CHAPTER 11 #2
I nod once, because I don’t have a better response than that.
When I log the Glock back into the armory and head toward the stairs, I know one thing with certainty.
I still have a lot of shit I need to figure out where Tessa’s concerned, but I’m not getting the answer today.
When I leave the range, the transition feels like surfacing from underwater.
I trot down the staircase to the lobby, finding Tessa at one of the long tables near the windows, laptop open, surrounded by piles of documents.
A legal pad rests beside her, covered in her tight, slanted handwriting.
Her coffee mug is half-full and forgotten.
A strand of hair has slipped loose near her temple, and she absently tucks it back as she scrolls.
For a moment, I just watch her. Seeing her sitting there, steady and focused… alive… is grounding.
She senses me before I speak and looks up. Her expression shifts immediately from studious intent to warmth. “Hey. How’d you do?”
“Cleared my head,” I reply.
“That sounds like code for didn’t hit the target,” she quips with a grin.
“Smartass.” I pull out the chair across from her and sit. “You find anything?”
Her eyes sharpen instantly, and she turns the laptop toward me. “I did.”
The name Jason Pelham sits at the top of the screen in bold. “Who’s that?”
“Head of SAPG.” Her fingers move quickly across the trackpad.
“On paper, he’s clean. Standard top-level executive compensation.
Conservative investments. Nothing flashy.
” She clicks into a spreadsheet layered with color-coded cells.
“But when I ran his name through property acquisition databases and cross-referenced that with corporate filings, I found an odd connection. There are two holding companies tied to properties he purchased over the last three years. They don’t list him directly—but the registered agent for both entities is the same corporate services firm that files paperwork for RainVest subsidiaries. ”
“That’s not illegal,” I say.
“No,” she agrees. “But it’s close enough to smoke.” I get a lopsided grin. “No pun intended.”
“Funny girl,” I say dryly.
She scrolls again. “Both properties were later developed by firms with financial ties to RainVest. And both developments were fast-tracked through permitting despite failing initial inspections.”
I feel the familiar tightening in my gut. “Dirty money exchanging hands?”
“That’s my guess.”
“That’s circumstantial but interesting.”
A smile breaks out across her face, eyes dancing in a way that tells me all this stuff isn’t really all that interesting.
“It gets better.” She opens another tab.
“Pelham keeps his personal life quiet. No active online presence. No obvious family ties listed in corporate bios.” She glances at me briefly, almost pleased.
“But social media and city records don’t lie.
” She pulls up a scanned marriage certificate.
“Pelham’s wife is Gavin DelRey's sister.”
The name lands like a bomb and I lean forward instinctively. “They’re related?”
“Yup. Brothers-in-law.”
“Holy shit,” I breathe.
She nods and zooms in on the document. “Josie nailed it down after I found the connection. County clerk filing. She cross-checked it against voter registration data and property tax records.”
I let out a slow breath. “I think you might have found the smoking gun.”
“Exactly… a direct, personal bridge between RainVest and SAPG. It makes it more believable they would stoop to arson and murder for family.”
“Proximity with motive,” I muse, rubbing at my jaw.
She watches my reaction carefully. “You don’t think I’m stretching,” she says, softer now.
I meet her eyes. “No,” I tell her honestly. “I think you just moved this from suspicion to structure.”
Relief flickers across her face.
“Looks like you have a lot more work to do,” I quip.
She nods exuberantly. “I’m diving into shared travel, private meetings, any instance where they could coordinate without corporate documentation.”
“We’ve got the ability to hack into encrypted communications between RainVest and Pelham’s office as long as Malik approves it, which I’m sure he will. If they’ve slipped even once, Josie will find it.”
For a moment, we’re aligned. Two professionals dissecting a target, a brief respite from my worries about her dying. I see light at the end of the tunnel. “Is that enough for you to publish your piece?” I ask.
Tessa frowns as she contemplates. “I don’t know if it will pass legal with the paper. It would be much better if we could have a closer look at the internal workings of SAPG. Maybe that’s where we find a new whistleblower.”
I shake my head, immediately dismissing the idea.
“I seriously doubt anyone within the group will flip. The brotherhood in security groups is tight. Like take a bullet for each other tight. But still… it wouldn’t hurt to poke around.
Let me find out from Malik if we have any bridge with that group. ”
Her smile is small but fierce. “Okay… we have a game plan.”
I nod and glance at my watch. “You about ready to head home?”
“Home,” she murmurs, as if she’s rolling a foreign word on her tongue. There was a time that “home” wasn’t just a physical location but rather a state of existence between us.
“Your place,” I amend.
She stares at me thoughtfully, with enough pop of silence that I feel hot under the collar. But she eventually nods and closes her laptop. “Yeah… let’s head back to my place.”