White Lies (Book 1)

Chapter 27

Angelica turned to face him. "Starting at fourteen? Around the time of old Lincoln's passing?"

Peter nodded grimly. "I think so. I would know more about the circumstance, only that the files in my possession, which contained the intel on Noah Lincoln's criminal record, have suddenly become corrupted."

"What?" I asked, just as Nathan interjected with, "how?"

"Internal interference," was his short, irritated answer. "From members of our own. Vanessa Lincoln has gone far and beyond great lengths to protect Noah from his indiscretions in the past. I fear that she has tampered with our investigation to the same effect."

"Officer Cross mentioned that Noah has disappeared, too – truly disappeared. His number plates were found unscrewed and discarded in the dumpsters behind the school property. That had happened after–" I couldn't finish.

Nathan finished my sentence for me. "After–" he cleared his throat, "my own, um, intel source was attacked. He'd found out that she had been helping me, giving me access to old messages between him and Jenny. Then he took off."

"I need you to pass on those messages to me, right away," Peter ordered. He sat for a moment in silence, occupied by his thoughts.

"Look – aren't we building solid grounds for suspicions against Noah, here?" I asked. "So wouldn't we work better with the police, rather than against them?"

I could take it all back, I thought. All the lies. Glen had given me an out.

Angelica looked over at me, tired and pained. "Jesabel, it's far too late for that. Noah might have the answers we need, but you yourself have been implicated in giving falsified information to the police. What little cooperation had existed between us and their organization has been terminated. Permanently. This was what we wanted."

I was implicated in this? No. They had forced my hand on the matter – they had incriminated me in this mess. By using my ability to lie to the media, to lie to the police. In order to protect their covert investigation – and their own asses.

I felt a swift chill at the sobering thought, that maybe – despite all I'd done for them – these people had no plans of ever protecting me from legal prosecution.

I wanted to find Robbie and Jen, I really did. Was this the right way to do it?

I slumped back against my chair, feeling helpless and deflated. "Officer Cross was right," I breathed.

"I beg your pardon?" Peter enquired.

These rich, terrible people, with their conceit and deception and their money. That was the worst trouble out there.

The room had grown silent – everybody being lost to their own thoughts. My mind was whirling with it all. My lies, Angelica's underhanded deceit, Noah and his criminal record – his violent past, his unhealthy obsession with the missing person in question.

Where was Noah? Was he running as an admission of guilt? Knowing that we were getting hotter and closer to his trail, snooping around in places he hadn't wanted us to see?

He certainly seemed like the most likely culprit. He had stalked Jennifer for weeks, and had gotten caught doing it, then was somehow complicit in drugging her up right before she went missing. In a flash, a few sudden details of that night came back to me: the hot flush in Jen's cheeks, the way her wide, flickering eyes couldn't seem to stay rooted to one object. Utterly coked out of her mind.

Making her more docile, a slinking voice whispered. Do you remember that part? She was so easy to manipulate, so easy to control.

It was James who finally spoke, who up until that point had been sitting quietly, furtively, listening to our interactions without having uttered a word. I'd almost forgotten he was in the room, and I turned to him with a slight jolt.