She was silent. Then she asked, “Did you find something?”
“Do you get a break?” he repeated.
She hesitated then said, “Yes, right now. I have third period free.”
“Can I walk right in or do I need to sign in?”
“Layne –”
He cut her off. “Answer me, sweetcheeks.”
“I’ll meet you outside the office,” she told him on a sigh.
“Be there in ten.”
He flipped his phone shut, shoved it in his back pocket, opened the door, Blondie bolted up into the cab and he swung up after her. He was at the school in ten minutes. He left Blondie in the truck with a window cracked and her nose shoved out of it, sniffing at the outside air like she’d never experienced it before. He walked into the school and saw Raquel was standing outside the office, which was right at the entrance.
She was wearing another one of her to-the-knee, tight-and-sexy-as-hell skirts, this one light beige topped with a thin, tight sweater in deep pink with a matching scarf tied around her neck and high-heeled pumps that also matched the pink. Her lips were glossed in a color that looked like raspberries and he wondered if it tasted the same. Her hair was coiled in a twist at the back of her head.
He smiled at her. When he did, her eyes went immediately to the windows of the administration office that faced out to the halls that Layne was certain was filled with colleagues, mostly women, all who were watching avidly. Then she looked back at him and smiled back tentatively, telling him she was at work and he needed to behave himself.
He walked up to her and stopped close, closer than he should, not as close as he wanted, not close enough to be inappropriate but definitely close enough to give their audience something to gossip about and he tipped his head down.
“Hey Roc.”
“Hey,” she whispered, staring up at him.
“Can we talk private?” he asked.
She nodded. “We’ll go to my classroom.”
He followed her down the corridor in front of the office then down the hall of lockers, four doors in, she turned left, opened the door and he moved in behind her. She closed the door and turned to him as he scanned the room. A narrow window by the door, a row of windows with views out to the front of the school, other than that, privacy.
He wanted to take in more but she asked, “Well?” so he turned to her then he moved into her space again. She held her ground and he grinned down at her. She stared up at him and she was off-balance, he could see, so off-balance she didn’t even try to hide it. She didn’t understand his game.
This was good.
“What did you find?” she prompted.
“The whole thing is a lie,” he answered and watched her blink.
Then she breathed, “Sorry?”
“Not one thing he put on his application is the truth. Not even his f**kin’ address.” Layne moved closer to her and his voice dropped lower. “Not even his name, Rocky.”
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
“Thomas Jameson ‘TJ’ Gaines, as far as I can tell, is a Youth Minister at a Baptist Church in a suburb of Chattanooga, Tennessee. He’s been employed there for two years and still lives there, or he did last night, when he took his family out to dinner and charged it. So, unless he’s discovered a way to clone himself, the man who’s Youth Minister at the Christian Church is not TJ Gaines.”
She was staring up at him, lips parted, eyes huge. Then she swallowed before she asked, “Are you going to give it to Merry?”
“Only one I could probably give it to is Merry since we came into the possession of his personnel file by breaking and entering and then stealing confidential documents.”
“We didn’t break and enter, I had a key!” she snapped.
“A key you stole, sweetcheeks,” he shot back.
Her teeth instantly sunk into her lip but her eyes were shooting fire. Then she stated, “Merry would run with it and keep us out of it.”
Layne shook his head. “We gotta send Tripp in.”
“Why?”
“Because, what Drew told me and what you added last night, I had a feeling this was bad, now I know this is worse. A lot worse. Something is going on there and we f**ked it up by committing a variety of unlawful acts to come about undeniably damning information. As damning as it is, sweetcheeks, they build a case against this guy, it’ll all come crashing down if anyone ever finds out they were tipped from info we acquired and the way we acquired it. That could happen, Roc. So, a kid’s gotta report him and that kid’s gonna be Tripp, but he has to know what he’s reporting. He can’t just go to a few Youth Group meetings and cry wolf. If this guy is in there doin’ bad shit with those kids, someone says boo, he’s gone and they’ll never find him. Tripp gets anything, they can investigate in a way where they won’t tweak him until they got enough to arrest him. I have a meet with Colt later this morning, I’ll give him the head’s up Drew punted this case to me and what Tripp’s doin’ so he can work his end. You see Drew or Merry, you do the same. But what we did no one knows about, yeah?”
She stared at him for three long beats before she muttered, “I hate it when you make sense.”
Layne smiled and muttered back, “Baby.”
Her irritation fled and her face changed, worry seeping into it, so much, she didn’t check herself from leaning closer to him and resting her bandaged hand lightly on his chest. “Layne, we’re talking girls here. Young girls.”
He put his hand to her neck and gave her a squeeze. “I’ll coach Tripp, Rocky, and give him the sense of urgency. He’ll play it smart but he won’t f**k around. You have to have patience. Even if the cops were investigating this, it would take time. Now, we’re goin’ at it both ways.”
“Yes, I understand that, but time –”
Layne interrupted her. “He’s doin’ bad shit with kids, this guy has gotta go down and stay down, Roc and, baby,” his head dipped so his face was close to hers, “I’m sorry, but that takes time.”
She stared into his eyes and then she nodded. She’d agreed but he didn’t move out of her space or her face. His fingers tensed on her neck and his eyes dropped to her raspberry lips and, his hand on her skin, her hand on his chest, she was so close he could smell her perfume, Layne had the sudden urge to discover if she tasted like raspberries.
“Layne,” those lips whispered as his hand at her neck pulled her closer.