Chapter Twelve — Trinity
CHAPTER TWELVE
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TRINITY
Holy shit.
The email I stared at in my inbox was one I never expected to see.
I spent the rest of Sunday doing as much digging as I could into Tracy’s case. There was… a lot. And the sticky note with a hastily scribbled email address seemed to be the key. Too antsy to wait until today, I’d taken the chance and emailed, explained who I was.
Then, this morning.
Tonight. East Ray Beach, near the dock. 7 PM.
Don’t use this email again.
Being the reporter I was, as well as hating being ordered around, I emailed my confirmation, only for it to bounce immediately. As if it had never existed.
Out beyond Clarity’s coastal waters, there was a project to restore the coral reefs that had once been full of life. But fishing, industry, and humans in general had caused them to fade and die.
The project had been going since Ocean, Isolde, and I were in college. But the thread Tracy was pulling at was that several companies were actually using the project as a way to mask the pollutants they were dumping in the water.
Her notes said one of the big ways that the reefs were built—repurposing old cars which the reefs could take over—was the culprit.
There was far less oversight in the project than I’d thought, looking at this, and it seemed that cars which were slated to build the reefs were used as a mask for companies who wanted to skirt the environmental agreements they’d made. But it didn’t say how.
If it was true? No wonder she was keeping it quiet while she worked on it.
Some of these companies were no joke. It had been national news when the environmental restrictions were put in place.
Even bigger news when the largest consortium of corporations and polluters had agreed to it without much struggle.
Public opinion had been against them, and there was nothing like the threat of falling stock prices and market share to terrify companies into compliance.
Or so we’d thought. It certainly looked like there was more to the story. Yet all the surface level research I’d done so far was squeaky clean. Probably too clean.
I would find out more about it tonight when I met with the source. Of course, I had other things to do, but it was going to be a struggle to focus on them when all I wanted to do was go to the beach and wait. Nothing else seemed as important.
Still, I tried to work on the mountain of other tasks on my plate, even if my eyes kept straying to the clock and making it go slower.
My phone buzzed with a text from Isolde.
Isolde
Did you decide?
I blinked, trying to find what the hell she was talking about in the empty echo chamber that was currently my brain. And… nothing.
Trinity
About?
Isolde
About the Alphas you were drooling over on Friday?
Right.
I was alone in my office, but my cheeks still turned hot.
Sometimes I misplaced things in my mind if they weren’t in front of me, including people. It was annoying.
Trinity
Honestly, I got caught up in a story and kind of forgot.
Isolde
You forgot about them??
Trinity
No, of course not. But you know how I get when I’m in focus mode. Nothing else exists, even super hot dom Alphas.
My phone rang with her name. I put it on speaker. “Hello?”
“Okay, but you’re thinking about them now, right?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
I sighed. Anxiety twisted in my gut because I was terrified of all the things that could go wrong. But in the moments yesterday where I couldn’t stop thinking about them, I could admit to myself that I still wanted them.
No person had ever made me feel as safe as they did, which felt impossible with men who were strangers, but it happened.
“And I want them,” I finally said.
“Fuck yes. Please tell me you’ve texted them.”
“Not yet. Like I said, I’ve been in a brain hole all day.”
I could practically hear her eyes roll. “If you don’t do it by tomorrow, I’m stealing your phone and doing it for you.”
“Not if I throw it in the ocean tonight,” I muttered. “Besides, I don’t have their number.”
“THAT IS A FIXABLE PROBLEM,” she yelled, laughing. “It’s going to be great. Stop sabotaging what could be the best thing to ever happen to you before it even starts.”
“You’re annoying when you’re right, you know that?”
“Nice try, but I’m annoying all the time.” She laughed. “Okay, I’ll stop bugging you. But I will be asking. If you’re going for it, I’m not going to let them slip out of sight and out of mind.”
That pulled a burst of laughter from me. “Fine. You win. If I don’t text them tomorrow, you can steal my phone.”
“Feels good to be the victor,” she teased. “Talk to you later?”
“Yeah.”
She hung up, and I took a steadying breath. I did want them. And I was still terrified. Two things could be true simultaneously.
But I would worry about that afterward. My mind was still stuck on the contact on the beach, and even though I didn’t have to be there for a few hours, I decided to go. All I was going to do here was watch the clock, not get anything done. It was the end of the workday, anyway.
The wind on my face, bare feet on the sand, and the sinking sun were a sure cure for most of life’s problems, including my anxiety. Out here, the idea of the Breaker Pack seemed less impossible.
Nothing felt impossible when you were staring at infinity.
I needed a beach day soon. Before the weather turned. It had been months since I spent time near the water, and I could feel the muscles in my shoulders and neck easing. Nothing replaced a good massage, but a beach day came damn close.
As the sun slipped down the sky, I made my way over to the dock in question. I had no idea what this person looked like, but they knew my name, and it wasn’t hard to find my face. I would trust them to find me.
A text beeped in the group chat, and I rolled my eyes.
Isolde
Ask for their number yet?
Trinity
Fuck off. Love you!
Ocean
What did I miss?
Isolde began typing, and I prepared to see a block of text filling in our friend on everything we’d talked about after she left yesterday.
“You’re Trinity Crawford?” The low voice startled me. I turned and found a man relaxing against one of the dock’s giant support pillars. Sunglasses and a ball cap. Plain clothing that would stand out or be remembered. “Don’t look at me.”
I looked back out at the ocean. We were only a couple of feet apart, so I could hear him, but if anyone glanced in our direction, all they would see would be two strangers admiring the sea.
“Here.” The man’s hand slid into the bag that I had on my shoulder, and I felt something drop.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a good portion of what you’ll need,” he said.
“Not all of it?”
“I had all of it a few months ago. Things have changed, and I don’t have access anymore. If Tracy hadn’t disappeared, she would have had it. Why did she give this to you?”
I did my best to keep my face and voice even. In the email, I’d only said that I’d gotten the story from Tracy, but not how. “Strictly speaking, she didn’t give it to me.”
His head whipped toward mine in my periphery. “What?”
“Tracy died unexpectedly in a car accident a few months ago. I’m sure she would have followed up with you otherwise. I found all her notes about this over the weekend. They were shoved in the back of a filing cabinet.”
A growl that made my hair stand on end rolled out of him. “You should have told me that.”
I shook my head. “Why? It was an accident.”
He scoffed. “As a reporter, you should know better than that. There are no accidents.”
A child in the shallows screamed and drew my gaze.
It sounded real, but one look told me it was a happy scream, even if it didn’t sound that way.
I pressed a hand to my chest, willing my heart to calm.
It was like Element all over again. I took a breath.
“The police investigated,” I said. “They didn’t find anything.
And I’ve lived through too many coincidences to believe that they don’t exist.”
He said nothing.
“Coincidences. Accidents. Whatever you want to call them.”
Again, nothing. I risked a glance and found no one.
Not even walking away. I scanned the beach, turning in a circle to see if I could still spot him, but I couldn’t.
People playing sand soccer, a group of people photographing the sunset, families building last minute sandcastles.
No one that looked the same height and build, and no one in a ball cap.
If he was that careful, he would have ditched the hat and glasses.
Maybe taken his shirt off to blend in more with people on the beach.
No matter what, he was gone.
I cursed under my breath. At least he’d given me something. Rummaging around in my bag, my fingers closed around something small and smooth. One glance told me it was a flash drive.
Maybe whatever was on this drive would be enough. And hopefully, whatever was on it meant I could still believe in accidents.