Hidden Truths (The Hidden Series Book 1) Read online

  “Oh, well that’s nice. Ripper is still alive, if that was your concern,” he growled, his anger obvious.

  “Good,” I answered, relieved. He gave a short angry laugh, so I explained. “I didn’t want to have to help you hide the body. I knew you’d be fine, but I didn’t want you calling and asking where you could hide a body, so no one would ever find it.”

  His surprised laughter was much more relaxed after my explanation. “Would you actually answer that question? And do you actually think I’d need to ask you that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe?” I replied, relaxing back on the bed. I hadn’t realized how tense I had been, until he called. I had been worried about him. Ripper going after me wasn’t worth him jeopardizing his case. I told him that, and he disagreed.

  “I’m not going to let some two-bit high school dealer rough you up, because he thinks it’ll get to me. You wouldn’t have been on his radar if it wasn’t for me.” I heard the guilt in his voice at those words.

  “I’m pretty sure I’m the one responsible for jumping into your life, not the other way around,” I told him matter-of-factly, thinking his guilt was ridiculous and counterproductive.

  “Regardless, you’re exposed to it now, and you need to know how to protect yourself.” He ignored my groan and continued. “Do you know how to stop an attacker? How to throw a punch? Anything?”

  “Um, no?” I said hesitantly, already knowing how my response was going to go over.

  “Are you kidding me? Didn’t your dad ever teach you how to put a guy down? No offense but with your assets, there’s bound to have been a few pervs out there hitting on you.” I was tempted to take offense, but I was almost positive there was a compliment in there somewhere.

  “My dad left when I was a baby. And so far, I haven’t had to put anyone down for being pervy.”

  I could almost see his wince, as the next words come out of his mouth. “I didn’t know about your dad. I’m sorry.”

  I shrugged, even though he couldn’t see. “No big deal to me. Can’t miss what you never had.”

  “Still you need to know the basics. Tomorrow after school I’ll show you some moves. We’ll get Con to help.”

  “Okaaay.” I drew the word out, making him laugh.

  “It won’t be that bad.”

  Famous last words.

  Chapter Ten

  “Keep your thumb out.”

  “Keep your wrist straight.”

  “Balance your weight.”

  “Use your hips, that’s where your power is.”

  “Get in close. That’ll limit his reach.”

  “Throat. Eyes. Groin. Go for those, to cause the most pain.”

  My head bobbed between Jake and Conrad, as they threw information at me. I was getting dizzy from the constant stream of advice coming at me.

  They had shown me how to break a man’s grip by bending his thumb before proceeding to list defense techniques. Jake walked to me and positioned my fist and wrist. He showed me the motion used to throw a punch and made me practice several times.

  “Spread your legs more,” he said.

  “Hot,” I replied, without thinking.

  “This is not a joke,” Jake replied sternly, as Con tried to hold back a laugh.

  “I know that. It slipped out.” I smiled at him, attempting innocence. From his narrow-lipped frown, I could tell it did nothing to loosen him up. He returned to barking out orders with Conrad assisting him.

  “Rotate your hips, not your back.”

  “Keep your arm up. Don’t give them a chance to knock you out. You can’t fight then.”

  After several practice swings where they studied my form, he decided I was ready to try a live target.

  “You want me to punch you?” I asked in disbelief.

  “Yup. I’m not going to defend myself. I want you to know what it’s like to hit someone. I don’t want you freezing up at show time.”

  I shook my head. No way was I hitting him.

  “Why not?” he asked, spreading his hands wide. I didn’t say anything, just walked over and poked him. He looked surprised and then confused, as I kept poking him. Arms, shoulders, chest, abs, jaw. I poked everywhere I would throw a punch at. I avoided his throat, because a punch there could crush his windpipe. Conrad was looking at me like I was crazy as well.

  “I’m looking for a soft spot, so I don’t break my hand,” I muttered, as I finished. Conrad roared with laughter, as Jake put his hands on his hips looking down before shaking his head.

  “It’s going to hurt. That’s the point,” he groaned, running his hands through his hair. “You have to expect the pain and then forget it. If you’re scared of hurting yourself, you’ll never fight back.”

  That didn’t sound appealing to me at all, but I knew he was not letting me leave until I hit him.

  So I hit him, hard and fast, exactly like they showed me. His head snapped back at the force of my blow and while he didn’t go down, he did reach up to rub his jaw. His eyes were impressed, but I couldn’t care less, since I was pretty sure I had broken my hand on his jaw.

  I gave a whimper, as I tried to straighten my fingers.

  “Your form was good,” Conrad said, walking up to me. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

  “I felt it. Gonna leave a mark,” Jake commented, reaching for my hand. I attempted to jerk it away, but he wouldn’t let me. He checked that I could wiggle my fingers and declared my hand fine.

  “How bad do you think you hurt me?” he asked me, smiling. I smiled back, because his question let me know his jaw hurt worse than my hand did. Conrad looked puzzled by our exchange, and I reminded myself we needed to be cautious around him.

  “See? You did good. Remember that, the next time someone tries anything.” His thumb stroked over my knuckles, soothing the pain, but causing a deep heat to develop at my core. He released my hand reluctantly as Conrad said, “We can have her punch a pillow.”

  My knuckles and I agreed that was a better idea.

  They took turns holding a pillow up as I punched it, correcting my form as I jabbed, until they were finally satisfied.

  “We’ll do this regularly,” Jake told me. “Practice will make it second nature.”

  I was spending more time researching dead-ends using the phone Jake gave me than I did on my actual research paper. I wrote a few questions down that I thought would help, before ripping them up. Even I knew they were too vague, and we had been over them. We needed to narrow down who the guy was that shot Samuel, because he was the key to everything. I knew that, without a doubt, but anytime Jake asked questions about him it was like my mind went blank.

  “What police force does he work on?” he asked, and I shook my head.

  “Where does he live?” Again nothing.

  “Is he a state trooper?”

  “Is he a sheriff?” Again I shook my head. It was like I didn’t know enough about him to trigger answers to the questions.

  “Are you sure you haven’t lost your gift?” he asked in frustration.

  “I’m positive,” I said. “Test me if you want.”

  “What’s my girlfriend’s name?” he asked immediately.

  “Sarah Connor,” I replied promptly. We had figured out anything in the past was easy for me, and it seemed the better I got to know someone the easier I could respond to detailed questions about them. I could easily answer anything Jake asked in relation to himself, but Conrad was a little more difficult. If Jake asked me a question about Conrad, I could respond to it some of the time, but if Conrad asked me directly I was more likely to know. We tested it one afternoon when Jake convinced Conrad to answer a few questions for me by saying it was a school project.

  “Where did you go to high school?” I asked.

  “Breaux High,” he answered, with a confident smile. I knew better but kept going. That was an answer I had already known from questioning Jake about Conrad. We figured it was because Jake knew where Con went to high school. I moved on to a question
I hadn’t been able to get an answer from Jake for.

  “What was the name of the first girl you kissed?” I saw her face and knew he didn’t lie when he said her name, “Susie Monroe.” There was a fond smile on his face, and apparently he didn’t see any point in lying about her.

  “This is an odd project,” he mentioned after a few more random questions. He had been growing more suspicious of our relationship lately. I had a feeling he knew there was more going on than we admitted.

  “Tell me about it,” I said. “I had to ask ten people random questions. It’s a social experiment for my history class.”

  Jake and I excused ourselves after that, wanting to avoid any more questions.

  Conrad grabbed my arm before I could escape into Jake’s bedroom. He gave Jake a relaxed smile before saying, “Just a quick question for Addie. You can have her in a second.” He pulled Jake’s door shut, leaving a startled Jake on the other side. Conrad held the door shut as he looked at me. “What’s going on with you and Jake?” he demanded, confirming my idea about his suspicions. I knew from his question that he was afraid there were genuine feelings developing between me and Jake. An understandable fear in our current situation. I pled ignorance, feeling the shift of quicksand underneath our mountain of lies.

  “I don’t know what you’re asking. We’re having a good time,” I smiled. “Nothing serious, right?” I hoped that by playing if off as casual, I could alleviate his concern.

  Conrad loosened his hold on my arm as he nodded. “So long as you know it’s casual,” he warned me. My smile was brittle, as I slid through the door into Jake’s room.

  Jake gave me a questioning look, as I plopped onto the bed.

  “Con wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to break your heart,” I said, the words not coming out quite as lightly as I intended.

  “Ah, he has been asking questions about us,” Jake said, before pulling me into his embrace. I was startled by his action. We made it a point to avoid physical contact, unless we were acting in front of someone.

  He tucked my head under his chin, wrapping his arms around me in a tight hug. I relaxed into his arms, because no matter what our pretend relationship was, Jake was and always would be a friend.

  “I know what we are is confusing, but I want you to know that you’re important to me. Not just because of this case.” I heard him swallow and kept my eyes closed. My feelings were deeper than I wanted to admit and his next words would hurt. “You’re a good friend. Con knows I love my girlfriend. He’s looking out for both of us.”

  I nodded against his chest, biting my lip to keep words neither of us could deal with from spilling out. His arms tightened around me before slowly loosening. I controlled my expression as I pulled away from him. The momentarily unguarded look on his face caused my breath to catch. For a brief second his face reflected how I felt. He quickly controlled his emotions, hiding behind a friendly smile, and I forced a smile in return.

  “I’m glad we’re friends,” I said, catching the flash of emotion before he blanked his expression.

  “We should review what you learned from Conrad,” he said and I nodded, ignoring the pain in my heart.

  We go over the responses, and find that more intimate questions could only be answered by the individual. Even if the person lied, I would know the truth. We figured we didn’t know enough about the bad cop for me to even be able to have any insight into the simplest questions about him. Everything we knew was in relation to a question about someone else. Jake still found it strange that I could picture the guy. He wanted to sit me down with a sketch artist, but was afraid it would put me at risk if they recognized him.

  I asked Jake what Conrad thought of us dating while he was undercover. He shrugged as he said, “I told him your brother is one of the dealers and I was using you to get close. Con understands, but you notice he comes in after a while.” I nodded, as Jake smiled. “It’s his way of protecting us both. Neither of us want anyone to get hurt.” I saw the warning in his eyes, and I took it for what it was.

  A couple of days later, we were sitting on Jake’s bed going over information that we had been over a million times before. I rubbed my eyes in frustration. It felt like we were going in circles. We heard the creak of footsteps outside the room and Jake leaned over to kiss me. I reached up to meet him, my hands circling around his neck. Conrad assumed we were making out the entire time, so we gave him a show when he came barreling in with whatever excuse he had come up with that day. It was rare we had more than fifteen minutes of privacy to go over information. Connor made an excellent chaperone.

  Kissing Jake was my guilty pleasure, and I got the feeling it was his too. Neither of us would ever have admitted it though. Jake had a girlfriend, not to mention the odd set of circumstances we found ourselves in. I kept myself under strict control. I would not make this more than it was.

  I found Conrad’s excuses pretty entertaining too. My favorite was the time he thought he saw a snake go under the door. Or when he said he was lonely. Or the time he said Mormons were at the door and we should get it, since we obviously needed God more than he did.

  I felt Jake’s hand slip under my shirt as he deepened the kiss and a corner of my mind said this was when Conrad usually barged through the door. But he didn’t, and we kept kissing. I felt Jake’s hunger, and it matched my own. We shifted closer as he leaned into me. The kiss turned desperate. It was like he was trying to devour me before the door opened. Our combined weight pushed us further down. I found myself laying on the bed with Jake on top of me. He shifted and I expected him to move off me, since the door hadn’t opened, but instead he pushed one of his legs between mine. My legs fell apart of their own accord, and I felt his groan deep in my mouth.

  He was frantic now. We both were. His lips moved to my neck, and I felt the pull as he suckled lightly. I moaned at the sensation, my hands running over his chest as I pulled his shirt up so I could touch his skin. I could feel his hand still under my shirt and then his thumb brushed over my nipple. It pebbled, and I knew he could feel it even through the bra, because he rubbed his thumb over it again, harder this time.

  I couldn’t stop the arch in my back or the clamping of my legs around his thigh. He nipped my neck before returning to my mouth. His tongue slid in and out of my mouth at the same pace his thigh rocked between my legs. I was gasping when he ripped his mouth from mine.

  He was breathing heavily, his face buried into the comforter next to my shoulder. I remained still, as he worked to get himself under control. We had exchanged a few kisses for Conrad’s sake but never gone this far. My eyes flickered to the door, expecting to see Conrad bust through, but he didn’t. After a minute, Jake slid his thigh from between my legs and his hand from under my shirt. I felt him smooth my shirt down and place a soft kiss against my neck. I could feel the guilt emanating from him already, and I wanted to head it off.

  He knew this would happen eventually. I think we both knew. It was a dangerous game we played with one another. I pulled my hands from his back, and he rolled over placing an arm over his eyes.

  “I shouldn’t have,” he started, and I placed my finger over his lips. He looked at me startled, and I shook my head at him.

  “Don’t. I know.” My smile was sad. “I get it, but I don’t regret it.” I slid off the bed, managing to keep my composure. I wanted to curl up next to him and pretend we really were a couple, but I knew better. Illusion and reality were two different things. Eventually, he would return to his normal life as a cop, and I would still be a high school senior.

  Jake got up with me, and we looked at each other. There was a thousand unspoken words in those minutes before we moved to the door. I had told him the truth; I regretted nothing.

  When we walked out, I expected to see Conrad’s smirk, but he wasn’t there. Jake pulled a note from the door of his room. Obviously, that had been the footsteps we heard.

  Gone to meet a guy about a dirty needle. This may be the break we need.

&
nbsp; C

  ––––––––

  I knew the C stood for Conner. I had found out that Conrad’s real name was Connor. An easy play on his name, so he wouldn’t accidently forget to respond when someone used his alias. Jake had done something similar, except Tristan was his middle name.

  “I’m guessing dirty needle is code for our dirty cop?” I asked, reading the note with him.

  “Yeah, I wish I’d had a chance to talk to him before he left,” he murmured, distracted. I tried not to feel hurt. Conrad didn’t talk about anything related to drugs when I was around. It wouldn’t have been any different if we hadn’t been making out.

  “Come on. I’ll take you home.” I nodded, and we headed to his car.

  We were almost to my house when he asked, “Where did he go to meet this guy?”

  “2200 River Road,” I answered promptly, picturing the giant warehouse in my mind.

  Jake shook his head, “That never ceases to amaze me.”

  A few minutes later, as he was about to turn down my street, he asked, “Is Connor okay?” It was the first time he used the name Connor with me, but I couldn't think for the horrific image forming in my mind.

  I gasped, adrenaline racing through me. “Call 911, tell them to go there. He’s been shot.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Jake pulled his phone out, dialing 911, as he gunned the engine. He passed my street, and I knew we were headed to the warehouse.

  “Send an ambulance to 2200 River Road. I’ve got an officer down. Officer down, I repeat.” He dropped the phone into the cup holder, focusing on his driving. He was weaving between cars, breaking every speed limit, as I hung on.

  After a few minutes, he managed to ask me, “Is he alive?” I nodded, before realizing he wasn’t looking at me. “Yes,” I managed to say, the knowledge thrumming through me. He was alive, but for how long? Would the ambulance get there in time?

  “Who shot him?” The words were gritted. He already suspected, and I confirmed it. “The same man that shot Samuel Phillips.”