“And she just admitted that it was him?” I asked unbelievably.
“She had been raped by a man that she was supposed to trust, all so that he didn’t get in trouble. I’m guessing there were a lot of threats in there if she didn’t do what he wanted.”
“Still, in order for that to have happened, those phone calls would have had to have been wiped. You have to have a lot of pull to accomplish that.”
He nodded, but there was something he wasn’t telling me.
“Who was the officer?”
He shook his head slightly. “Trust me, you don’t want to open that can of worms.”
“Tell me who the fuck he is,” I growled. “I’m not asking you to fucking turn the guy over. I need a name.”
He gritted his teeth, knowing that he couldn’t hold out on me. I had too much power in this relationship. “Colonel Marcus Barrow.”
The name sounded familiar. I thought back, trying to figure out how the hell I knew that name, and then it hit me. “The same Barrow that saved a Muslim woman from being raped a few years back?” Jim nodded. “He took out a terrorist that day and saved his unit.”
“Now you see why no one would have believed her. That’s if this is true. Like I said, it’s all from someone that said she knew the victim.”
“What’s your take on it?” I trusted Jim. He had good instincts and I knew that he wouldn’t just jump to conclusions.
He hesitated and I knew he was considering everything, including what the implications would be based on what he told me. “I’ve read through the court documents, and based on what I’ve seen, I would say there were a lot of unanswered questions, and yet a man was still dishonorably discharged. I think the court needed someone to pay for what happened and Parker was convenient. I could be wrong on that, but that’s the way I read it. And if that’s true, that guy didn’t just get the short end of the stick, he got royally screwed over.”
I nodded in understanding. There were so many things that happened once you were dishonorably discharged. He would have immediately lost all veteran benefits, along with the chance of ever receiving any kind of government help, like financial assistance for unemployment. Employment would be difficult, considering a DD is like a felony conviction. No wonder he went to work for Adams. He couldn’t make any fucking money because no one would hire him. And that didn’t even come close to the shame of a dishonorable discharge. I knew, because I had been given a dishonorable discharge. The difference was, I didn’t give a fuck because I knew exactly what I was doing when I killed my superiors. I felt justified in how I was protecting my brothers, and I would do it again. But for Parker, if he wasn’t guilty, it was a mark on his military career that he couldn’t erase, and no soldier deserved that injustice.
I snatched the folder from the table and moved to leave, but Jim grabbed my wrist. I slowly looked down where he was holding me and then glared at him.
“This is the last time, right?”
“We’ll see.”
I saw the defeat in his eyes before I walked out of the bar. I had a feeling that what I was about to do would lead me back to Jim’s doorstep yet again. There was no point in making him think that this was over.
I had read through the file folder a dozen times now, but I still wasn’t satisfied. I had a feeling that Parker was the type of man that I needed for this job, but I needed to be sure. If he really had raped a woman, he wasn’t the type of man that I wanted to be involved with. Hell, I might actually kill him for what he did. If it was true, the woman hadn’t gotten any justice. But if it wasn’t true, if Parker was telling the truth and the woman was lying, Parker had gotten fucked over and his life would never be the same.
I studied the file for the woman’s name and typed it into my computer, finding her last known address. Kiera Lawson lived in Washington D.C. now. It was only a four hour drive to her place. Kate knew that I was out of town until this afternoon. If I left now, I could get to Kiera’s house before dawn and still make it back as I had planned. I ran all my usual checks on her, checking out her property for a security system or dogs. She didn’t have either. Hell, she didn’t even have a fucking cat. It didn’t make any sense to me. The woman had supposedly been raped, yet she didn’t do anything extra to protect herself? She had plenty of money and a good job, so there was no financial reason not to do it.
She had no boyfriend right now, and after stalking her online for a good hour, I couldn’t find a single man that she had hooked up with in the last three years. Hell, there wasn’t even anyone that she was associated with. That made her case slightly stronger in my eyes. A woman that had been raped wouldn’t be likely to run out and find a boyfriend or a fuck buddy. This woman was a mystery to me, and the only way I was going to get the answers I needed were to go get them myself.
I hopped on my bike and headed out of town, driving straight through to D.C. My ass was killing me by the time I pulled up outside Kiera’s place, but it would be worth it once I had
