Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 43118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 216(@200wpm)___ 172(@250wpm)___ 144(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 216(@200wpm)___ 172(@250wpm)___ 144(@300wpm)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Jenna
I get out of the shower with a towel against my hair, rubbing the strands dry or at least as dry as I can get them without heat. I figure there’s no need to dry it completely if we’re only going undercover and putting my hair through unnecessary stress.
I always try to take care of it, and I’ve noticed that Hunter likes to run his hands through it and tangle up in it when we’re having sex – so I don’t want to risk any heat damage right now.
“Your turn,” I tell him, and he looks up from where he’s lounging on the bed, playing with his phone. He is hotter than ever in just a pair of pajama pants, his hair still a little mussed from last night.
I almost want to convince him to stay here and have sex again, but I know that at some point or other, we actually have to do the investigation we’re supposed to be working on. If I keep distracting him every five minutes, we’ll never get to the bottom of things before my dad gets beaten to death.
At that sobering thought, I record the image of how hot Hunter is in my head and turn away to get dressed, trying to ignore it otherwise.
“I’ll see you in ten,” he says, making his way over to the shower and unfortunately depriving me of the magnificent view – but I know it’s for the best.
And then I think of what he’s doing now – how he must be standing naked under the shower with the water running over him. I shiver and know I need to get out of this bedroom because it’s dangerously close to the bathroom door.
I head downstairs, wondering what to do with myself while I wait. Well, for a few minutes, I wonder. It’s hard to deny the fact that I already had something in mind when I got out of the shower. It was the only thing I could think about the entire time I was under the water.
It was the only logical place I would go after this morning, and I try to make myself feel better by reasoning that surely, he must have realized that.
There’s no way he could get away with acting so strangely, trying to rush me right out of his office without seeing whatever he was doing in there, without making me suspicious.
Right up to the last minute, I pretend that I’m going into the living room – but I’m not.
I turn and go into the office, find the door thankfully unlocked, and sit behind his desk.
For a second, I appreciate the fact that this is his space – his chair. This is where he sits while he’s talking to clients, conducting investigations, and so on. It’s like sitting in his shadow, feeling the grooves that his body has made in the chair over time, resting my hands on the arms where he must have rested his so many times.
Then I snap into action, looking around for any clues. I don’t want to risk turning his computer on, although I could maybe pretend I wanted to use it to check on something – but first I want to use my eyes and see what I can find.
The top of the desk is clear, so I open the top drawer instead and find an unmarked green file folder just sitting there, right on top, as if it was thrown in there hastily.
This has my attention, and I have to look. I just have to.
I open it on top of the desk, and my eyes widen – because the first thing, right on top of a bunch of other papers, are all the printed photographs Hunter took last night.
I move them aside and look at the next page. It’s a printout of an email that appears to have been sent to my dad. I thought Hunter said he wasn’t able to get into his emails. I read it carefully, my eyes widening further when I realize what it says.
This is an email from my dad’s boss, telling him that since he hasn’t come into work for over a month, he’s officially being fired and that the only way they were able to do it without seeing him in person was in writing.
My dad lost his job. No wonder he didn’t show up for his lunch break. He wasn’t even there.
His car… that’s why I couldn’t see his car in the parking lot!
Oh, god. This was something we saw on the first day of the investigation. Did Hunter know since then? Did he figure out that far back?
Am I the only stupid one who didn’t realize that his absence from the parking lot had to mean he wasn’t there at all?
I feel sick. Not only did Hunter keep this from me and lie about the emails, but it’s even worse than that. My dad lied to me. He pretended that work was going fine all this time, but this email was dated a few months ago.