Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69327 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69327 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
“Semantics.” I could practically see her waving her hand at the air. “I want to make sure you’re a good guy.”
I stiffened. “Why does that matter?”
“Because I have some delicate information I’m going to share with you, and the people who are using me as a go-between don’t have anything to do with the shit you’re about to hear,” she answered.
I forced myself to unclench.
“Okay,” I said. “Tell me.”
So she did.
I immediately connected my computer to my personal hot spot—I never kept my computer online for long periods of time—and started searching.
It took me thirty minutes, but I started to make the connections that she had.
“Singh Circus,” I said. “You’re sure they’re not dirty?”
She went on to explain the family’s dynamic. How they’d taken over the circus when their father had died. How they’d spent the next year of their lives following their father’s rules to try and get the stakes in the company. She’d then gone on to tell me that they’d decided to set up a permanent circus right here in Dallas, and how they’d just recently started making connections about the father and his circus.
“Things were learned,” the woman said. “I’m sure you have your own computer people that can work this, but if you don’t mind, I’d rather not have their information splashed everywhere. I’ll do whatever I can to keep it under control if you do splash them through the mud.”
I liked her.
She had guts.
“You want a job?” I asked.
She snorted. “You couldn’t afford me.”
No, it didn’t sound like I could.
“Give me an address for a meet,” I said. “I’ll talk to them. Decide.”
She gave me an address, and a time to meet for an hour before dark.
She also said she’d see me there.
Then we disconnected, and I was left wondering what in the hell had just happened.
I picked up my phone ten seconds later and said into it, “I want everything, and I do mean everything, that you can find dating back to when the father, Ansel Singh, took it over from his father.”
“On it,” LaDerrick said. “What time do you need it by?”
LaDerrick Pattinson, a ten-year employee, was my star pupil.
Nothing fazed him. If I asked him to hack into the Pentagon right now, he’d do it.
Me asking him to look into a circus was child’s play for him.
I looked at my watch. “A couple hours. Be thorough.”
“Will do.”
He disconnected and I got up from my desk and found my suit jacket.
Picking my cowboy hat up off the table—I was a cowboy at heart and didn’t leave home without it—I settled it on my head and left my office without telling anyone.
Though, I was sure it was noticed that I’d departed.
Security, as well as all my assistants, would’ve seen me go.
I didn’t answer to any of them, so I didn’t think it was needed to tell them when I was and wasn’t there.
I also controlled my own schedule, so I could cancel my appointments at a moment’s notice if I needed to.
Luckily, I didn’t need to.
Which gave me all the time in the world to get in my old Dodge truck and head toward a circus to scout it out.
CHAPTER 5
I’m currently surviving life at a rate of several WTFs an hour.
-Crimson to Val
CRIMSON
I felt someone watching me.
I looked around, wondering who it could be, but saw nobody.
Well, I didn’t see nobody.
I saw a truck parked down the street from our apartments. An old Dodge that looked very well kept. There was a cowboy in the front seat looking down.
I actually stretched my calves next to his truck, using the meter he was parked in front of to help balance myself.
Though, when I glanced into the front glass of the truck, it was to realize that it wasn’t a person at all, but a hat on the dashboard and no one inside of it.
Which then made me feel incredibly silly.
Maybe no one was watching me after all.
As I’d felt a gaze on me as I’d exited, I’d wondered if it was him again.
I’d felt that knowing in the pit of my stomach for my entire walk home last night. Then I could swear that I saw him outside my apartment this morning after I’d left to clear my head.
But when I’d looked around, it was to find nothing.
Just like now.
I sighed and leaned my hand against the hood of the truck.
It was still warm from when it was parked, meaning someone had been here not long ago.
I moved my hand and switched to the other calf.
I probably shouldn’t be running again so soon after last night’s long run, but I felt restless. As if I needed to clear my head.
After Keene’s revelations, and then Hades’, I’d been in a wasteland of despair.
My sister.
My poor sister.
And my own father had been the one to do it to her.