Page 46 of Mr. Perfect
“Goddamn it,” Rocky groused. “You okay?”
“I’m fine, Major,” Felix said, wrenching his arm free from Jude’s grasp and scrambling out of the trunk before closing it quietly.
“If not, I’ll drive down there and punch him again,” Rocky offered.
“You’re too eager. You guys meet me at the rendezvous point,” Felix said as he looked left and right to make sure the coast was still clear.
Felix took off the goggles and pulled the earpiece free as he jogged toward the safety of his van. Unfortunately, he could hear Jude right behind him. Felix yanked the driver’s side door open and got into the vehicle. His nemesis climbed in on the passenger side.
“You should lock your doors,” Jude said.
Felix scowled at him, but Jude didn’t budge. “Get out.”
“No.”
Felix took a deep breath to calm his racing heart. He couldn’t start his van and drive off because he didn’t want the noise to draw Skeet’s attention. Shouting at Jude would also give them away.
“What the hell are you even doing here?” Felix whispered angrily.
“I followed you. I knew you were up to no good when you ignored my texts and email messages. If you’d taken a few seconds to tell me to fuck off, I wouldn’t have gotten suspicious.”
The hair stood up on the back of Felix’s neck. Could Rocky have been right about Jude’s involvement with Spencer and Mercy? “You followed me?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?” Jude asked. “You were so caught up in getting answers and didn’t even notice I was tailing you once you left the newspaper. Felix, you can’t afford to make these kinds of mistakes.”
“The only error I’ve made tonight was not kicking you in the teeth when you started to get in the van. How’d you get through a security gate?”
Jude grimaced. “Thank you for sparing my teeth. My parents paid a lot of money to give me this pretty smile, which along with my journalism credentials, got me through the gate. I’d ask how you got back here, but I don’t want to know. I’m already furious enough with you as it is.”
He had some fucking nerve. Felix bristled as frustration morphed into rage. “Tell me what Mercy is trafficking in Spencer’s clunkers or go home.”
“Not going to happen.”
“Which are you saying no to?” Felix pressed.
“Both. I’m not leaving until you do, and I never claimed to know intimate details about Mercy’s operation, Ace. I only said I knew the connection between them.”
“Don’t call me that,” Felix said vehemently.
It triggered intimate memories he wasn’t prepared to face when tucked away in a dark van without someone there to stop him from doing something stupid. Jude had a predatory gleam in his eyes, which spelled big trouble.
“Why not?” Jude asked. “Does it remind you of happier times?”
Felix tried to form words that would shatter the smug look on Jude’s face, but he couldn’t. To deny Jude had once made him deliriously happy would just be a bald-faced lie. So, he changed the topic. “Maybe you didn’t come right out and say you knew what Mercy and Spencer were up to, but you implied it.”
Jude’s lips twitched because he recognized Felix’s patented deflection moves. “It’s not my fault if you read more into my remarks and drew the wrong conclusions.”
“Do you ever listen to the bullshit spewing out of your mouth? That’s exactly what you wanted to happen. You think you’re smarter than I am and didn’t plan on me figuring out that Cameron Spencer’s wife, Brigitte, is Jack Mercy’s illegitimate daughter.”
Not only was she Jack’s daughter, she was his only child.
Technically, Marla the Magnificent connected the dots. Jonah had entered everything they knew about the key players, including their families—blood relatives and the connections gained through marriage. It only took her a few hours to scan the data and find the association. Brigitte Spencer’s mother had been Jack Mercy’s secretary. Lillian Sullivan was a redheaded eighteen-year-old beauty whose tenure with Mercy, a married man, abruptly ended about seven months before Brigitte was born. Lillian married a man named Edgar Stevenson soon after leaving Mercy’s employment, and he was the one listed as Brigitte’s biological father on her birth certificate. Marla was a genius, and Felix would have given her full credit if he weren’t too busy basking in Jude’s wide-eyed, slack-mouthed stare.
“You were just trying to insert yourself into my investigation by claiming to have valuable information. Why? Do you want a chunk of the notoriety when Mercy gets taken down?”
Jude closed his mouth and narrowed his eyes. “You’re a damn fool, Felix.”
“Me? Why? Because I want to stop guys like Spencer and Mercy?”