Scarlet Angel (Page 12)

“So you do know something?” I ask, leaning closer.

“I know that if someone is out avenging their deaths, I’d like to shake their hand. Marcus was my boyfriend, though I never had the balls to admit it back then. And Victoria was like my little sister. I was seventeen, like Marcus, when they died.”

My lips tense. He’s holding something back.

“Can you give us anything to help us follow up on how they were really killed?” Donny asks.

“Now you want to know? Because back then, when I went to the FBI dude who had wrongly profiled Robert Evans as a serial killer and told him my friends—the two sweetest fucking humans ever—had been killed by the town, he told me it wasn’t his case. To let the cops do their jobs, and if it was more than a car accident, they’d handle it.”

The bitterness in his tone is real, and he definitely doesn’t seem to be hiding his anger over it. Which makes him less suspect. Still…my gut is telling me he’s somehow involved.

“Who was that?” Donny asks.

“His last name was Bag, and his first name was Douche. Sometimes he went by SSA Johnson.”

Donny chokes back a laugh, but I’m not laughing. Johnson was a terrible profiler, tarnished the reputation of the unit so badly that he was promoted. Gotta love fucking politics. As shitty as he was, he was invaluable because of the knowledge he had, so they “promoted” him to a bullshit position and gave him bullshit tasks to keep him under their thumbs.

He’s also the Godfather of the department, because he pretty much took profiling in the direction it has grown to be today, made it an actual thing with actual results, no matter how flawed those preliminary results turned out to be.

“You’re saying he ignored two dead kids?” Donny asks, no longer laughing as the words catch up to him.

“I’m saying he didn’t give a shit. And now I’m putting one foot in front of the other—metaphorically speaking, obviously—to stay out of the past. Now, unless you have something pressing to speak to me about, please leave. I have things to do.”

My phone rings as Donny tries to pry more out of him, just something to figure out what really happened.

I see it’s Alan calling, and I stand up, walking down the hall a little to answer.

“What the hell?” I hiss.

“Sorry. Sorry. Sooooo sorry. I don’t know how I missed it, but I got Donny’s text, and yes, Jacob Denver is definitely paralyzed from the waist down. Happened four years ago, to be exact. A drunk driver side-swiped him—hit and run. He was on a motorcycle. He’s been in a wheelchair ever since.”

Why does this still feel off?

“Thanks. Don’t miss anything this big again. We thought we had our unsub.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just a small mention in his records. It’s not like I can open hospital files, and I wouldn’t have seen it at all if I hadn’t been looking for it.”

“Right. Okay. See if you can dig up any other friends from the past he might have shared with the Evans family. Something is definitely off with him. He never asked who was killed.”

Something topples to the ground from the room I’m standing in front of, and I try to open the locked door, curious as to why it’s locked.

“Can I help you?” Jacob asks, wheeling over to where I’m jiggling the doorknob.

“Why is this locked?” I ask, putting my phone away.

“Um…because it’s my house, and I don’t like people walking into my office. What’s your deal?”

He seems genuinely private, but why lock a door when you live alone unless you’re hiding something?

“Do you care if we look around?” Donny asks him, trying to sound non-imposing.

He studies us critically before finally blowing out a breath and rolling his eyes.

“Fine. Fine. But then you leave and leave me alone. I don’t need you barging into my life and dredging up memories better left forgotten.”

He wheels back to the living room, picks up a set of keys, taking his time to do so, and he comes back, unlocking the door. He backs away, and I open it, looking around. I see the computer screen is blank, and my eyes land on the cracked window in front of where there’s a thing of tacks scattered around on the floor.

“Damn it. Not again,” he groans, wheeling by me to the mess of tacks. “You can go now. I need to clean this up.”

I nod to Donny, and we walk out, leaving him to his task. As soon as we’re outside and the door shuts behind us, I glance over, seeing the cracked window.

“Someone is in there with him,” I say quietly when we reach the street.

“Looks like the wind caught the curtain, and the curtain knocked over the tacks to me.”

“That window was closed, along with the blinds, when we came up. There’s a closet in there. Someone was there.”

“Why didn’t you open the closet?”

“Because whoever it is may be our unsub.”

I pretend as though we’re taking our time to get in the car as Jacob shuts the window and closes the blinds once again. We loiter on the street, while I call Lisa.

“How close are you to Jacob Denver’s address?”

“Elise and I are about five minutes out. Why?”

“Swing by and sit on the house. As soon as we see you in position, we’ll drive off. If he leaves, I want you to call me. If he stays, I want you to watch him. Someone is inside, and it may be our unsub. Use extreme caution.”

“Shit. Got it. You be careful too.”

I start to hang up, when she adds, “And by the way, thank you for the roses. They were beautiful.”

My brow creases in confusion.

“I never sent roses.”

“I mean from the hospital. I got them, and realized I never thanked you for them.”

“Lisa, I never sent roses. At all.”

She grows deadly silent. “So it was him? Plemmons?”

I don’t have time to ask questions about a dead man’s motives. “It may have been. Call the flower company and find out.”

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll see if Hadley can look into it,” she says, distant now.

As I hang up, Donny is smirking. “What?”

“Nothing,” he lies, smirking more.

I glare at him.

“Just wondering what Lisa would do to Lana if she got her hands on her. She’s a typical scorned ex—perfectly okay with the breakup until you finally get a new girlfriend that you seem to be pretty head-over-heels for. Lisa is a bitch. Keep her away from your new girlfriend or she may scratch Lana’s eyes out.”

“Lana’s already been subjected to her, in case you’ve forgotten. Lisa didn’t rattle her.” I sound dismissive, but I’m masking how uncomfortable this conversation is.

“We all know what a bitch Lisa can be, and right now, she’s feeling that jealousy most exes do when their ex finally moves on and exhibits signs of true happiness. She’s got a nasty mouth on her, and she may eventually seek Lana out in an effort to ruin things between you two. Just profiling. It’s what I do.”

Fuck.

“I’ll keep them apart. Lisa will eventually forget it.”

“When she finds someone who makes her happy,” he agrees with a mocking grin. “Should only take a few lifetimes.”

I flip him off as he chuckles, and I glance back toward the closed window. Lisa and Elise appear just down the street, parking at the curb.

Donny and I load into the SUV, and we drive away. It’s no time before Elise texts us, telling us Jacob is on the move, heading in our direction in a white van. She sends the plates too, just so we know we’re tailing the right one.

As soon as the white van passes us, I arch an eyebrow. It looks like any good kidnapper’s van.

The driver’s side and passenger side have windows, but the rest of the van looks like a work van. He does do some tech work, according to his file, so it could possibly be his work van.

Donny and I follow discreetly, while Elise and Lisa watch the house.

“See if you can get a look inside,” I say as Donny puts Lisa on speaker.

“Trying to get a warrant to go in, but the judge says we don’t have enough.”

“Just get a look around,” I say vaguely, hinting for her to break some rules. It’s a fucking serial killer we’re after. Sometimes rules need to be broken.

“Got it.”

“Just don’t be obvious,” Donny says to the phone.

“I’m not an idiot,” Lisa snips.

He hangs up, and I keep a safe tail distance on Jacob. We pull up to the curb as he pulls into a parking spot. It takes a few minutes before his side van door slides open, and I watch as he is lowered down with the wheelchair on the motorized platform.

“That explains the van. It’s handicap accessible,” Donny points out.

Frowning, I watch as he sits with a basketball on his lap, and then we watch as he locks up his van and starts wheeling down the sidewalk.

When he reaches a basketball court full of kids, Donny hisses out a breath. Most of the kids are suffering some sort of disability. A few are amputees, some are in wheelchairs, and some seem to be struggling with other physical issues.

“We’re going to hell,” Donny groans as the kids cheer, and Jacob blows a whistle, tossing the ball at them.