Chapter 32 Trent #3
Voices carry to me as I cut through the living room, and even before I make it to the kitchen, I know Rick and Zan are there.
When I walk in, I find Spencer there as well.
His head dipped low as he works on his laptop in an almost trance-like state.
He doesn’t even look up to see who came in, letting me know just how deep he is into whatever he's working on.
Zan looks up at me, a smirk pulling at his lips. “I knew you’d be back before morning,” he says, but I ignore him instead, turning my attention to Rick.
Rick gives me a nod in greeting. “There's food in the fridge.” He says before going back to the papers spread out across every inch of the counter.
My stomach growls at the mention of food, reminding me I’d missed dinner with everything that happened last night.
I find a plate in the fridge with some kind of chicken and a pasta side that I grab and take to the microwave.
I don’t even care what it is at this point; I’m fucking starving.
Plus, I know Rick made it, and he might be a big-ass mean fucker, but the guy can cook.
I’d never admit it to them, but it was one of the things I missed about them, among other things.
As soon as it’s warm, I take my plate to the island, plopping down next to Spencer. He still doesn’t look up or acknowledge that anyone else is even in the room, and I have to fight the urge to ask him what's got him so focused.
It wouldn’t matter anyway; he probably wouldn’t even hear me.
Just as I thought, the food is delicious, and it’s gone way too fast. I take my plate to the sink and wash it off before I move to stand next to Rick, taking a peek at the papers he’s so engrossed in.
I half expect him to tell me to get lost or move the papers, but he doesn’t.
Instead, he surprises me by stepping aside a bit to allow me to get a better look.
“What’s all this?” I ask, grabbing a paper with a list of names that's dated a few years back.
“It’s everything we have on all the rings Jade’s taken down over the years. Girls' names, where they ended up, who was running them, and when and how they went down,” Rick says without looking up from the stack he’s sorting through.
“And what’s that?” I nod to the pile still sitting next to everything at the end of the counter.
“It’s everything we have on everyone who was murdered in the same timeframes who might be linked to the rings,” Spencer explains without looking up from his laptop, and I almost jump at the sound of his voice.
Guess he was paying attention after all.
I walk over to the stack and see that most of the paperwork is from the station.
I bite back the response that sits heavy on my tongue about them stealing police files.
But nows not the time, and they’ve been doing this shit for years.
Rick has access to just about everything because of his father's position, and anything he can’t get, Spencer can pull up.
This isn’t the time to play the moral high ground, though. We need any information we can get..
Honestly, I would’ve gotten the papers myself had they asked, and while I’m glad they didn’t need me, it doesn’t make me any better than them because I was still willing.
I skim through the stack of papers, finding profiles and pictures of countless people who have shown up dead over the years.
I’d been on some of these cases before they were closed with no leads.
For a while, we’d thought there was someone putting hits out on high profiles, but there was never anything we could find to connect one murder to the next.
No call for action or money and no calling card left behind.
I’d been furious at the time, thinking someone was out there killing innocent people.
I’d worried about who would be next and whether my family and friends were safe.
Now I can see that I never had any reason to worry at all.
Every single one of these people deserved what they got; hell, they probably deserved worse.
The stack is huge and goes back years, even before I was sworn in, and I feel a pang of sadness in my chest thinking about how long Jade has been fighting for her life. After all the shit she’s been through, to finally be free, and then have to deal with even more of it.
It’s not fair.
I set the stack back down with a little more force than necessary.
“It’s fucked, I know,” Zander says from right beside me, and I almost jump out of my damn skin.
I’d been so deep in my own thoughts that I hadn’t heard him approach.
The smirk on his face lets me know he’s aware of what he was doing.
Zan’s always loved sneaking up on people.
When we were kids, he would hide for hours just to scare us.
It drove us all nuts, but I also think it helped us all to be more aware, and while I would never thank him for it, it’s a damn useful skill to have.
“How is she?” I ask to change the subject. After my run-in with Jake, I can still feel the anger just below the surface, and dwelling on this shit isn’t a great idea right now.
“She’s fine,” Spencer scoffs, and I turn to look at him. He’s the last one I expected to answer, given their rocky relationship, and while his eyes are still trained on his laptop, I don’t think he’s lying.
I turn my attention back to Zan and lift my brow in confusion.
He backs up a few steps to the island with a chuckle, pulling himself up to sit on it while watching Rick as he continues to sort through the stack of papers.
“Don’t mind Spence; he’s had a stick up his ass for a few weeks now,” he says with a wink before he turns to look at Spencer, and I know before he even opens his mouth that whatever's coming next is going to piss Spencer off.
It's one of Zan’s favorite things to do, after all.
“It doesn’t help that she bested his security a few nights ago. He's been going nuts because he couldn't figure it out. It’s supposed to be the best after all,” he tells me in a rush, barely able to get it out before Spencer reacts.
“Zander!” Spencer bellows his name before he tosses one of his many notebooks at his head.
Zander dodges it, and it thumps Rick in the back before it falls to the ground.
Rick doesn’t even react. He just continues to sort the papers, and I can’t help but wonder if he really didn’t feel it or if he’s just so used to this kinda shit that he’s just this good at ignoring them.
I turn my attention back to Zan and Spencer as Spencer yells at him for telling me.
“It’s Trent, Spencer. Calm the fuck down.
It’s not like I told Randall. I doubt he would’ve done anything with that kind of information before, and now that Jade’s a factor, he really won’t,” Zan says in defense before turning his attention back to me.
“Isn’t that right, Trent?” he asks, wiggling his eyebrows at me suggestively, and I roll my eyes before turning away from him.
Spencer's gaze snaps up to meet mine for the first time since I entered the kitchen. The bags under his eyes are even more prominent than usual, but I can see the determination in them, just like when we were younger. He’s like a dog with a bone, and he won't stop until he’s got what he’s looking for.
For as much as he and Jade are at each other's throats, I know he won’t let her down because it would mean he didn’t do all he could, that he failed, and Spencer could never handle that.
I hold his gaze for a minute as he searches my face. He gives a sharp nod after a moment and turns back to his screen. I’m not sure what he was looking for, but whatever it was, he must’ve found it.
Of course, Zander isn’t ready to let it go.
“Anyway, she told him how she gave his oh-so-precious system the slip the other night, and now he’s questioning everything because he swears it shouldn’t be possible.
But she found a way.” Zander sighs, a dreamy look in his eyes.
I can’t help but shake my head at him; leave it to Zander to find Jade pissing Spencer off as a turn-on.
Though I can see how it would be amusing, I’m not sure that anyone has ever given Spencer so many problems, not even Zander, and that's like one of his life goals.
Spencer's on his feet the next second. The stool he just sat on slams to the ground, pulling Zander from his dreamy state and alerting him to Spencer's movement.
Zander hops down off the counter and is out the door in a flash. Spencer’s hot on his trail as he screams colorful insults and promises of violence once he gets his hands on him.
“Fuck, they're going to wake her up,” Rick groans, finally choosing to pay attention to them now that they’ve escalated their argument.
He tosses his papers down on the counter with a sigh as he makes to go after them, the sound of them thumping up the stairs echoing through the otherwise quiet house.
Rick’s words have me frowning in confusion. I mean, she could be sleeping somewhere else in the house, but he didn’t seem to care until they started up the stairs.
“Rick,” I call after him, and he pauses in the doorway. “Jade’s not sleeping.”
He turns to look at me, and I scramble to explain.
Rick and I aren’t too far off in tempers, but I’ll be damned if he isn’t huge and intimidating, but that’s not why I want to explain.
I thought Jade was down here or somewhere else in the house, and they were aware of it, but if he thinks she’s upstairs, that means he doesn't know where she is.
“I went to check on her before I came in, but it’s just Hazel.
I thought she was in here with you guys, but when I saw it was just the three of you, I figured she was with Kratos,” I explain, watching his face for some kind of hint that he knows something I don’t.
Of course, he gives nothing away, his face set in the same mask as always.
“Shit,” he spits the curse, taking off into the living room, and this time I follow him.