Page 87 of Beautifully Devoted

“If he’s on parole, he’d need permission to leave the state of New Mexico. You think he didn’t get that permission?” Aiden asks us.

“It seems unlikely since he’s only been out of jail for two months. I can’t imagine anyone would grant him leave so soon without a compelling reason,” I say.

“Visiting his family, work.” Aiden ticks off a list. “Either of those could be considered compelling.”

“My dad’s been estranged from us for over a decade,” Jagger says.

“Do the courts know that?” Liam asks.

“No idea.” Jagger shrugs. “But I’m sure they know he’s not qualified to do much of anything, so they’d question why he can’t find something in New Mexico.”

“Hold up.” Cruz puts his hand up like a stop sign. “Say he left the state without permission. What does that even mean? They can arrest him here?”

“I think so,” Jagger says.

“What do you mean?” Cruz asks.

“He hasn’t committed a crime, so I’m not sure they’d arrest him.” Jagger lifts his shoulder.

“Isn’t leaving the state without permission a crime?” Cruz looks around the room for verification.

“Technically, yeah,” Jagger says. “But only if he gets caught. And I’m not sure the police here want to chase down a guy who may or may not be violating his parole unless he’s committed a crime. That’s the way Coach made it sound, anyway.”

“So, we just need to make sure they catch him,” Bennet says what I’ve been thinking since I got that text.

“Oh, no.” Jagger swings his head to glare at me. “You’re not making yourself bait.”

“Well, you’re not paying him, or he’ll never leave you alone,” I counter. “Besides, I can’t really bait him when I’m hardly his target mark.”

“Target mark?” Liam asks. “What was he arrested for?”

“Some sort of fraud, I think,” I tell him. “He was bilking old ladies out of their savings by catfishing them.”

“Yeah, that’d make you shitty bait.” Bennet collapses into a fit of laughter until Liam cuts him off.

“That’s it. We catfish him right back.” Liam reaches for his phone and starts typing. “Do you know what platform he used to find the women?”

“Probably all of them,” I snort.

“Okay, well this one is for mature clients.” Liam types away.

“Wait,” Jagger says. “Are we doing something illegal to catch my dad doing something illegal? I don’t want anyone to get themselves in trouble for that douche. Plus, if we bait him, does it even count against him if he takes it? And at what point does it become a crime for him? After we’ve given him money?”

“Those are good points,” Aiden says. “Plus, catfishing him back could take weeks or months. We need to stop the threat against Cam now.”

As the rest of them bicker I pull Jagger to me and whisper in his ear. “You make a pretty good knight yourself, Kitcat.”

He ducks his head to downplay it, but I see his proud smile.

“Guys!” I holler to get everyone’s attention. “While catfishing him might be fun as hell, I was thinking of something a little more tabloid reporter and less secret agent. All we have to do is confront him with proof that he’s in Colorado and tell him it’ll be sent to his parole officer if he doesn’t leave us alone.”

“How do we do that?” Cruz asks.

“He thinks I’m the key to get Jagger to pay up, so my guess is he’s going to keep tabs on me. He’ll probably take some more pictures to make threats with, which he’s going to be out and about around town. As long as one of you is always following me to take his picture, we should be able to prove he’s not in New Mexico.”

“Question,” Bennet raises his hand. “Unless you get a street sign or an address in the picture, how can you prove where or even when it was taken?”

“Because every picture you take with your phone has a shitton of metadata associated with it including the date and location it was taken, the type of device used to take it, even who owns the device.” Aiden tells him what I discovered while researching what I’d need to do when taking videos for Jagger. “Anyone can do a search on the image and get the exact geolocation of the photo, so it’ll be pretty easy to prove Jagger’s dad is here.”

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