Oracle Seeing (The Phoenix Files Book 2) (46 page)

Nate had some pull, so he focused on finding Haas Newman. There was no way the man had just disappeared into thin air. He was confident they would find him. After all, he had his best man working on it.

Luke.

He was a wizard with research.

As he drove, heading toward the sheriff’s station, the inside of the ride was filled with the clicking of keys and popping of gum.

It said it all.

Jagger was on edge.

Normally, he was silent. He didn’t make a single peep while walking, watching, or doing anything else. That he was making his presence known said a lot.

“Ask her out.”

“What?” he said.

“You need to just bite the bullet and ask the woman on a date.”

He didn’t like that idea. “I don’t date. I fornicate.”

“And therein lies the issue.”

He stopped chewing his gum.

“Nate’s right. You just have to do it. If she says yes, you go from there. If she says no, then you cry over a few beers, and we play darts until some seedy blonde hits on you.”

Nate started laughing. “He knows. That was his MO before Maura.”

“Don’t judge. It was your MO too. I can recall a few women who caught your eye after about six beers.”

Jagger knew what they were trying to do, and while he appreciated it, he didn’t need Frick and Frack driving his love life.

“I’ve never been on a date.”

Nate looked into the rearview mirror as Luke turned around in the front seat to stare at Jagger.

“What?” they said at the same time.

“You heard me.”

“How is that even possible?” Nate asked. “Never in your entire life? Not even when you were a little Jagger with dating training wheels?”

He snorted.

“Not even then. I don’t date. I find a woman, I lie my way into her panties, and then I lie my way out of them. I don’t bring them home, and I certainly don’t give them my full name. That’s just asking for shit to happen.”

Luke shook his head. “You’re totally jacked up, my friend. You can’t go through life like that.”

Yeah, he was, but that was neither here nor there.

“Listen, I get what you guys are saying, and Doctor Faust is nice and all, but we’re moving on when this case is over. Why bother?”

He’d had this argument with himself all night, and he was losing.

“Fire Bay is thirty minutes away. You can have a life, Jagger. It’s possible,” Nate offered. “While we’re home, you can come and go as you please. If you need a night off to spend time with Roxy, you can take it. We don’t have you under lock and key. Your time is your time.”

Yeah, he knew it was, but that wasn’t the issue. Honestly, Jagger didn’t know what to do about Roxanne Faust. She tied him up in so many knots.

Besides, she was pissed at him.

“I’ll think about it.”

That pretty much meant he was done talking. When Jagger threw down the wall, no one was going to get him to discuss it.

No one.

As if timed perfectly, Luke’s tablet beeped, signaling that one of his searches was done.

“Got him! I found Haas Newman!”

Nate got excited. This might be the break they needed. This all seemed to be surrounding him. “Where is he?”

Luke read the screen.

His excitement disappeared pretty damn fast.

“Yeah, you’re not going to like this.”

“What?”

“He’s not going to be our killer.”

“How do you know that?”

“He’s in an institution on life support. He was in a car accident.”

“When?”

“Three years ago.”

Well, that took care of that. He didn’t kill Miles Killion, and he wasn’t playing serial killer in Ravenswood.

“You’re right. I don’t like it at all.”

“What now?”

There was only one answer to that. “It looks like it’s back to the drawing board. Let’s head in and talk to Bishop. Maybe she has something that we can use to find a new direction. Text her. We’ll meet up.”

Luke handled it.

This case was making them nuts. It was like one big circle-jerk. He hoped they got a break.

And soon.

       
                
* * *
  O R A C L E   * * *

Morgue

When she got there, coffee in tow, Roxy was working on some paperwork. Wendy was still out of the cooler and on the table, but her best friend wasn’t digging around in the body.

That was always good.

“Hey, I was wondering if you were lost,” Roxy stated.

“I was texting the Feds.”

“Great.”

“Still pissed about what Jagger did?” she asked, handing her bestie the cup.

“Yes.”

“Liar.”

Roxy glared at her. “If you even start, I’ll kick your ass out of here.”

Bishop laughed. “Will you be my maid of honor, or in your case, lack of honor?” she teased.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. When I get married, I want you there beside me. You’re going to be my only attendant. It’s gotta be just you and me, Roxy, like it’s always been. It feels right.”

She hugged her.

“Jesus! Don’t get Wendy goo on me. You never know what the hell she picked up.”

Roxy wiped her eyes. “Actually, with some lab work, I do know.”

She snorted.

“You’re insane,” Bishop teased.

Roxy was aware.

“Are you ready? Can we focus on work? I can’t be a mean old hag and break down in here. It’ll ruin my street cred.”

Bishop got it.

Before she could say anything, the morgue door swung open.

The thee Feds strolled in.

“Great,” Roxy muttered.

There was no doubt who that was directed at, and it wasn’t Nate or Luke. The icy stare was directed at one person, and one person alone.

And he realized it.

“Geez, this is a tough room,” Jagger stated, leaning against the wall.

She didn’t respond.

Jagger knew it was best he simply shut his mouth. He wanted to beat the hell out of himself for being weak around her. Roxanne Faust tripped him up.

“Guys, you’re just in time for the fun. We were about to get started.”

“Great,” Nate replied.

“What do we have, Roxy?” she asked.

“Let’s start with the old and work our way to the new. We have final confirmation on those blonde hairs we found on Judge Abrahms and Dale Plunkett.”

“Who?” Nate asked.

“Wendy. I pulled one of her hairs and did a slide comparison. We have a match. At some point, she was in contact with the men.”

Nate thought about it. “I have something different to postulate.”

“Okay, shoot,” Roxy stated.

“Say you’re crawling all over someone,” he said, not mentioning any names.

She looked over a Jagger.

Yeah, he thought so. The Marine wasn’t the only one jacked up over this. The coroner was too.

“Okay, and?”

“Your trace gets all over him, right?”

“Yes.”

“But for how long?”

She thought about it. “There’s not really a scientific answer to that—maybe days, hours, weeks, it depends on the trace I guess, and if the person showers, changes their clothes, or a number of other scenarios.”

“Here’s what I think. I know we have confirmation that Wendy was with the judge and the attorney because she admitted it, but what if the trace was passed off by the killer?”

“So someone Wendy had contact with?”

“Yeah, someone. We’re looking at this like every single person had something to do with a specific case, but Wendy…she doesn’t really fit.”

Bishop listened.

“Well, that was the case until we searched her house.”

Bishop knew that meant they found something. “What goodies did you find at her home?”

He began pulling folders out. “She was crazy, and I’ll start there.”

He told her about all her files.

The look on Bishop’s face said it all.

“Christ! She was sick.”

They all agreed on that. Only it was about to go from sick to twisted in the next few seconds.

“I have some good and bad news, Sheriff. Which do you want first?”

Roxy shook her head. “I hate when she does this, and I really don’t like when the FBI plays it either.”

Bishop was beginning to see why. She had that sick feeling. If Wendy stalking her and Lucian wasn’t the bad news, it was really going to suck.

“Give me the good.”

“Wendy was as crazy as a fox, and she’s solved some of the case for us.”

“Like?” Bishop asked curiously.

He told her about the files on the judge, the defense attorney taking kickbacks, and then he told her about Earl Thorpe and what they’d found related to Lucian. He didn’t tell her about the files on her, Lucian, and her father.

Nate wanted to break her in slowly. This was going to be a lot to swallow.

She actually gasped.

“Oh no!”

Yeah, that’s what they’d initially thought.

“She figured it out?”

He nodded. “The files had a lot of old info in them. She’d been holding onto it for a long time. Wendy, at some point, smelled something, and she began sniffing around.”

Who knew Wendy was going to be helpful?

Certainly not Bishop.

“Lucian needs this information. He’s up in my office trying to figure out who tried to kill him.”

They couldn’t blame him for needing to know. They would too.

“Yeah, well, before we give him that, there’s more you need to know about.”

“Okay, what?”

“In the file, there was only some numbers, and a couple of initials.”

“What were they?” she asked.

He rattled them off.

Immediately, Bishop knew who it was. She and Lucian had just discussed the man in her office.

“Those initials are going to belong to Lawrence Stall. That’s the man they were trying to put away.”

“And the numbers?” Nate asked.

Oh, that was easy. It was a day she’d never forget as long as she lived.

“That’s the day Lucian nearly died when his vehicle blew up.”

That said it all.

The initials were a stretch, but in combination with the date, it painted a pretty clear picture.

“We need to look at Lawrence Stall. If that was the case, and Wendy had his initials in a file related to an attorney taking a bribe, it has to be something.”

She agreed.

“I can’t believe that she was actually helpful.”

“Well, here’s the thing. Her crazy had a lot of different angles,” Nate admitted.

It looked like it was time to tell her about everything else they’d found.

“What aren’t you telling me?” she asked.

“There was a file on you, Lucian, and your father too.”

There was that momentary pause as that sunk in.

“Okay, what was in them?”

“Lucian had some dates where he’d gone missing. It looked like Wendy was either following because she thought he was cheating, or that she thought he was in on it with Thorpe. The notes are in both files.”

“He wouldn’t do either.”

“We’re going to have to ask him.”

She was aware.

Still…

She trusted him.

“We will. What’s next?”

“Your file was filled with the ramblings of a madwoman. She was watching where you went, what you did, and who you did it with.”

“I’m clean.”

“Yeah, you are, as was your father.”

“What was in there?”

There was that uncomfortable pause.

“There is nothing you can say that will make me think my dad was a dirty cop. He died loving this city, and I know that to be the absolute truth.”

“Yeah, he was clean, but that’s not the issue.”

“Glove up.”

She did as he asked. When she was finished, he handed her the file.

“Open it.”

She did.

Inside, the blood was staining the papers, but she could see why he’d been worried.