Page 131 of State of Grace (First Family 2)

“Where are you taking me?” she asked, fighting them.

“To lockup to wait for your lawyer to get here.”

“You’re not putting me in a cell! I haven’t done anything!”

“Okay.”

The sergeant working the desk at the jail looked up when he heard them coming. Seeing that Gonzo and Cam were struggling to get her down the stairs, he went to open a cell for them. They deposited her inside and quickly shut the door.

“This is harassment! You’ve got nothing on me! I’m going to have all your jobs!”

“Okay.”

“You’re doing this on purpose,” she said, her eyes narrowing with vindictiveness.

“What am I doing on purpose?” Gonzo asked.

“Making this as hard on me as you possibly can.”

“Ah, no, Mrs. Thorn, you’re doing that all on your own. If you come up with the name of an attorney you’d like to call, the sergeant at the desk can help you. Otherwise, we’ll wait for the PD’s office to send someone over.”

“You’re going to regret this!” she screamed at them as they walked away and headed up the stairs. “I’m going to have your ass!”

“No, you’re not, sweetie,” Gonzo muttered under his breath. “I’m going to have yours.”

After he and Gonzo had deposited the shrew in the can, Cameron took a second to text Gigi to make sure she was okay.

All good, she responded. Just bored and lonely except for Jeffrey, who is very good company. She sent heart eyes and kiss faces that made him instantly hard—at work—as he remembered the sweet pleasure of sleeping with her in his arms the night before.

I’ll be there as soon as I can. Let me know what you want for dinner.

See you soon. Xoxo

Cam was so eager to see her he wanted to leave work early. He’d never felt that way about any woman. He thought about what the LT had told him about meeting Nick years earlier and having her malicious ex-husband conspire to keep them apart. She’d known the first time she met him that he was it for her, and no one else would ever do. Cameron was beginning to realize the same thing had happened to him the first time he met Gigi Dominguez. He just hadn’t known it then. Hindsight was indeed twenty-twenty, and as he picked over the various clues that’d been there all along, he felt a bit stupid for missing what’d been right in front of his face.

Or maybe he hadn’t missed it. Maybe he’d had no choice but to push it to the far back burner while both of them were involved with other people. Now, nothing stood in the way of them being together, and he couldn’t recall a time when he’d been less interested in work than he was today.

“Get it together, man. You’ve got a job to do.” He logged onto Facebook and searched for Grace Ouellette of Washington, DC, and picked through the search results until he found the girl he was looking for by noting that her parents and siblings, Aidan, Michaela and Alexis, were among her friends.

As he scrolled through Grace’s posts, he detected a fascination with the occult in the books and movies she recommended. In most of her photos, her eyes were lined with black makeup that gave her an ethereal appearance when paired with her pale skin. A post from three weeks ago caught his attention. Trust no one, she’d written. Absolutely no one. He took a screenshot of the post and printed it along with the comments that included things like, “Yo, girl, who F’d you over?” and “What’s that about?” and “Uh-oh, what now?”

To the first question, Grace had replied, “You won’t believe who.”

Since that was the only comment Grace had responded to, Cameron made a note of the girl’s name: Cory Bachman. After he located an address for the girl, he reached for his phone and called the LT.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“You might’ve heard from Gonzo that we have Tiffany Thorn in custody, and what a peach she is.”

“I’ve heard she’s something else.”

“You have no idea. In other news, I did some digging into Grace Ouellette’s Facebook account and found something from three weeks ago where she posted, ‘Trust no one. Absolutely no one.’ A bunch of friends responded, but she only replied to one who asked who effed her over. She said, ‘You won’t believe who.’ The friend’s name is Cory Bachman, and I’ve located an address for her a few miles from the Ouellettes’ home.”

“Great work, Cam. You gave me a thread.”

“I’m going to keep digging with Jeannie and Matt on Grace and the rest of the Ouellette and Tappen kids to see if anything else pops.”

“Let me know.”