I found Brandon in his office when I arrived at Headquarters. This case was taking its toll on all of us. When I’d met my new partner just a few months before, he’d only had a smattering of grey marring his brown hair. Now, it was more of a salt-and-pepper look.
He looked up after I closed the door to his office and sat across the desk from him. “What did Traymoore have to say?”
I shrugged. “He gave up Montgomery, just like we knew he would.”
Hope briefly brightened his eyes, but they again darkened when he caught the sarcastic edge to my voice. “Smart ass. More lies?”
“What else could we have expected from him? I’m telling you Brandon, there is something going on between Traymoore and Montgomery. Whatever it is, I don’t like it one bit.”
“Do you think it goes deeper than just covering for her?” Brandon asked thoughtfully.
I let the question rattle around in my mind. I’d been wondering that same thing since I’d questioned him the day of the robbery. Jenna had also thought he was hiding something from her, but she didn’t have any more insight into the situation than I had. We’d toyed with the idea they could be having an affair for a while. While it might be a damn good reason for a married man to get edgy whenever her name came up, it just didn’t fit. From what I knew of him, Michael Traymoore was a devoted husband and there didn’t appear to be anything unseemly about his feelings toward Skylar.
Actually, the man acted more like her father than her lover.
“Yeah, I definitely think there is something more going on with those two than we know. Trouble is, neither of them seems to be talking and I haven’t learned how to read minds just yet. Do you have any thoughts?”
Brandon grinned. “I have all kinds of thoughts, Caldwell, but none of them would help with the case.”
“And I’m the smart ass? I thought you were supposed to be Mr. Seasoned FBI Agent Man. Come on, Brandon, wow me.”
He ignored my sarcasm. “Let’s go over what we know again.”
I let out an exaggerated sigh. “You mean what we don’t know. This whole case is full of holes.”
“True enough. I just feel like we’ll find what we’ve been overlooking if we keep staring at it.”
There was no sense arguing with him on that point; it wasn’t as though I had any better ideas. “Okay, so we know Eric Sauters is Raptor and we know he isn’t here anymore. Am I missing anything so far?”
“Well, just the fact that he has at least five million dollars from this heist and an unknown amount from the last. So we do know that he could be anywhere in the world by now, living quite comfortably.”
I scowled. “Okay. We know that Parker Ramsey worked with him on the first heist, faked his death, and then came to you to help find Raptor. He started using the alias of Jonathan Price, worked with Raptor on this heist and skipped town.
“Of course, Parker Ramsey and Jonathan Price are both figments of his imagination and we have no way of finding out his true identity. For all we know, he’s as far away as Sauters.”
“Don’t forget, we also have two women who worked with them on this last job and we don’t know who either of them are.”
I considered that. “No. We do know that Montgomery is Songbird.”
“Not this again.” Brandon rubbed his temples and sighed. “It doesn’t matter which way we come at this case, it always comes back to Skylar fuckin’ Montgomery. Dammit. Is there any chance he’ll give her up?”
“No. I think he’ll go to jail before he implicates her in this,” I replied.
He shook his head. “Is there any chance she’s about to break? Maybe she’d take a deal if we offered her one. Raptor and Ramsey are bigger fish than her.”
I was about to answer when something occurred to me. “I don’t know. Let’s find out.”
Brandon looked at me oddly as I pulled out my cell phone and started to dial. He probably thought I was calling Skylar to ask her. What was I going to have to do to prove to this guy that I knew how to do my job without his supervision? I’d single-handedly stopped a terrorist; I think I could be trusted with a phone call.
While I waited for Jenna to pick up her office line, I said, “Jenna was supposed to question Skylar this morning. I want to find out what her take on all of this is.”
It royally pissed me off that he seemed relieved by that. I was about to tell him as much when I realized Jenna or Trista should have picked up the phone by now. I tried her cell, but it went straight to voicemail. Something had to be wrong; Jenna never turned off her phone.
Never.
“What’s wrong, Jackson?” Brandon asked, concern etched into his face.
I ignored him and dialed Trista’s number. The phone rang several times, to the point I thought I was about to get her voicemail as well, before she finally picked up. Her tone did nothing to alleviate my concerns.
“Trista, I can’t reach Jenna and I know something has to be wrong. Do you know where she is? Is she alright?”
It felt like Trista waited an eternity to answer. Jenna had to be okay. I couldn’t even comprehend the alternative.
Trista cleared her throat. “Jackson, you need to get over to her sister’s house. It’s…bad.”
© 2011, Sydney Katt. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use of content will result in dragon attacks.
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*wonders if the FBI will figure out Eric and Parker are brothers..*
I can imagine that Jackson is breaking all sorts of land speed records atm trying to get to Jenna…well Elaines……
Might be kind of a leap. Jackson’s good, but I”m not sure he’s that good.
And yeah, I’m guessing the speed limit is just a suggestion to him at this point.