Page 77 of Deception

No, but he’d wrestled with himself for a good thirty minutes before he called his sponsor in spite of the time. At least this time he’d been able to drive away, but the bomb was always there, ticking.

“Maybe Jake needs a friend who understands what it’s like to have an addiction ... like you.”

No way. Clayton banged the glass on the countertop.Focus on Dani’s case.She would be leaving the safety of the ICU soon and needed to be his first priority. The police chief had already turned down his request to put an officer outside her door due to lack of manpower.

All the more reason to get this case solved. There was an option he hadn’t played yet, and he took out his phone and scrolled to the Fs. Silas Fletcher. Clayton hit dial.

“Don’t you ever sleep, man?” From Fletcher’s croaky voice, Clayton could tell he had woken him up. “What do you need?”

“Need you to check the dark web to see if anyone’s put out a contract on a couple of people. Briana Reed and Dani Parker, who sometimes goes by Lindsey Tremont.”

“Care to give me a clue where to look?”

“Both would be of interest to human traffickers.”

“Got it. I’ll contact you as soon as I know something.”

“I owe you one.”

“You owe me more than one,” Fletcher growled. “Now let me get back to sleep.”

Clayton ended the call and stared at his phone. Fletcher would find out if there was a contract on Dani. And if there wasn’t, he needed to look in a different direction in the case.

Maybe he needed to anyway. Dani hadn’t been the target at the hospital. That left either Bri or Madison. The teenage girl’s background with human trafficking could easily have made her the target—if her pimp had tracked her down. But why shoot Dani and leave Bri at the rest area? If the pimp had followed them from New Orleans, he would have known the girl was with Dani...

He shifted to Madison. If she was the target, could someone have mistaken Dani for her? But why would Madison be anyone’s target? That’s the question he needed to ask her later today before she left to make funeral arrangements.

Clayton would definitely miss working with Madison on the case. He thought about the two women, so much alike yet different. It seemed odd how he was drawn to Dani as a sister. Definitely not the way he felt about Madison. Which was strange, given their features and many of their personality traits were identical.

Clayton blew out a breath. Women had been almost as addictive to him as gambling. It was different with Madison, though. But was it genuine attraction or the same-old-same-old? How would he ever be sure? The argument raged within him. He shook it off.Focus.

Maybe Clayton could get Judith Winslow to help him find Madison’s and Dani’s birth records. Was it possible she’d even handled the adoption? He googled both Bright Horizons and Judith Winslow. While there were plenty of hits that connectedher to Bright Horizons, there was only a small amount of personal information on her.

He logged back into the Mississippi Secretary of State website and looked up Bright Horizons. Judith had started the pregnancy center thirty-four years ago as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. That would have been a year after the twins were born. He clicked the link to more information. While the site didn’t give her salary, it listed almost as much in administration expenses as in receipts and income. Over $400,000. Since the center operated mostly with volunteers, if he were still a betting man, he’d bet she had a hefty salary.

He leaned back in his chair, not sure exactly how what he’d learned fit together. How did Judith Winslow’s meeting with the judge Wednesday fit with his information? At the time, Clayton had assumed it had something to do with a legal matter, like an adoption, but thinking back he wasn’t so sure. In the first place, Anderson no longer handled adoptions. That ended when he went from being a chancery judge to a judge on the state supreme court, and five years later he was nominated by the president to become a district federal judge.

What had Winslow wanted from the judge? When Clayton had been at the door and looked back, Anderson was adamantly opposed to something she was saying.

He wondered if Madison’s grandfather was on Winslow’s board of directors. Probably not if the judge had signed off on any of Bright Horizon’s adoptions, but he checked anyway. His assumption was correct—Anderson’s name wasn’t on the list of board members.

Clayton closed his computer and rolled his shoulders. He’d like to know more about Judith Winslow before he asked for her help, but who to ask? His mother. She should be able to help him.

Did his mother know about Jake? His stomach tightened. Of course she did—Jen lived next door to her. Why hadn’t she told him? Because she knew how he’d react. His gut tightened.

Was he going to let Jake ruin his relationship with his family? He replayed the scene from earlier.“If you can’t accept Jake, then just stay away from us.”

Clayton couldn’t lose his family ... especially Ava. His shoulders slumped. Could he accept Jake Prescott? With that question weighing on his heart, he headed to bed.

Sunlight woke him instead of his clock, and Clayton groaned. He hadn’t set his alarm. It had to be almost eight. He checked his watch. No, just 7:30, but too late to grab his Bible for his usual study. He’d have to settle for a verse or two, and as long as he didn’t make a habit of it, it would be better than nothing.

While he waited for his coffee to brew, he thumbed through his email for one of the devotions that dropped into his inbox every day and clicked on the first one he came to.

The way things were going with him, it’d probably be about forgiveness. He breathed a sigh when he saw it was from the third chapter of John. “For God so loved—”

His phone buzzed with a call. Madison. “Hello?”

She didn’t answer right away.

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