The Second Sneak Peek
I can’t believe that we’re getting so close to the release of this book. Last edits are coming along well, and I’m so excited to see it all come together. If you missed the first sneak peek, you can read it here. Want to get the next sneak peek early? Sign up for the Teagan Troublemakers email list down below.
Our team has spent thousands of hours over the past year looking into him, and we know more about him than he probably does.
What we don’t know is the why behind it all. Why does he want little girls when he can have women? He could have them with the amount of money he has, and he does sometimes. Not often though.
Working for the FBI, I’ve dealt with my fair share of criminals. Mostly white collar, but in the past few years, I’ve been focusing more on bigger crimes. That’s how we got to Daniel Hayes.
That’s how I got to Brent Rossett, almost five years ago. That’s a story for another time, though.
This is how it often works. Months of research, following suspects around, engaging with them online, and building a case. Tonight is finally sealing the deal so we can prosecute Hayes while he is behind bars and save those girls.
I sit up in the bar and take a look at the menu. The bottles of wine are a few hundred dollars, getting up into the few thousands. Knowing I need to make it splashy, I order a glass high off the list and wait for the bartender to serve it up. Just the price tag alone makes me anxious.
Of course, if Hayes doesn’t pick up the tab for all the wine, I’ll get reimbursed for it. However, we all expect he’ll pick up the tab. With that kind of money, especially since he’s new money, he’ll want to flaunt it.
After the first sip, I let my mind wander back to the flirting aspect. As a kid in school, I was never one of the little girls interested in flirting with the boys. I wanted to be out tackling them in football and making them cry, not flirting with them.
My flirting skills are pretty rudimentary, but I know one move the boys love. Readjusting my shirt, I give it a little tug so my cleavage looks bigger.
After all, we did tell him that I’m a woman who peddles teenagers to gross men like him. The sad thing is that Daniel Hayes is a rather attractive man, he could have any consenting woman he wanted. He’s young and rich, too. He’s got the resources, too, if he wanted to pay for a woman of age. I can’t seem to move past that fact in my mind. He could have any woman (well, almost any) and not commit a crime. He has everything going for him, why fuck it up like this?
Instead of playing it safe, he preys on girls who have no business being involved with a man. There is an age of consent for a reason.
With another sip of my wine, I look up at the TV on the wall above the liquor shelf. There is no sound on the TV, but there’s closed captioning at the bottom. One name catches my eyes: Brent Rossett.
The TV doesn’t show him, so I assume there’s a little bit of delay to the captioning. If I had to guess, it’s probably about the trial that’s about to start.
Just thinking about what that will be like, sitting on the stand, to tell my story. To tell my story knowing it will be broadcast over news stations across the country, unfortunately.
I do look forward to the moment when I take the stand and see Rossett sitting behind the defendant’s table. He’ll have no choice but to listen. He’ll have to absorb all the details I give about the investigation, about when I realized he was following me, and the night I went into my apartment and found him there waiting for me.
I take a deep breath and try to push Rossett out of my head, put him back in the past, at least for now.
I don’t need that clogging up my brain tonight while I’m trying to work the magic on Daniel Hayes.
“Want another?” My bartender asks, pointing to the empty glass in front of me.
“Sure,” I say. Two glasses before Hayes shows up is flirting with danger. Not that I’ll be drunk, but if I drink them both fast, I’ll be a little tipsy.
The bartender brings the glass to me and then looks behind me.
I don’t have to turn around to know exactly who is standing behind me.
