When We Touch

He’s shaking his sandy brown head. “Nope. They let her go to hide her. How long had she worked there?”

“She’d been with us about a year.”

“Now set that aside. It’s a separate issue, a smokescreen—”

“A smokescreen they can use to destroy my life and make it look like I invented suppression of evidence to save my hide.”

He scoots forward in the booth. “Mind if I take this with me?” He holds up the duplicate thumb drive.

I do a little wave. “Take it. It’s half the reason I asked you to meet me.”

He studies the small black drive in his hand. “I’ll go through it and see if I spot anything that absolves you while implicating Wagner and Bancroft.”

“In the meantime?” I know what I want to do, but I want him to give me permission first.

“Lay low. Act like you’re playing their game.”

I make a disgusted face. “For how long?”

“It’ll take me a day or two to go through this, but I’ll see what I can find. Time is our enemy now.”

Leaning forward, I dig out my wallet and take out a twenty. “What if we talk to the driver?”

We stand together, and Ian scrunches up his face. “Dirk Underwood?”

“That’s right.” Reaching out, I hold the glass door for him to exit. “If he grows a conscience and confesses, that’s how I’ll get justice here.”

“Won’t happen.” My friend puts a toothpick in the side of his mouth. “Those guys have too much to lose to turn whistle blower. If he doesn’t own his own truck, if he’s completely in their pocket, which it sounds like he must be for them to be able to push him into jeopardizing his license, I’d stay far away from him. You’ll only tip them off.”

“Shit,” I mutter, stopping in front of The Beast.

Ian starts to laugh. “I’d say the same if I were driving that thing. What happened to your Audi?”

Looking up, I smile in spite of myself. “This old heap feels more like home.”

“Take it easy, Jack. Work on something else for a few days. I’ll have something for you this week one way or the other.”

Driving back to my condo, Ember is heavy on my mind. This sexual assault thing would kill her. Even if we weren’t together at the time, I never want her to think of me that way. Sexual assault… My insides go cold. An accusation of that magnitude threatens my ability to be around Coco.

“We have to get to the truth,” I say to myself.

Running back through everything we said at the coffee shop, I decide to track down Tiffany. I don’t know how they convinced her to lie, but she and I were friends. I’ve got to appeal to her better nature.

The sun is dipping low when I arrive at my former home. I pull into the parking garage right next to my Audi. It’s locked and secured, but I put The Beast’s keys in the visor before heading for the elevator. Memories of living here, of keeping up with the single life, dating women whose names I don’t even remember… Tiffany on her knees in front of me in the dark, giggling as she unfastened my belt…

All of the lies and the pretension, the fakery and pretending to be something you’re not—it all disgusts me now and has me reaching in my pocket for my phone. I need to tell Ember what’s happening, just on the remote chance it somehow gets back to her.

I swipe my card and hit the button for the top floor. My phone is in my h

and, and I watch for the bars saying I have reception. A soft ding, and the doors slide open at the penthouse suite. I step into the open lobby ready to hit the call button when my phone starts going off in my hand.

The lights are out. I’m in total darkness as I read the face. Two missed calls from Emberly followed by a brief text.

My pulse spikes, and I fly back into the small box rapidly pressing the button for the garage as I read her words.

I need you! It’s Coco! Please come home now—hurry!

Twenty