19. Chapter 18
“This is the most boring part of the job,” Hope said as she took the iced coffee Bradford handed her, tried not to suck it all down. But it was like walking on the sun out here. Summers in Louisiana were not for the faint of heart.
Rowan and Adalyn were in the coffee shop across the street, because even with their disguises, she and Bradford had opted to keep some distance. Smarter to be backup rather than get caught on cameras or run directly into Killeen.
So they’d grabbed drinks from an adorable pink-and-teal food truck parked across the street that sold coffee, pastries and even ice cream. Considering how hot it was outside already, she was thinking about getting one.
“Right.” He took his own coffee then dropped a tip in the bucket before he fell in step with her.
Even though it was early enough not to be melting heat yet, there still weren’t a ton of people out on Bohn Street. Luckily they found a shaded bench underneath a crepe myrtle and sat, just a random couple enjoying their coffees and taking pictures and videos with her cell phone.
“Anyone look familiar to you?” he asked, his voice low enough so only she could hear.
“No, but that doesn’t mean anything. I didn’t recognize over half the people at my dad’s funeral, and this is a couple towns over.” It was unlikely she’d run into any familiar faces. She hadn’t been home in so long that she barely knew anyone anymore.
“I think this might be him,” Bradford said as he took a sip of his coffee.
A giant truck pulled into a spot a couple slots down from the coffee shop, and yep, Edward Killeen got out, his expression intense as he stalked toward the front door.
“He didn’t even look around or anything.
He’s not worried about anyone watching him.
” Hope took a sip of her latte. No one was paying them any attention anyway.
Most people were ordering their drinks from the nearby food truck, then heading on their way.
They would need to move in a little bit too if they wanted to plant a tracker on his truck before he left.
“He’s talking to one of the waitresses.” Adalyn’s voice came over the comm line. “And…oh, these two are more than friends.”
Hope’s cell phone buzzed and she saw that Adalyn had sent both her and Bradford a group text…
A picture of Edward Killeen with his hand gripping a dark-haired woman’s hip in a very possessive manner.
They weren’t making out or anything, but they were way too close to just be friends, or employer and employee.
The woman was looking up at him as if he hung the moon and he was staring down at her as if he wanted to screw her right up against the countertop.
“Picture really does say a thousand words. Bet his wife won’t like this,” Bradford said.
“Unless they have an open marriage.” Hope didn’t get that. She would never have shared Bradford.
Bradford just snorted. “Somehow I doubt it. ”
“They’re heading to the back now,” Adalyn said. “I’m trying to get into their camera system.”
“You guys really just don’t care about breaking the law, do you?” Hope murmured.
Bradford turned to her, and even with his sunglasses on she could see his surprise. “Does it bother you?”
“Hell no.” Maybe it should, but in her experience, the people she went after didn’t follow the letter of the law so why should she?
It didn’t make sense to play by an arbitrary set of rules and let assholes off the hook because they were playing by a different set than the rest of the world.
To bring stories to light, she’d had to bend the law more than once and she was fine with it.
As long as she could still look at herself in the mirror in the mornings, she was doing all right.
“I mean, I have some lines I won’t cross, but this isn’t one of them.
” And this guy wanted to kill her, so screw him.
“Any more on that story you’re sort of writing?” he asked.
She was aware that the others were on the comm line, so she kept it vague. “Maybe. One of my sources sent me a video this morning. It’s pretty damning. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it yet.”
“She doesn’t want to tell her story?”
“Not yet. But I think she wanted me to have the evidence, as if she thought I was unsure of her story. She’s a tough one to read so I don’t know.
She literally sent it with a short note telling me to watch, that’s it.
” Hope had been talking to three women, and this was the one she’d approached cold, based on a tip from one of the man’s other victims. “She could just be working up to it. It happens that way sometimes.”
Or more often than not. People were scared to come forward, to put their lives on display for the rest of the world to judge and plaster their opinions all over the internet.
It often took time to mentally prepare. And even then, there was only so much preparation a person could do.
“If I was unscrupulous, I’d just leak the damn video and sit back as it went viral.
Hell, she could have done that if she wanted to, but she sent it to me instead. ”
“You think the video would go viral?”
She snorted softly. “No doubt. Even with all the trash today online, this one would rise to the top quickly.” He was a well-known man—the governor of Mississippi.
Someone whose name had been floated as a potential VP in another decade plus.
So yeah, a video of him slapping one of his interns when she’d rejected his sexual advances, then tearing at her shirt—and only stopping when he was interrupted—would go viral.
Of course, some people would say it was fake even if it was authenticated.
People would judge the victim, analyze the woman’s entire life, her choices, what she’d been wearing the day she’d been attacked.
“You okay?” Bradford squeezed her leg gently, clearly having read her expression.
She gave him a small smile, nodded. “Yeah. Just…wishing the world was a better place, that’s all.”
“Me too…”
They both paused as Adalyn said, “Okay, I’m in. Sending you a live feed of what I’ve got.”
Hope scooted a little closer to watch his screen, trying not to pay attention to how good he smelled. Or what being so close to him did to her. But his scent alone brought up so many memories of being tangled up with him in the sheets, of lounging in bed just talking and laughing with each other—
No, focus!
She forced herself to watch the feed, which was just an empty hallway. The angle of the video was from up high, set in a corner of a long hallway. There were a few doors, two of them open. “Any sound? ”
Bradford increased his volume as Adalyn said, “None yet. Not sure if it has that capability.”
A whole lot of nothing happened so she glanced around the street, seeing if anything looked off. Not that she actually expected it to, but still. She wanted to be aware of her surroundings, even if she was confident in her disguise—and having Bradford next to her.
Bradford made a soft humming sound and she glanced back to see… “Oh my. You think he forgot about the cameras?”
“Maybe he doesn’t care,” Bradford murmured.
“They’re not live,” Adalyn said. “Well, he doesn’t think they are. I’m using the recording function now to get all this for later.”
Killeen had the waitress pressed up against a wall. Her legs were wrapped around him, and they were making out pretty hard as he slipped his hand under her skirt.
She was grinding against him like an overzealous porn star.
“Kinda glad we don’t have any audio,” she whispered. “So ridiculous.”
Bradford snickered, then glanced around, likely making sure no one else noticed what they were looking at.
Nope, no one was paying them any attention as they went about their lives. And the tree gave them decent cover from any prying eyes.
Killeen went down on his knees as he flipped the woman’s skirt up and… There was more grinding, more over-the-top thrusts and likely moans Hope was so grateful she didn’t have to hear. The whole thing was performative. And then… “Barf.” She looked away as Killeen pulled his dick out.
“Maybe we’ll learn some moves,” Bradford said around a laugh.
Oh, his moves were just fine.
“I need brain bleach,” Rowan muttered, the first time he’d spoken over the comms .
“Whatever, this is fantastic,” Adalyn said. “Because now we’ve got something to use against him with his wife. If she finds out he’s cheating on her, she might turn on him.”
Hope kept her gaze averted as the two of them continued gyrating against the wall. “What’s the point of doing it out in the hall for anyone to see? Don’t they care about her coworkers?”
“Maybe that’s their kink.” Bradford shot her a sideways glance. “Maybe they like the thought of getting caught.”
“More likely Killeen likes the thought of someone seeing him banging a woman half his age.” Men and their stupid egos.
Bradford laughed lightly. “You’re probably not wrong.” He looked back at the screen, then winced. “I’ve seen enough of this guy’s dick.”
“You and me both.” This from Rowan.
As they started cleaning up, a message popped up from Berlin on Bradford’s phone. They’re definitely using the coffee shop and other businesses to funnel money. I’ll have the details later for you, but his wife is hella rich on paper since she owns these places.
Interesting indeed. “I’d love to out him to his wife,” Hope whispered. “Just blow up everything, since he wants to, you know, end mine .”
“No shit.” Bradford squeezed her thigh gently and didn’t take his hand away immediately.
And she hated that she wanted to lean into him, to tell him that he could leave his hand there.
Maybe…hooking up again wouldn’t be a terrible thing.
They were stuck together because of this mess and she’d missed him so much.
Missed everything about him, including the things he did with his talented mouth and fingers and…
She forced herself to shut down all the images that wanted to surface. It was already hot enough outside; she didn’t need to burst into flames in public .
But…maybe they could hook up and try to get each other out of their systems? Move on for good. Yeah, that was just wishful thinking.
“You ready?” Bradford murmured.
“Yep.”
They both stood and casually strolled down the sidewalk to the crosswalk. As they reached it, they tossed their empty cups in the recycle bin, then continued on their way.
As they neared Killeen’s truck, Hope pulled up her phone, pretended to take a call as Bradford slipped between his vehicle and the one parked next to it. He bent down as if he was tying his shoes, slipped a magnetic tracker up inside the undercarriage, then walked on without missing a beat.
She waited on the sidewalk until he joined her a minute later.
“He’s still in the back,” Adalyn said. “Might be here for a while. You two are good to go if you want.”
“I think we’ll stick around until he heads out,” Bradford said, eyebrows raised as he looked at Hope.
She nodded in agreement. Finding out what the Killeens were up to was her main priority right now.