The Tracker's Secret: Sunderverse (Mate Tracker Book 2) by Ingrid Seymour (the gingerbread man read aloud .txt) 📗

Tom closed the folder. “Stephen may be able to explain better. Let’s go back.”

Huh? Why?

We went back into the room where we’d left Stephen. He sat waiting patiently, hands interlaced in front of him, resting on the table. He glanced up when we walked in, a worried frown on his forehead.

I took the chair next to Stephen, and Tom sat across from us, opened the folder, and unclipped the picture from the rest of the documents.

“His name is Jenson Boyle.” He pushed the photograph in Stephen’s direction. The mage had a shaved head in this picture, but his smug face was unmistakable.

Stephen froze and let out a pent-up breath. He licked his lips and started to shake his head but froze again, making his confusion plain.

At last, he said, “I know this man.”

“You do?!” I blurted out.

Tom leaned forward. “Can you tell us about him?”

“He works for my father.”

I gasped, my mind reeling with that piece of information.

Tom leafed through the documents, his inquisitive dark eyes going through the material with methodical care. “Do you have any idea why he would try to kill you? Any personal grudges between the two of you?”

Stephen shook his head. “No. I barely know him. We’ve never even spoken past a simple greeting.”

“Do you know what kind of work he does for your father?”

“I don’t. I’ve seen him a few times at my father’s office but only in passing.”

“I hate to ask you this next question, Stephen, but I have to.” He paused. “Do you think your father has anything to do with the attack?”

Stephen shook his head adamantly. “No. No. No.”

The fact that he said it three times wasn’t helping his cause. Once should have been enough, if he really believed it. I was reminded of the cufflink Ulfen had given me to help me track Stephen. He’d said they’d found it in Stephen’s car after he was kidnapped, that it must have come loose in the struggle. But when I gave it back to Stephen in the hospital, he’d been surprised to see it and to learn where I’d gotten it. In his recollection, he’d had both cufflinks with him while trapped in the van. Though, he’d doubted his own memory because of the abuse he’d endured during his captivity. They’d beaten him over the head, and he’d had some difficulty keeping things straight.

And now this? It was too much damning evidence pointing at Ulfen.

I touched Stephen’s arm to get his attention and catch his gaze. I glanced toward his wrist pointedly, trying to remind him of the cufflink. He understood me. I saw it in his expression of incredulity, and in the way he shook his head, still trying to deny what seemed to be getting more obvious by the minute.

“Is there something you two are not telling me?” Tom asked, not missing a thing.

I pressed my lips together. I didn’t have any tender feelings for Ulfen, and I would have gladly told Tom my suspicions, but it wasn’t my job. Not right now, anyway. Maybe later, if Stephen didn’t come clean. For now, I needed to give him an opportunity.

For a long moment, Stephen stared at the mage’s photograph, and I started to wonder if he would decide to protect his father, but in the end, he told Tom about the cufflink.

“Why hadn’t either one of you mentioned this?” Tom asked, clearly peeved.

“I forgot,” I said, which was the truth.

There had been a lot dumped in my lap these last few days. I had at least told him about Bernadetta Fiore’s chauffeur, and I made time to work with a sketch artist to come up with a likeness of the Fae driver, all while dealing with Mom’s dandy news. What else did he want from me? The promise of my firstborn?

“You forgot,” Tom repeated as if he didn’t believe a word of it. “And what about you, Stephen?”

“The kidnappers roughed me up. I couldn’t trust anything I remembered—much less something as minor as a cufflink. Still, none of this makes sense. My father wouldn’t try to kill me. He’s been trying to convince me to get more involved in the family business, to take my responsibilities more seriously. Why would he do that if he wanted me dead?”

Tom inclined his head to one side. “But you haven’t been listening to your father, have you?”

“Not for some time,” Stephen agreed. “But since the kidnapping, I’m seeing things differently. He and I have had a few meaningful conversations. Things are changing between us. I’m coming to see his side of things, and he has been more understanding.”

Tom and I huffed at the same time.

Stephen’s gaze went from Tom to me then back again. “It’s true. This makes no sense. There has to be something else going on. Maybe Bernadetta Fiore hired Boyle.” He stabbed his finger at the mage’s photograph.

Tom sat back, looking skeptical.

“Fiore has done worse things.” Stephen’s voice rose a few notches. “And we know her chauffeur was involved in my kidnapping. He was there.”

“How do you know that?” Tom glanced at me. I had testified in private, and Tom had asked me not to tell anyone what I’d seen. He wanted to keep such facts out of the news, which always tended to pollute police investigations.

I shook my head slightly to let him know I hadn’t spilled a word of it.

“I have my sources, and I know there was also a Fae involved,” Stephen said, standing abruptly and pointing a finger at Tom’s face. “So before you start trying to accuse a man of attempting to kill his own son, you’d better look more carefully into Fiore’s involvement.”

Without another word, Stephen whirled on his heel and stormed out of the room. Tom and I stared at the door as it slammed against its frame and shook the walls around us.

“Damn,” I said.

A muscle jumped in Tom’s jaw. “I don’t like any of this. You need to stay away from the Erickson family, and let’s not