She rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you’re exaggerating.”
“Not by much, unfortunately.”
“Well, based on your reputation in the field, I’d love to become reader number seven, if you’ll let me borrow them.”
“You canhavethem. I’ve got plenty more. What about the rest of the room? You don’t seem as impressed as I’d hoped. My ego’s a bit deflated. I thought you’d run straight to the table and start salivating.”
“I would have, if it wasn’t for your library. I’m a book lover, through and through. But the entire room is incredible.” She strode to the table and ran her fingers across it. “You must haveenjoyed being a Justice Seeker more than you’ve let on. This is fit for theknights of the round table, just like the one that Mason told me that you all have in some super-secret hidden room at The Justice Seekers’ home base.”
“Almost. It’s not quite as large as his since I don’t have twelve Seekers, or so-calledknights, to fill it up. But I admit I enjoyed his flair for the medieval and the fun of the whole Camelot concept, so I stole some of that for myself. I converted an existing study and two bedrooms into this office with the intention of using it to work from home while recuperating from being shot. But the recovery has been slower than I’d expected, and I ended up with way too much time to think about my failures. Resigning seemed like the reasonable thing to do.”
“Wait. Are you saying that you’ve never used this office, orgreat hall, if you call it that like Mason does? Once it was finished, it just sat here unused?”
“I don’t call it a great hall. It’s got the stone floors, walls and table, but nothing else that resembles a castle like Mason’s does. And, yes, you’re absolutely right. I can’t remember the last time I’ve traipsed across the house to this room. If it wasn’t for the cleaning company that comes in once a week, there’d be cobwebs and dust all over the place.”
“Wow. If I’d known that, I’d have snuck in through a back window and claimed squatters’ rights long ago. I could happily live here for weeks and not come up for air.” She lowered herself into one of the cushy leather chairs at the round table. “Ahhh. World class. You have great taste.” She waved toward the monitors. “Feel free to feed your ego by giving me a demonstration. How big are those screens anyway? Six or seven feet tall?”
He rolled one of the other leather chairs out of the way and positioned his wheelchair beside her. “Each one is six feet by three feet. I wanted twelve, to keep with the Camelot theme. Butit seemed like overkill and would have restricted the space too much, so I settled on nine. They work together as one monitor if I want, or I can load something different on each one. That’s the real benefit, being able to put up information about different crimes on each screen and compare them. I can use a computer tablet at the table to select which screen I want and use a light pen to draw circles around different items or highlight them, edit them, whatever.”
“Definitely cool. Can I drive?” She held out her hand. “Give me the reins. Let’s do this.”
Instead of popping up one of the computer tablets from a hidden compartment in the table, he adjusted his chair to face her and took her hands in his.
Her eyes widened and a slow grin spread across her face.
“Don’t,” he said. “Whatever sexy, funny, or smart-ass comment you’re about to make about me holding your hands, just wait. I need to have a serious conversation with you. Can you focus for a few minutes without any wisecracks?”
A look of wariness crossed her face. “Why do I feel like I’m about to be sent to the principal’s office?”
He sighed and let her go.
“Okay, okay.” She grabbed his hands with both of hers. “No jokes, no tangents. I’m listening.”
He arched a brow, not sure whether or not to believe her.
“Really,” she said. “I can be serious when I need to. Go on. What is it?”
“I just want you to be sure that you know what you’re getting into before we go any further. You’ve been like a whirlwind, blowing into my life. I met you, what, a few hours ago? And somehow you’ve managed to make me excited about working again. That’s why I brought you to this room, to show you the tools we’ve got at our disposal so we can work together, if that’s truly what you want to do.”
“Are you kidding? It’s all I’ve wanted since I first came across the Ripper case and saw your contributions to the investigation. I want to work with you to catch the Ripper before—”
“We’re not going to work on the Ripper case.”
She blinked. “My turn to be confused.”
He gently entwined their fingers, trying to convey that he was there for her if she needed his support. “I’m going to hire a temp to scan in and catalog the data in those boxes. That will take several days, maybe even a week. In the meantime, the only case that I’ve had a chance to scan is yours. While you were recovering from your tequila binge, I used the scanner in my study to process your folder. That’s what I want to bring up on these screens. But there’s a world of difference between looking at something on an eight-by-ten sheet of paper, and seeing it on a six-foot-tall screen. A lot of this stuff is deeply personal. Are you sure you can handle it?”
“I don’t understand your concerns. I put that folder together. I know what’s in it. I want you to see it, to review it with me.”
“Your descriptions of the most recent attack that you allege was made by the Ripper didn’t mention you by name. That’s quite telling. And there’s far more detail to what happened to you than what you had in that folder. A lot more. We have to review all of the information, not just some of it, if we have a chance at solving this thing.”
“Well of course there’s more, all the detailed reports that support the summaries I wrote. I didn’t bring those with me.”
“That’s not what I mean. There are other details, things you didn’t reference even at a high level in your summaries.”
“Like what?”
He squeezed her hands before letting go. Then he pushed down on top of the table in front of him and the section flipped over to reveal a computer tablet. He typed some commands into the control program, then pressed enter. Teagan looked upat the screens. Her eyes widened and she put a hand over her mouth before turning away.
