Page 93 of Deeper

I move to stand behind her and glance over the clippings neatly displayed on the wall she’s focused on. These articles are different. There is no mention of any of the five men I’ve been hired to take out. There is a different subject on this wall.

Rylan picks up a notebook and hugs it to her chest.

“Rylan, who is Aria Martin?”

“She’s my best friend. She came here to go to school at Yale, and those men took her from me.”

“She’s the missing girl everyone was talking about this morning.”

“She is.”

“And then you hired me.”

“I did, and I’m not sorry either. Seeing Carter falling from the ceiling in the club cemented the fact that I had made the right choice.”

“I need more.” I need so many more answers. “I’m not cheap to hire. How did you even have the money to contract five kills?” It’s not the most pressing question, but it’s the first one to come out of my mouth.

“Apparently, my dad had some money put away that wouldn’t be mine until my college graduation. After the lawyer contacted me and the money showed up in my account, a plan formed and I couldn’t get it out of my head. A few years later, I heard rumors about your work in Florida with the guys who own that business that sells the stolen crap. The one guy’s sister, Teagan, she helped me track you down. She and I went to high school together. I didn’t give her any details, but I told her I needed you for a job.”

“Why did you let this happen?” I gesture between our two bodies, really needing to know if she orchestrated this, too.

“Just seeing the aftermath of their deaths wouldn’t be enough to make the anger inside me go away. When I met you in person, I knew I was missing the real show. I had to see you in action. I followed you, watched you hunt, saw you torment Cortland. I can’t explain the gratifying emotion that overwhelmed me in those woods that night when he begged you for mercy that you wouldn’t give him.”

“You knew who I was the night I kissed you the first time at the club?”

“I knew exactly who you were. I couldn’t resist being touched by the man who was killing those who had hurt Aria.”

“Is that what this is between us? Is that all this is—your compulsion to be closer to your vendetta?”

“Callen, no. Maybe that was the initial attraction, but there shouldn’t be any doubt in your mind what this has become. It’s not like you had pure intentions that night you saw me with Tatum. Neither of us expected this to take us here. I wanted the man killing the men who had hurt Aria, and you wanted the woman who wore her sexuality like a badge of honor. But that’s not who either of us are anymore. You aren’t the same man who wanted what you saw when you first met me, and I’m not the woman who wanted you for only what I saw. Together, we aren’t those same people.”

She’s right.

I hate to ask, but the doubt is there. “Rylan, how can you be sure these men hurt Aria? They had alibis.”

“I’m positive it was them. She had been telling me for weeks about the group of entitled guys who were giving her a hard time. She was the one who told me their names. Aria and I were on the phone when they approached her the night she went missing. It was my statement that pointed the police their way, but somehow, they managed to get out of this. Even Aria’s dorm mate knew it was them, but she changed her original statement a few hours after she was first questioned by the detectives. Obviously, either Margaret Elena Franklin was bought off, or she decided she couldn’t speak out against the other socialite families she had been raised with.”

“The woman from the hotel?”

“The one and the same. For whatever reason, she helped those guys cover up what they had done.” She shakes her head and balls her hands into fists. “The cops picked me up because the murders started shortly after I came to town. It looks suspicious since I am the best friend of the girl who went missing.”

The front door slams, and both Rylan and I spin. She stands behind me, and I pull out my gun. Footsteps race toward us, and I click the safety on my weapon just as someone comes skidding to a halt in the open doorway.

Recognition.

The bright colors catch my sight first.

The fucking strange headband gives away her identity next.

Tatum throws her empty hands into the air and backs away until she’s flush against the wall behind her. “Don’t shoot!”

All of us stand frozen in one hell of an awkward predicament.

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