It had gone to hell in a handbasket, that was exactly what was happening to it, and it was all Rule Breaker’s fault.
Every damned second of it.
“Gypsy, I’m sorry.” Ashley closed the bedroom door, facing her with a glimmer of sympathy in her eyes as Gypsy threw herself into the chair next to the bed, slouched against the back and watched her friend with something less than patience.
“Just say it, Ash,” she sighed, knowing she wasn’t going to like it. As she understood it, any time Cassie Sinclair was involved with anyone’s life, things just happened anyway. But it seemed to her that that applied to any Breed, not just that particular one.
“The day you were here for the meeting with Jonas, along with your parents.” Ashley didn’t shift nervously or appear in any way uncertain. She stood straight, spoke quietly.
“Yes. I remember.” Gypsy nodded, her fingers tightening where they rested against the arms of the chair. “What about it?”
“Do you remember how nervous your mother was about releasing her purse?”
Gypsy straightened in her chair, leaning forward as a premonition began to tingle at the back of her spine.
“She was nervous about meeting with Jonas,” Gypsy said, remembering even at the time how odd her mother’s behavior had been. “This was more than a week ago, Ashley; what does it have to do with anything?”
“We found an audio transmitter hiding in the stitched lining of her purse, Gypsy, and her scent wasn’t one of nerves, it was one of deceit.”
Gypsy felt herself freeze inside.
There went that scent thing again, she thought distantly. Breeds were always smelling things. She wondered if they ever grew tired of having everyone’s emotions fill the air with such scents.
“You have to be wrong.” She couldn’t even look at the other woman as she whispered the words. Staring at the wall across the room, she remembered that meeting. How nervous her mother was, almost frightened as her purse was taken.
Even Gypsy had noticed her odd behavior and had been confused by it.
But this?
Her mother had tried to slip an audio device into the meeting with Jonas Wyatt? Why? Why would her mother or anyone else be interested in a simple business meeting? That didn’t make sense.
“That is not all, Gypsy,” Ashley told her. “Since that day, I, Emma and Sharone have been investigating the reason why your mother would do this. We learned that she was not unaware of the device, as we had hoped. Rather, she had agreed to have it hidden in her purse, and she and whoever she has aligned with plan to have another hidden even more discreetly at the next meeting.”
That couldn’t be true.
Gypsy couldn’t take her eyes off the wall across from her, couldn’t meet the eyes of the woman she called her friend. She could hear the sympathy in Ashley’s voice, the kindness, and knew if she saw pity in her friend’s eyes, then she simply wouldn’t be able to bear it.
“How . . . ? How do you know this?” she asked simply, wondering why she wasn’t vehemently denying her mother’s guilt in this. Why wasn’t she calling Ashley the liar she would have called her at any other time? Why wasn’t she fighting the crime her mother had committed?
“I know because Breeds are much better at hiding listening devices than are image consultants,” Ashley whispered, misery filling her eyes. “Emma, Sharone and I have the recording of your mother discussing this in her home with a male we could not identify. She intends to try again at the next meeting. She believes Breeds are responsible for her son’s death. She believes she will get away with this now, certainly, if she’s caught because of your association with Commander Breaker.”
Gypsy was well aware of Breed Law, just as she was aware of the fact that Jonas Wyatt could have had both her parents arrested for crimes against Breed Law for attempting to bring that device into the meeting. The fact that he hadn’t, and that Ashley was coming to her now, made her wonder just exactly what the director was planning, or what he would want from her at a later date.
“Is that all?” Gypsy asked then, hearing the exhaustion in her voice, the distance.
She had been in this place, inside her own mind, only one other time in her life. The night Mark had died. She had prayed to never find herself there again.
“No, it is not all,” Ashley stated. “Please look at me, Gypsy. Do not hate me for this. I demanded that I be the one to tell you these things because of our friendship. I do not want to lose the unique bond I’ve found with you, my friend. But if I must, to ensure that you are told the truth with the respect I believe you deserve, then I will risk it.”
Gypsy turned to her then, the distance still pulling her back from the situation, though Ashley’s statement forced her to return to reality.
“The respect I deserve?” she asked, confused.
Ashley swallowed tightly, her gray eyes filled with somber regret, though thankfully no pity.
Ashley’s sad little smile actually made her chest ache. “If there is any person in this nation that I know would never betray the Breeds, Gypsy, then I believe that person is you. Whatever the scent of deceit is that Rule detected, and that I have caught a hint of on occasion, I know it is not a desire to hurt or to in anyway see the Breeds harmed. That is not in your nature. You have helped me and Emma so many times during our visits here. You introduced us to friends, to those who have aided us countless times. You deserve to be given this information by a friend. By one who understands the pain you feel when you believe your honor has been betrayed by a loved one.”
“Believe it was betrayed?” Gypsy whispered past the tight ache in her chest.