Page 126 of Reveal

Noah runs his finger under every call as if he’s remembering some invisible timeline to compare them against.

“Where did you get this?” Abel demands. “How did someone know to email it to you?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. That’s the only question I can’t answer. Maybe because my PI was asking questions about him? I don’t know.”

“Almost too convenient,” Noah says to Abel with a snort.

“That’s what I thought . . . but it is Washington, and I’m sure Carter has burned a lot of bridges. Another woman scorned, perhaps? The ex-wife of Alpha Pharm’s CEO? Maybe it’s her way of getting back at her husband? Or maybe even someone who works at the cell phone company whose family member will be affected by the veto of this bill? I don’t have answers for you. I just know I’ve had this, and it took me some time to connect the dots.”

“This is enough to nail him right now. There are still a lot of questions that need to be answered, but we finally have something connecting the two men. We pull up a warrant, we—”

Noah holds his hand up to stop Abel and slides a look my way as if to say, Not in front of the non–special agent people. “We need to get our ducks in a row first. He’s slipped through our fingers before,” he says, his words surprising me. “I don’t want to let it happen again.”

“It seems to me you won’t need me to confront him,” I say, more than relieved at the thought.

Noah looks at Abel and heads toward the front door, his cell already in his hand. “I’ll find a judge who’ll sign this warrant and—” The front door shuts behind him, and I am left to look at Abel with raised eyebrows.

“We’ll leave the confrontation on the table. We need to see what happens first. Judges are fickle creatures sometimes.”

So are agents, it seems.

I nod, all the while biting my tongue to keep from pointing out that Ryker’s phone numbers can’t be found anywhere on that month-long call log. It’s nowhere.

But I don’t.

And just as if fate is giving me a different way to prove his innocence and eradicate all doubt I should feel guilty for even thinking, I point to the stack of papers. “Let me see those again.”

The smirk on Abel’s face says so much more than any words can. He’s a hunter, and his prey is so close within reach he can smell him.

But I’m about to remove one less person for him to go after.

I thumb through the papers again. I look past the sticker shock of the cover sheets that show the return address, my name, the balance due . . . and look at the pages after. The payments applied. The interest charged.

“There,” I all but shout when I see the date of the balance payoff.

“What?” He fights the smile on his lips, his tone feigning innocence.

“You knew all along, didn’t you? You knew these balances were settled before you guys even approached me. That Ryker didn’t pay me off to keep me quiet.” I sit down in the chair. “Son of a bitch!”

His laugh rings out through the house. I wasn’t sure he was even capable of having one. “We all have to play games sometimes to get what we want.”

I stare at him, blinking, slack-jawed. “So he’s in the clear?”

Abel twists his lips as he weighs how much to tell me. “Not exactly. But that’s a start.”

Two hours later—after we’ve gone through everything I have, including my own phone records showing calls from that same number of Carter’s, saved voice mails recorded from one of his burner cell numbers—I’m finally all alone in my house.

By then, the desire I have to chew Ryker out has dissipated.

It’s still there all right . . . but it’s being stifled by some major exhaustion and the elation that I just might have gotten myself out of being bait for the FBI to use to lure Carter Preston.

I refuse to be collateral damage.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Ryker

“Where are you?” I jolt at the sound of her voice. Guilt springs up at being here without her knowing.