Page 148 of Untouchable

She’d spent the night with Caleb last night because he’d wanted her to, although they hadn’t had sex before bed. He’d evidently had an emotional blow from a failure at work, so she’d known he needed support, and maybe her presence was enough to make a difference. Then she’d woken up early, much earlier than normal, and she’d checked her phone to see a text from Jack that said simply,Call me ASAP.

She’d sent him the files from the storage room—she’d had to put them in the mail because she couldn’t risk arranging an in-person meeting—and she’d been surprised not to hear anything back from him until now.

She had no options other than to wait to get a response from him though, so that was what she’d been doing.

But as soon as she saw the message, she felt a surge of impatience that couldn’t be denied. There was no way she could wait for Caleb to get dressed and leave the house before she talked to Jack, so she’d decided to take Ralph on an early walk through the extensive acreage that made up Caleb’s property.

As soon as she was beyond the walls that surrounded the house proper, she pulled out her phone to call Jack.

It wasn’t even six in the morning yet, but he’d said to call as soon as possible, and she wasn’t going to wait any longer.

She should have heard from him before now anyway.

“Yeah,” he mumbled, connecting the call.

“It’s Kelly.”

“Kelly.” His voice sounded more alert. He’d woken up. “What time is it?”

“It’s early. Sorry. I just got your message.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” He paused, and she could picture him sitting up in bed. “What the hell did you do?”

She blinked, stopping on a hill where she could see the sun rising behind thick gray clouds. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what the fuck did you do? Did you break into the storage room on your own? After I told you it was too dangerous?”

She frowned, not at all expecting this. “Yes. I did. I sent you the file I found two days ago.”

“I know! I’ve been sick in bed with the flu, and I finally managed to check in with the office about what I missed and found you acting like an idiot. What the hell were you thinking?”

She felt strange—shocked by the level of his outrage—and was immediately defensive. “This is my thing, Jack,” she said slowly. “I can do anything I want.”

“But you have no idea how dangerous this is. If these people were prepared to kill your father, do you think they’d hesitate at all to hurt you if they found you were?—”

“Stop it,” Kelly said, feeling rattled and irrationally guilty. “I’m paying you for your help. Not your protection. There is a deadline here, and I couldn’t wait for you to get your guys to finally do it. Now tell me what you found.”

Jack gave an audible sigh, resigning himself to the situation. “My guys are working on it, trying to put the whole picture together. I don’t know anything yet.”

“So you wanted me to call you just to?—”

“To yell at you for being stupid. Yeah.”

She gave a sigh very similar to the one she’d heard from him a minute ago. “I know it was stupid, Jack. But you don’t seem to understand. I don’t care anymore. I’ll take any risk I need to take to get this over with. I have to know the truth. Ihaveto know.” Her voice broke on the last word, as she thought about Caleb, about how much he’d opened up to her, about how vulnerable he’d made himself with her.

Just to have her take advantage of it.

She didn’t want to be that person. The person who would do such a thing to another. She hated that she’d evidently become someone like that.

Maybe it was who she’d always been.

“What happened, Kelly?” Jack’s tone was different now, careful. “Why the rush?”

“I don’t know. Caleb has this friend who seems suspicious of me, and I think he’s been sniffing around. I don’t want him to find out anything. Can you check into my background story and add some sort of false clues to make sure he doesn’t find anything?”

“Yeah. Give me one day to put the stuff together, and then I’ll have something for you. In the meantime, why don’t you get yourself out of there? If this friend is really sniffing around, it could seriously be dangerous.”

“I’ll tell Caleb I’ve got a job or something to do, so I can make myself scarce today, but I’m not going to totally withdraw. He’d never believe any excuse I gave him, and it would make him think something was wrong. I’m not going to end this until I know the truth.”