CHAPTER 10
Tessa
Ilove the duality of Jameson’s lobby. The décor is soothing with its exposed brick and high-end furnishings.
Even though I’d been offered one of the offices to work out of, I chose the long wooden table adjacent to the fireplace because I like to work among hustle and bustle.
It reminds me of working in the pit at the Herald, the biggest difference being that half the people moving through this space could dismantle a cartel before lunch.
Cole had work to do today at headquarters plus he wanted to get in a workout and firing range practice, which meant I had to come along with him.
While he capitulated to let me stay at my house, I can only do so if he’s with me and it’s a compromise I don’t mind.
I’ve been parked at the communal worktable, having the entire space to myself, now covered with piles of documents for easy reference.
My laptop is open, Erik’s files spread across a neat digital maze of folders and subfolders.
I’ve been combing through the corporate emails again, looking for patterns I might’ve missed the first dozen times.
It’s great that I have this information, but Erik’s dead and this stuff is useless since he can’t verify it. Now I’m searching for how to substantiate his claims in ways other than corporate documentation.
In essence, I need people.
That could be another whistleblower or even people who knew him and in whom he might have confided.
There’s no way I can cold-call RainVest employees, especially ones who would have been high up enough to know anything.
Erik was the executive assistant to Adrian Schwartz and had stumbled upon the damning information.
He was the one who tipped me off and started my investigation and ultimately provided me with the flash drive.
It cost him his life, and I doubt I’m going to luck into someone else with the same knowledge base willing to talk.
But I have to try, and my first order of business is to call Marissa Hale. Through some good old-fashioned scrubbing of Erik’s social media accounts, I located his older sister. She’s married, has two kids under the age of seven and a suburban address outside of Tacoma.
I stare at her number for a long moment before dialing and she answers on the fourth ring. “Hello?”
Her voice sounds exhausted and laced with grief. She lost her brother just three days ago. “Hi, Marissa?”
“Yes, this is she.”
“My name is Tessa Ward. I’m a reporter for the Emerald City Herald in Seattle. I was working with your brother on an investigative news piece before his death.”
Silence. Then, carefully, “Working how?”
“He had information about the company he worked for… RainVest. He tipped me off to some shady dealings and was providing me inside information.”
“Jesus,” she mutters, her words tight with anger. “Are you kidding me?”
“I wish I were,” I murmur. “I believe his death wasn’t accidental.”
Another stretch of silence, heavier this time. “I don’t know anything about that,” she says quickly.
Too quickly.
“I’m not looking to drag you into this situation unnecessarily,” I say gently. “But Erik trusted me. He gave me documents. If there’s context—if there’s anything you noticed—”
“I don’t know anything,” she cuts in, her composure cracking slightly. “And even if I did… I don’t want to talk about it. I just lost him, for Christ’s sake!”
I sit up straighter. She knows something. “I promise I won’t use your name. I can come talk to you today—”
“No!” she exclaims and I hear the fear in her voice. “Erik and I weren’t that close so I couldn’t be of any help.”
I don’t buy it for a second. Social media showed a loving, close sibling relationship with pictures of them with their arms around each other, smiling big for the camera.
He doted on his nephews. I decide to hit her on it but gentle my voice.
“I don’t think that’s true, Marissa.” I hear her inhale on the other end of the line.
“I think you two loved each other very much and he was taken away unfairly. I really want to get him justice and—”
“Listen, lady,” she hisses in a low voice that actually promises violence. “I have two kids. I’m not getting pulled into whatever mess he made.”
“He didn’t make this mess,” I say quietly. “He was trying to expose it.”
“Then expose it,” she snaps. “But leave me out of it. I can’t orphan my children.”
The line goes dead and I pull my phone away from my ear, staring at it thoughtfully before lowering it to the desk.
She absolutely has information but that’s a dead end for now. I could just show up on her doorstep and try to get her to talk, and that’s still a possibility. I’ll have to talk to Cole and see what he thinks.
Just the thought of Cole warms my skin. Last night we fell so easily into bed with each other, it was as if time had been standing still for us and restarted right where we left off.
I particularly enjoyed making him see stars with that blow job, and oh, did he pay me back for it.
He made me orgasm twice before flipping me over on my stomach and driving into me from behind.
That’s one of the aspects I loved most about our sex life… the way he took control.
The way he dominated me.
“You look deep in thought.” I jolt, glancing up to see Josie approaching, tablet and folder tucked under her arm, coffee in hand.
My face flushes since I was thinking dirty thoughts but I play it off. “I tried to make contact with Erik’s sister,” I say. “She knows something but she’s too scared to talk. I’m thinking of getting Cole to drive me to her house to see if I can get her to change her mind.”
“Well, put that on hold for now,” Josie replies evenly, setting her stuff down beside me and taking a chair. “I’ve got information on the Strategic Asset Protection Group.” She slides a stack of printed summaries across the desk.
“What did you find?” I ask, taking the papers and flipping through them. They’re all printouts from secure websites that I suspect might have been hacked. This is all information I would have never been able to access on my own.
“They’re not some fly-by-night LLC,” Josie says. “They’re legit and very similar to Jameson. Government contracts. Extraction operations overseas. Disaster response. Executive protection. But they only recruit former Special Forces, leaning heavily on mercenaries. On paper? They’re elite.”
I skim the top sheet and see awards, defense commendations, partnerships with federal agencies. They look… respectable.
“When you look at all that, it’s hard to believe they’d be dirty,” Josie says, then offers me a wry smile. “But I don’t believe in halos.”
“Neither do I,” I murmur.
I flip the page and see a dossier on the founder and CEO, Jason Pelham. There’s a photo of him. He’s handsome in an off-kilter way. Strong features, but a pockmarked face. I see he’s forty-seven, holds an MBA from Stanford, and was a former defense logistics consultant to the US government.
“He’s based in San Francisco,” Josie says and I look up at her. “Married. Three children. Enjoys skiing and competitive amateur golf.
“Sounds like a regular Joe,” I murmur, focusing in on the personal bio. “But there’s always more if you know where to look.”
Josie chuckles. “Let’s see what you got, Miss Investigative Reporter.”
I shoot her a wink and start tapping away on my laptop.
I start with his profile on LinkedIn, which is sparse but polished.
He’s wearing a suit and tie in his profile pic.
I next move to Instagram but there’s no account.
I don’t bother with TikTok and instead turned to my tried and true…
Facebook. It seems no matter who you are, most people have at least an account that one of their family members insisted they get so they can keep up with family information.
And bingo… he has one. His profile pic is the same one from his LinkedIn profile. He has no other photos, no other posts. Looks like Jason Pelham created his account and then promptly forgot about it.
His bio line is short and sweet. “Married to Rebecca. Father of three. Grateful.”
Rebecca.
My fingers pause over the keyboard and a connection fires in my memory. I quickly click open a file I’d built on Gavin DelRey, the CEO of RainVest. I flip through corporate filings, peer-to-peer connections, charitable foundations. I scroll to the family section and scan my notes.
There it is… he has a sister and I found a few mentions of her from his own Facebook profile I researched a few weeks ago.
He had some posts where he mentioned his sister “Becky,” although she wasn’t tagged.
“Do you believe in coincidences?” I ask Josie, looking up from my screen to meet her eyes.
“Nope,” she replies. “What do you have?”
I ignore her for a second, doing a search on Facebook for a Becky DelRey. Nothing. Rebecca DelRey. Nothing. Rebecca Pelham. Nothing. Becky Pelham. Nothing.
I blow out a frustrated breath and turn my laptop to face her. “Pelham’s wife is named Rebecca. Gavin DelRey has a sister named Becky. What are the chances they could be related?”
Josie’s fingers are already moving across her tablet. “Hold on.”
She looks up after less than thirty seconds.
“Rebecca DelRey married Jason Pelham in 2011,” she says. “San Francisco ceremony. High-profile guest list. Defense industry crowd.”
I lean back in my chair slowly. “So SAPG,” I murmur, “is owned by Gavin DelRey’s brother-in-law.”
Josie nods once. “Brother-in-law with access to trained operatives, logistics networks, and government-grade operational experience,” she adds.
The pieces don’t just fit. They lock. “I’m suddenly no longer having a hard time believing a company like that would agree to arson and murder for a client.”
“Family ties,” she muses.
Erik hadn’t stumbled onto some random security vendor. He’d uncovered a family operation. My brain whirs on overdrive. “If Pelham is facilitating ‘controlled asset clearing’ under the guise of risk mitigation, then this isn’t just corporate greed.”
“It’s conspiracy,” she says with a glinting smile.
I stare at Pelham’s smiling profile photo—clean cut, well dressed, the kind of man who sits on nonprofit boards and donates to wildfire relief funds.
Josie’s eyes sharpen. “You’re on to something.”
“Yes,” I reply cautiously. “But what? And how do I prove it?”
I have motive.
I have financial trails.
I have vague emails that could mean coordination and conspiracy.
I have a dead whistleblower.
I have a brother-in-law connection.
What I don’t have is verification of any of this and I still need someone to corroborate.