Esposito’s eyes flash pure venom at me. “You are delusional on top of stupid,” he says, finally losing his cool demeanor.
My cheeks flush red as one of the police officers takes hold of my arm, forcing me to take a few steps backward and away from Esposito and Jax.
Rick resumes reading Jaxson his Miranda rights and I just stand there, helpless and confused, counting my options in my head.
“Is there anyone you want me to call?” I ask Jax as soon as Rick is done.
Jaxson shakes his head. “It will all be fine,” he says.
The second police officer takes Jaxson out the door. The one who holds me finally releases me.
“We have a warrant to search the premises,” Esposito says without looking at me. “Please, leave.”
I nod, feeling wiped out and without any fight left in me. I refuse to believe Jax had anything to do with Madison’s murder. That would be so fucked up on so many levels, I’d rather die than consider it.
I walk to the couch to get my bag when I notice that it’s sitting on Jax’s iPad. I don’t know what possesses me but I go for it. I swiftly slide the iPad in my tote bag, rushing to the door before Esposito wises up and asks to check the contents of the bag.
It’s a wonder to me why I’ve just decided to break the law so blatantly right under the police’s nose but it feels like it’s the right thing to do. There could be things about the private club in there, things that could put Jaxson’s life in danger or falsely incriminate him.
I’m out the door when Esposito’s hand lands on my left shoulder. My heart pounds frantically in my chest as my little impulsive misconduct starts crumbling down.
Esposito stands in front of me, doing his best not to look me in the eye. “Stay away from this mess,” he says. “I will do my best to leave your name out of what happened today. You don’t want to be a suspect as an accessory to murder, do you?”
His words sound a little bit too much like a threat.
“Listen,” he says, finally lowering his eyes to my face. “I know you’re a good kid. I don’t want you to get in any trouble, but you have to start assuming some responsibility.”
His words send me floating out the door in a vacuum where fear mixes with regret and a crippling confusion as what to do next.
—thirteen—
You Have The Answers
Playing with fire has never been a strength of mine. Sitting on my loveseat, I’m trying to decide whether tampering with police evidence will turn out to be the most horrific idea I ever had or only a mildly moronic one. In short, I’m wondering if I will get away with it.
My moral compass is way off. I can see that clearly now. One thing’s for sure, if I find the slightest shred of evidence against Jax in here, I’ll hand the tablet to Esposito and let him decide my fate.
It kills me that I had to cancel my meeting with Jim but what choice did I have? I couldn’t exactly go to him with a wide grin on my face and say, Guess what? The police think they got the bastard who killed your daughter who happens to be her so-called boyfriend – not to mention that I screwed him a couple of times. No, all I can do is follow Esposito’s advice and lay low until the dust settles down a bit.
I scan the iPad’s contents lazily, going through the apps that Jax has downloaded, mostly games and magazine subscriptions. What I’m doing is all kinds of wrong, first stealing evidence, then going through someone’s private tablet. I wish none of that had happened, but since that’s just wishful thinking, I might as well go ahead and see if there’s anything of importance here.
After I’m done browsing though the apps, I move to the photos folder. There are plenty of photos of Jax from photo shoots and fashion shows but no private photos. Nothing of him acting like a real person in real life. No pictures of his family—assuming he has one—or his friends. No pictures of nature or memes or pets.
I scroll down the endless list of folders of professional photos to the very bottom where I find a folder named ELLA.
My heart stops. Is this really a folder with pictures of me? When would he have the time to create one? We only met five days ago.
My finger lingers over the icon for quite some time before I touch it, opening up an endless stream of photos of me. Pictures from college, from high school and elementary school, pictures from vacations, pictures with my parents, even a few pictures of me with boys I dated for a short while.
What the fuck is this? I instinctively put my hand over my mouth as my entire life unfolds in front of my eyes. Is Jaxson Cole a stalker? Did he hack into my computer or, worse, my apartment?
Where the fuck did he find all those old photos of me? Hell, some of them I don’t even have myself. They must be at my mother’s house which means, what? Did he break into my mom’s place, too?