The Original Crowd (51 page)

“How do you know?” Tray grilled him.

“Because,” he looked like he was reminding himself to breathe, “because I hacked into some FBI databases in September. If they knew I was there, my fail-alarms would’ve gone off and I’d already be in prison. Trust me, those guys have no idea I was in those accounts.”

“Do you know what you did here? It’s very important that you know exactly how dangerous this stuff is.”

“I know,” Props said quietly. “I know, dude. I know that if I talk, I’m dead. I know that.”

“And you did it anyway? Why?” Tray asked him, but I answered for him.

“Because he needed permission to do it. He needed a reason to test himself.”

I saw that I was right when Props looked relieved.

“He wouldn’t have known what he could do if I hadn’t asked him,” I finished. “Tray, what does this mean?”

“This means that we have enough,” he said gravely.

“Enough for what?” But I didn’t want to know, not anymore.

“Enough for us to start setting up our plan.”

I looked at Props and asked, “What do you want?”

“I don’t want anything. Really. I’m good with the date I got and knowing that I’m alive right now.”

“Thanks for de-coding this stuff.”

“Hey.” Tray stopped him, just as he was starting to put all his equipment away.

Props turned and waited. The guy looked like he was about to pee in his pants.

“One word of this and it means you, me, and Taryn could all get killed. You got that?”

The guy couldn’t talk. I watched his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

“He knows,” I said quietly for him.

“If I ask, if I give you the go-ahead, do you think you could dump all of this info to the DEA?” Tray asked, staring at him intently; trying to read Prop’s reaction.

He was talking about his brother.

“Tray,” I murmured, “what are you thinking?”

“I’m just thinking of some options, Taryn. That’s all. For now anyway,” he answered. Looking back to Props, he pressed, “Would you be able to do that, Props?”

“Any account?”

“No. A specific person’s, like if Taryn or I were to go missing.”

“Yeah.” He was shaking, but he sounded confident. “I could do it.”

“Okay. Until then, you stay with your little group of friends. You say nothing. Nothing, you hear me?” We all heard the threat behind Tray’s voice.

“Not a word. Nothing. Promise.” Props looked like he was about to faint.

“He’s got it, Tray. Props, you want some help clearing this stuff up?”

He moved fast, faster than I expected because in a matter of seconds everything was shut down, unplugged, and encased in a bag.

Whoa.

“Guess not,” I murmured, half joking.

“We good? I mean, until…you know, until the account stuff?” Props was standing, his bag over his shoulder, asking for permission to leave.

“Yeah, we’re good.”

And he was off. Seconds later we heard the door slam shut behind him, leaving Tray and I alone.

Tray swore, but moved to his dad’s computer. He was scanning all the papers. Moving to sit beside him, I asked, “What are you thinking?”

“We’ve got accounts. We’ve got locations of warehouses in here. Schedules. Names of their employers. That kid should be working for the FBI,” Tray cursed. He looked scary.

“Hey,” I said softly, moving to sit on his lap. I captured his chin in my hand. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking I need to make sure my place isn’t bugged.”

Oh God.

“You think Galverson would do that?”

“No, I don’t. He really does think I’m just some kid who’s only interested in saying ‘fuck you’ to anyone who messes with me. But Jace knows better. Galverson’s gotten lazier in his old age and he’s been listening to my dad. He really believes that I’ll consider working for him. He wouldn’t have offered me a job if he wasn’t pretty damn sure I would take it.”

“This is a bit overwhelming.”

“What do you want, Taryn?” Tray searched my face.

“I want…I want to know what Jace did to me and what he did to Brian and where Grayley is.” It was a lot, but I wanted to know. “And I want him to pay for hurting Brian.”

“And what if he didn’t do anything?”

Silence fell between us as we gazed at each other.

“I don’t think his accident was an accident,” I answered lightly.

“How do you want him to pay? Do you want Galverson to go down with him?”

“Knowing all this stuff, I don’t think I can
not
do something with it.”

“And if it means that they’ll come after us?”

“Then we have to take them all down.”

“Okay.” Tray kissed me, breathing against my lips. He raked a hand through my hair, holding me firmly in place as he deepened the kiss. “Okay.”

I wrapped my arms around him and sank further against him.

“This is what I do.” Tray pulled back, breathing deeply. “I look at the entire picture and I figure out our avenues at every possible juncture.”

In that moment I remembered Galverson’s words. He’d called Tray a genius and in that moment, I knew it was true. Tray was. But he was also a kid whose parents had been taken away from him. And now, I saw that he wanted this too.

“What do you want?” I asked him, my thumb making a lazy circle against his cheek.

“I want, Tray blinked, “I want it over.”

“Okay.” I kissed him.

“I don’t want Gentley and that Trent guy in on this,” Tray said firmly. “When they bring their information to us, we take it and you promise that we’ll move quickly. But they cannot be there. I don’t want them a part of this.”

“You don’t trust them?”

“No. I just work better alone. Always have.”

“You’re not working alone this time.”

“You and me. That’s it.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“It’s going to be hard to go to school tomorrow.”

“We can’t do anything out of the ordinary.” Tray shifted, pulling me to lay back against his chest. With my back to his chest, he slid his hands down my thighs, moving to the inside of my legs and coming back up, trailing to the opening at my jeans. Flicking my button open, I gasped as his fingers slid inside.

“Tray,” I breathed.

As his fingers went to work, he murmured huskily, “We’ll go to school tomorrow. You go to your swim practice and then tomorrow night, maybe we’ll have enough info to go into the warehouse.”

“And search for Grayley.” It was hard to think and speak with what he was doing to me.

“And search for Grayley,” he whispered, turning my face around to meet my lips with his as his fingers swept in and out.

Crying out, I let go, all reasoning swept out of my head as his fingers kept thrusting in and out of me.

Whimpering, feeling the crest, I gasped as I spilled over. Tray grinned against my neck where he was nuzzling, feeling my body jerk in response.

A moment later, I murmured tiredly, “I hate that you can do that sometimes.”

“I love how I can do that to you,” he murmured back, kissing me lightly on the lips. I sighed as I turned and wrapped my arms around his neck. I just sat there as I laid my head against his shoulder, my body completely relaxed as I straddled him.

I might’ve drifted off for a second because I heard the sound of the keyboard as I came back awake.

I was in the same place, draped all over Tray, sleeping, as he worked around me.

“What are you doing?” I murmured, sleepily. The sex, the swimming, and the adrenalin had taken its toll.

“I’m finishing some of this stuff. Hiding it in some of my own accounts and making copies.”

“What are you doing with the copies?”

“I’m going to mail them off to some solid sources. Anything happens to me, the information will go public. No matter what. It’s the same system I set up before. And I’m connecting some more of the dots.”

“I thought you had all the dots connected.” I should really lift my head and look at what he was doing, but his shoulder was a lot more comfortable.

“Most of them, but there are a few I don’t have connected yet. That pisses me off because it could be a surprise. A surprise that could get us dead.”

I yawned. I really shouldn’t have, considering he was talking about my life, but…I felt safe in his arms. In that moment, I knew that Tray would take care of me.

“What do you mean?”

“Like why Jace got you to Rawley or at least out of Pedlam,” he murmured, distracted.

“What do you mean?”

“Jace wanted you out of Pedlam, but I don’t know if he meant for you to end up in Rawley.”

“Does it really matter?”

“Yeah, it could. Any detail like that matters. It’s all important.”

“You should be a cop or something.” I yawned again, my eyelids were fighting to stay open.

Tray must’ve felt the fight in me, because he ran one hand down my back and soothed, “Get some sleep.”

“Do I have to move?” My eyelids were already closed at his permission.

“No, baby. I’ll put you in bed when I’m done.”

“Okay—” Then I was instantly asleep.

I woke up and looked at the clock. It was five-thirty in the morning. And Tray wasn’t beside me. Getting up, I padded out the door and into the hallway. He’d put me in the same room we’d slept in before. As I circled the stairs, I could hear voices from the library.

What the fuck?

I recognized Carter and Bryce’s voice.

“Seriously, dude. Come on,” Carter said.

“I can’t.” Tray replied, sounding exhausted.

“You’re up, man. What’s the problem?”

“I’ve got to finish some stuff up before school.” I could hear the sleepiness in his voice. And I instantly felt guilty. It must’ve been seven-thirty or eight when I nodded off to sleep last night. That meant Tray had either catnapped during the night or had stayed up the entire night. While I’d been sleeping like a baby.

Guessing from the waft of coffee I got, I was guessing he’d been up all night.

I slipped inside, but Bryce and Carter didn’t notice me right away.

Carter was saying, “School won’t care. We can leave now and you’ll be back in time to bang Taryn after school.”

Thanks.

Tray grinned at that, meeting my eyes, “Sound okay with you?”

“Oh shit!” Carter wheeled around, eyes wide as he saw me.

Bryce tipped his head back and laughed.

“Now I know how you really feel,” I only murmured, moving to curl up in the chair next to Tray’s.

“Oh God. I’m sorry, Taryn, I didn’t mean—” But he just shut up, shaking his head in surrender.

I grinned, resting my cheek against my knees as I pulled them against my chest. “Carter, your simplicity is refreshing at times.”

Bryce laughed harder.

Carter looked like he’d blush if he was capable of it. I didn’t think he had the capability for it though.

Tray just grinned half-heartedly, as he looked back to the computer’s screen.

I wanted to ask how long he’d been up and what he learned, but I didn’t want to broach the conversation with Carter and Bryce there. They didn’t need to get curious about what would keep Tray up all night, if he wasn’t ‘banging’ me.

“Taryn, we heard you were forced to join the swim team,” Bryce commented, the laughter subsiding.

“Yeah,” I sighed, “but that’s okay.”

“Well, then you would appreciate our efforts here.” Carter was back, charm and all. “We’re trying to persuade Tray to come on a trip with us. The coast is supposed to have some record waves today. How can we miss this chance?”

“I didn’t know you guys surfed.”

“We don’t. Not that much, but we like to
try
every now and then,” Bryce said truthfully.

“Whatever. I surf!” Carter declared.

“Yeah and, until recently, you had been going to a boarding school thirty minutes from the coast. We don’t live on the coast, it’s a good three hour drive. At least,” Tray slipped in.

“Come on!” Carter tried again, looking exasperated.

“I’m not going so you might as well as stop wasting your time,” Tray murmured, focused on the computer.

I took a sip from his coffee. Holy crap it was strong. Yep, he’d been up all night.

Carter grumbled, muttering something under his breath.

Bryce was watching him, amused.

Carter must’ve accepted defeat because he turned on me. “Taryn, since we’re up, how about you make the morning worth it? Maybe a lap dance, or you could just get naked.”

“I already hauled your ass on the floor the last time you suggested this. Want another round?” I delivered smoothly, grinning over Tray’s mug.

“Man,” he whined, settling further in his chair, “I thought moving here would be more fun than this. This blows so far. Tray won’t go surfing. His girl won’t strip for us.”

Bryce grinned, before hitting Carter on the back of his head. “Cheer up, cousin. You bagged Jasmine on your first day of school. That’s gotta be a record.”

“Oh yeah.” Carter grinned. “Good memories.”

“Does that count? It’s easy to score with a girl you scored the entire weekend with,” Tray remarked, shooting his foot out and kicking Carter off his chair.

“Hey,” Carter yelped, glaring at him as he crawled back up, “it counts. The weekend was just a weekend. My first day at school was my first day at school.”

“You should go for Tristan.” I couldn’t help but speak up. “She’d be more of a challenge, wouldn’t she?”

“That tight-ass?” Carter laughed. “Hell no. She’s rolled so tight a pencil wouldn’t get in there.”

Bad imagery.

“She slept with Brent Garretts, didn’t she?” Bryce asked. “You should go for her, Carter.”

“That’d be entertaining for all of us,” Tray added as he reached to take his coffee-mug from my hands.

“I don’t know. She’s kind of—”

“What? Scary?” I laughed, seeing him blanch.

“Yeah. And she’s got this scary thing about Tray still. Plus, her and Mandy are best friends.”

“Speaking of Mandy,” Bryce spoke up, “Taryn, where is Mandy? I called Devon to ask about her, but he won’t answer his phone.”

Fuck. I’d forgotten about Devon. Well, if Mandy wanted him to know, then she could tell him herself.

“I can’t say anything,” I said firmly.

“So, it’s serious?” Carter asked, suddenly somber.

“I really can’t say anything. Sorry.”

“But she’s, like, alive, right?”

“Yeah. She’s fine. Not dying or anything.” I made my tone light, just to appease him. I could tell that the guy truly cared about her.

“Maybe I
should
try to bag Tristan. I mean, she’s gotta be more interesting than Jaz, right? But then again,” Carter mused, the Mandy topic dropped just as quickly as it came up, “Jaz has to be better in bed than Tristan any day.”

I hated that I saw all three of the guys sharing a look with each other.

All three of them had been with her.

“You guys make me sick,” I announced, crossing my arms over my chest.

Tray laughed as he reached out to rub his hand down my leg. He grabbed my chair and yanked me closer, where he could comfortably rest his hand on my leg.

Bryce just grinned, staying quiet.

“No,” Carter exclaimed, “I’ll do it. I’m going to bag Tristan.”

“This should be interesting.” Bryce watched his cousin. “Tristan’s not a fan of yours.”

“I know. All the more challenging.”

“You better get ready for your ass to be handed to you,” Bryce warned. “The only guy Tristan’s actually ran to was Tray.”

“What about Brent Garretts?”

“She slept with him to piss off Amber and Casners.”

“You’re more on the up and up on the gossip than me, Bryce. I’m impressed.” I laughed, loving his look of embarrassment.

“I have lab with Amber.” As if that made perfect sense. But it actually did. I kind of felt sorry for Bryce in that moment. I could see him sitting there, helpless, as Amber launched into one of her tirades. One after another.

I caught Tray resting his eyes for a moment, before he yawned again.

“Okay,” I announced, “I’m taking the duty of girlfriend serious right now. You two, out. Now.”

“What?” Carter whined, but he stood anyway. It was just for show, which I was learning was how Carter mostly was. 75% show, 25% real.

“Yeah, yeah.” Bryce stood too and clipped his cousin on the back of his head again. But as they moved down the hallway, I heard Bryce yelp. Carter must’ve gotten his revenge. And then the door opened and shut.

“You been up all night?” I asked Tray, feeling guilty how well rested I felt.

“On and off. I got some sleep, but there was some stuff still bothering me so I couldn’t stay in bed.”

“What have you found out?” I asked the question lightly, but I felt my words die in my throat when I saw Tray grow still again. One of those frozen moments, when I knew something serious was going on.

He’d found out something serious. Probably about me, judging by the way he was looking at me. Like he was figuring out how to break the news to me, whatever he had found. And how he knew I wouldn’t like it.

“Oh god,” I murmured.

“Taryn,” he began, moving to face me squarely, “I think…I think Jace arranged your adoption.”

What?

He took a deep breath. “You moved to Rawley because you were adopted. So I searched for some local adoption agencies and found one that looked…familiar.”

I didn’t even know I was holding my breath.

“It’s called The Evanson Family Resources and it’s sponsored by one of Galverson’s aliases.”

“How do you know that?”

“I called your friend Props and had him run some of the information for me. He verified what I found out on the internet. The adoption agency was recently funded and it’s only had one adoption go through: yours.

“Evanson?”

“Yeah,” Tray clipped out, I saw the hardness enter his eyes, “I think my dad was the one behind your adoption. I think Jace went to him and asked him to arrange the adoption. I think he just wanted you out of town and he didn’t care where you went. And I think it was my dad who approached your parents. A sizeable chunk of money showed up in your family’s account the day your adoption was legalized.”

“How much?” I asked, but I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know any of it.

“Ten million.”

It was too much. It was a fee. I’d been bought and paid for. I’d been a fucking business deal.

“Oh my God,” I said, my voice tiny.

But it was right. Everything clicked.

They adopted a seventeen year old female. They were never home. Mandy had let it slip that they’d been told that they were adopting someone.

“Tristan said an old friend had approached them and asked if they would consider adoption,” I murmured, my eyes glazed over. “Mandy told her that.”

“I think Mandy got the drugs from your dad. I think your dad was one of my dad’s local clients. He mentioned he had a few high rollers in town who liked prescription drugs. It makes sense now.” Tray bit out. “I’m sorry, Taryn.”

“It always goes back to drugs.” I didn’t know what I was saying. So much. So much had happened. My life had been turned inside and out, and this was the last straw. “Is it always about drugs and money?!” I cried out.

“You’re asking the wrong person.”

“I wanted a new life,” I said faintly, standing, hugging myself. “I wanted a family. I was determined that I’d do anything for a family. I was going to be perfect. I was going to go to school. Not have sex. Not do…everything that I’d done before. And now…I got that family because of what I was doing before. Because Jace didn’t want me to find out all his dirty little secrets.”

“Taryn—”

“He bought me a fucking family! I was a fucking business deal!” I screamed.

“Not to Mandy and I’m pretty sure not to Austin. I don’t think you were a business deal to them.” Tray said firmly.

“Evans and Galverson together. It’s how they came up with the name.”

“Not real bright, but that’s my dad for you.”

I didn’t know what to think. What to feel. I didn’t even know what to believe or who to believe anymore.

“I don’t think it was Kevin.” I murmured, softly, thinking.

“What?”

“He’s always gone on some kind of medical conferences or at the hospital. I don’t think it was him at all. It’s Shelley.” Shelley who couldn’t handle disciplining a fourteen year old. Who made Mandy do the dirty work. Either Mandy or me. Oh no. It wasn’t Kevin at all—this was all Shelley. And I’d bet anything that she first got the drugs from her doctor husband, but he wasn’t around enough to keep the prescriptions filled. So she ran to Tray’s dad.

Who knows, maybe they’d had a thing going on. Maybe it was another reason for his mom’s suicide attempt.

“I feel sick,” I muttered, right before I dashed to the bathroom and actually was sick.

My insides wanted out. Again. Again and again and again.

There weren’t any tears. Not after everything. Brian. My breakdown. And now this…I was just sick and more determined.

I wanted everyone to go down.

Jace.

Shelley.

Galverson.

Fucking everyone.

Even Tray’s dad, but that was Tray’s business. His to handle.

A little shaky, I brushed my teeth and went back to the library a little later when my stomach was calmer.

Tray just looked exhausted.

“You okay?” he asked quietly.

I saw the concern written all over his face and a small part of my world felt right.

“I’ll be okay,” I promised.

“You’re handling it better than I thought.”

“I’ve got nothing left inside of me. I’m done crying and I refuse to be a dry-heaver.” I joked, half-assed as I stood in front of the window.