” I point to one and then to the second. “His private encrypted cell phone, actually. He might have used the services of a rival escort service before. I made a couple of calls, had to make a few promises, but this here is his number. There’s proof in that stack over there”—I point to a pile of papers—“that ties this cell phone number to his credit card.”

“That’s fine and all, but none of these are Carter Preston’s number,” Abel says, pointing to the other cell numbers on the sheet.

“Yes, actually, they are. At least they’re the one he uses from his burner phones to call and schedule dates with a certain escort service.” I meet both of their eyes. “I can trace these numbers to calls placed on my cell phones. Ones you probably recorded him using since you were tracking our calls. And if that’s not good enough, I have a few voice mails with his voice on two of those numbers.”

“Son of a bitch,” Noah mutters.

“A goddamn burner,” Abel says.

“It’s smart. He’s a senator who doesn’t want escorts or . . . I guess bribes able to be connected to his name.”