Stinger, стр. 65

Grace shook her head slightly. "Oh my God, I don't even… I don't even know what to say. Wait, what does this have to do with Josh's arrest?" Her eyes widened even further.

"Josh was framed, Grace. There's a man in Vegas who makes it his business to sell people, in his case, women and girls specifically. The women we rescued were his merchandise. What happened to Josh was his way of telling us he didn't appreciate what we had taken from him."

Grace fell back on the couch, putting her hand over her forehead. "Oh my God."

CHAPTER 31

Grace

I believed him without a doubt the minute he said it. My heart was breaking and my mind was reeling with everything he'd told me. How had my whole world turned upside down, yet again, in the space of half an hour? I sat on the couch with my hand on my forehead, trying to collect myself enough to ask more necessary questions. But only one came to mind. "What do we do?" I asked.

I looked at Carson and he paused for a couple beats before his face broke out in one of the biggest grins I'd ever seen on him. It shocked me a little bit. "Why are you smiling?" I asked, genuinely confused.

"You said, 'we,'" he said quietly, still grinning.

I blinked at him. "Yeah," I confirmed, "I said we."

"Just like that?" He asked, his smile fading and vulnerability washing over his features.

I pursed my lips, studying him for a minute. "I understand why you wouldn't tell me this before now… before I told you I wanted to be with you. But… did you think I wouldn't believe you when you did tell me?" I tilted my head, waiting for his answer.

He furrowed his brow. "No, I guess I didn't think you'd doubt my story, I just wondered if you'd want to have any part of it."

I sighed and laughed a humorless laugh. "I don't know if I do, exactly." I paused. "But here's the thing, it comes with you. It's what you do. And Carson, I don't know if anyone's told you this lately, but you're a hero."

He laughed. "No, Buttercup. I'm no hero."

I shook my head. "Yes, Carson, you are. I've worked cases, lots of cases actually, that involve women who've been sexually abused in some form or another. I've seen the look in their eyes. I've seen the devastation. Yes, you're a hero. So again, what are we going to do?"

He stared at me, something warm and tender filling his eyes.

"Dylan's working on it. He's trying to pinpoint a location for the guy we're tracking, the one we know is responsible for the set-up. His name is Gabriel Bakos. Problem is, he moves around so damn much, it's hard to track him. If we can just pin him down, we can go in and we can make him talk." He huffed out a frustrated breath.

"That sounds dangerous."

"It's a man's life we're talking about. My friend's life. A man who not only didn't kill a woman, but who has saved hundreds."

I sighed, closing my eyes briefly. "I know. Okay, what else? Tell me everything."

"We have Dylan on it. It's just a waiting game right now. A fucking frustrating as hell waiting game."

I looked at him for a minute, thinking. "I can get the case continued to give you more time," I offered.

His eyes snapped to mine. "That'd help," he said quietly. "I'd never ask you if I didn't know for a fact–"

"I know. It wouldn't be questioned. D.A.'s continue cases all the time."

"It wouldn't affect your career? Your reputation?" he asked.

I shook my head. "No. Not if I continued within reason."

He nodded.

I breathed deeply and sat back again, trying to solve this puzzle in my head, using all the evidence that I knew I had against an innocent man. Shit! Shit! Shit!

"Can't you go to the police?" I asked. "I mean, surely they'd be able to collect some evidence… somewhere, or question this Bakos, or something." I frowned, thinking over my words.

"No. First of all, if we went to the police with our story and told them what we'd been doing, all of us could face arrest, and then Josh would really be fucked. Also, police are restricted by search warrants and other red tape. We have all the expensive technology the police don't have, and we're still having a hard time tracking him. Even if we got his location and gave it to the police, by the time they got in there, Bakos would be cleared out and so would all the evidence. We need to get to him first. We can't work under the restraints of law enforcement if we want to be successful."

I chewed my lip for a minute, going over his words. I knew how the legal system worked, better than most people, and unfortunately, he was right. Vigilante groups, even ones doing good work, couldn't be encouraged by the police.

"I've gone over it a thousand times," Carson said. "There's no solution yet. We just have to wait."

I sighed, not surprised that he had read my mind. "How do we do that though? How are you not pacing the floor right now?" I groaned.

"Because if I do that I'll go crazy. I have to have faith that with all of us working together, we'll figure this out. I can't consider the alternative. Until there's a reason not to be optimistic, optimism is what I'm choosing."

I huffed out a breath, my shoulders sagging, still doubtful about whether I could do that or not.

"Go take a shower, Buttercup, and then we're going to run to the grocery store. I only bought some necessities yesterday."

I sighed, but stood up, intending on doing as he said. When I was halfway out of the room, I turned around and walked back to Carson. I sat down on the opposite side of him this time and when he turned his face to mine, I whispered, "All those years ago, I knew, I knew, who you were. Thank you for proving me right." Then I stood up and walked to the shower.

Carson

I sat on the couch and listened to the water start to run. I couldn't help the smile that spread across my face. My Buttercup was fucking amazing. Had I really ever doubted that? No. That was the reason I wanted her back so fiercely it was like an ache in my bones.

Grace had seemed shocked by my story, but she had been on board before I even finished telling it. And she was proud of me. I saw that pride shining in her eyes and it fucking undid me. I had changed my life for me, but she had been the catalyst, and I would never deny that. And so the fact that she was proud of me, well, that meant everything.

I brought the dishes into the kitchen and put them in the dishwasher and then stoked the fire a little bit and sat back down on the couch. By the time Grace came out of the bathroom fully dressed, her hair falling loose, I was feeling relaxed and so damn happy. There were no secrets between us now. We were a team, she was with me, and despite the predicament that I was in, I felt a deep serenity settle inside. Something washed over me that I couldn't identify, the feeling that a final puzzle piece had just clicked into place somehow.

She walked over to me and straddled me and wrapped her arms around me and just held me to her for several minutes as I breathed in her shower-fresh scent.

She sat back slightly and looked at me with a slight frown on her face.

"Grace," I said, "You need to try to shut off your brain for a couple days while we're here. I know I just dropped a whole shitload of information on you. But I'm telling you, you will just drive yourself crazy if you keep working the information around in your mind while there's nothing we can really do. Trust me, we've gone over every angle, and we have more information than you do right now about the players in this situation."