Page 74 of Ruin Me
“My price.”
And there it was. The ultimatum I’d avoided at the police station.
“Ife, this is your dad’s comp?—”
“I’m not leaving here without a definitive answer, and I won’t play along unless I know that once everything is done, you’re out of our lives.”
With the finality in her voice, the little flame of hope I held dear dwindled into smoke before extinguishing.
“I-I?—”
“No more prevaricating, Mads. I know you’ve thought about it.”
“If I agree, will we have a chance to be friends again? Even if it’s long distance and only by phone?”
Ife blinked and swallowed multiple times in the silence after my question. As the quiet extended, I understood the true cost of my selfishness. I’d once heard that breaking up with a boyfriend was less painful than a friend, but I was looking at losing both at the same time. I couldn’t tell which hurt worse.
Her suggestion to hire someone rose in my head. If I placed my faith in someone else’s hands, Ife’s ultimatum would be useless. Despite my heart surging at this possibility, I knew I would be on borrowed time. Ife would find another reason to push me out of Kent’s life. However, the stress of waiting for the next warning paled in comparison with trusting a stranger to care about Kent as much as I did.
In Quarren’s case, although I didn’t know him well and hadn’t evaluated his ability to free Kent from the murder charges, I had my mother as a backup. If Quarren made one misstep, I would convince Kent to hire Nikita as his counsel.
With all the back and forth in my head, in the end, I hung my head low in defeat. “Okay. Once we’ve rooted out all the threats against Kent, I’ll disappear.” The words barely passed my lips,and I couldn’t believe they came from my mouth. They were weak. Defeated. Hopeless.
“Alright. I’ll set up a date with Hal right now.” Ife retrieved her phone and walked out of the room, an odd sound slipped past before she disappeared from view.
It could have been a sob, but I shook the thought from my head. She’d been so adamant, she couldn’t now be regretting pushing me this far.
“Hal said tonight works,” Ife said while avoiding my gaze and hugging her body tightly.
“Okay. I’ll get ready.”
We parted ways after going over our plan again. My investigator, Sam, picked me up and drove us to Hal’s house while Ife met Hal at a restaurant downtown. Sam was my best PI. A former Navy SEAL, he had many specialties that could land him on the wrong side of the law but on the right side of my clients.
We sat in a nondescript vehicle across the street from Hal’s place. A wrought-iron fence separated us.
“You know, I could do this myself,” Sam said.
“We only have about two hours to search his house from top to bottom. The more hands we have, the faster we get out of here and back to safety. Because one thing for certain, two things for sure is I don’t intend to end up in a jail cell tonight.” I urged him out of the car, pretending I wasn’t scared shitless about the crimes we were about to commit.
While Sam remotely disconnected Hal’s alarm system and opened the gate, I drove the car further down the road. Once I joined Sam at the gate, he led me toward the there-story mini-mansion Hal called home, using his flashlight to avoid obstacles. I turned mine on as we passed rooms with opulent furnishings.
“We need to search his study, office, and library. I doubt Hal would keep records anywhere else in his house.” Sam opened an app on his phone. On it was the blueprint of Hal’s home.
“What about the basement?” I pointed to the large space beneath us. “Don’t guys like to keep their secrets hidden in dark, unexpected places?”
“Madison, look at this place. Why do you think any part of this building is dark?”
“Good point.” I nodded and followed him to the office.
Four wooden filing cabinets matching the rest of the furniture lined the wall. Each had four to six drawers.
“We’ll be lucky if we have time to search other rooms.” Sam swung his flashlight across the room.
“Let’s split the cabinets first, then regroup. He might have a secret compartment in his desk. Your expertise will be best used to ensure we don’t leave any traces behind.”
“Let’s get to it.” Sam proceeded forward and chose the cabinet furthest from me.
I went to the other end. As we rifled through the cabinets, we would meet in the middle. We got to work in what I imagined was companionable silence for Sam but for me, fear filled the void and screamed in my ear. Files filled each drawer to the max. Tax filings for the last fifteen years, investment statements, and a lot of miscellaneous documents that had nothing to do with the information I needed to help Kent.