She had made a fair point.
“I will keep it in mind, Ms.Hunt,” he said.“And if you want to tag along for my interview, I wouldn’t be opposed.I’ve read your file.I know you participated in the FBI’s 10-week training program.I did as well.So, your input may be of value.”
Hunt looked over at Bray.She was clearly uncomfortable about being allowed to participate when her partner was being left in the cold.
“It’s fine, Jessie,” Bray said.“If you ‘tagging along’ helps catch a killer, you should do it.Besides, it will allow me to get to Calvin’s soccer game this afternoon.I thought I was going to have to miss it.”
Carl didn’t buy her excuse for a second, but if that’s what helped ease the blow for her, so be it.It was clear that Hunt wasn’t convinced either.She was obviously torn between loyalty to her partner and her desire to stay on the case.
“Are you sure, Karen?”she asked.
Bray nodded.
“Great,” Carl said, “now that that’s settled, maybe we can find somewhere a little less chaotic, Ms.Hunt, so you can fill me in on what I need to know about Jason Mannix before our interview.I want to be as prepared as possible.”
The male detective, who had seemingly been focused on nothing but his lunch wraps up to this point, finally swallowed the last of it in one big gulp.
“You know, Special Agent Webb,” he said, speaking for the first time, “you’re a real asshole.”
Hunt closed her eyes.Apparently, she didn’t think the comment was especially constructive.But Carl simply smiled at the weathered, unkempt cop.
He knew.He just didn’t care.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jessie would have loved to cut Webb out entirely.
But the truth was, now that CBI had taken over the case, he was the one who could shut her out.So, she reluctantly led him to the HSS research department, where she wanted to follow up on a hunch.
Karen had suggested that Jason Mannix might have been having an affair with Sarah Winters.But Jessie wondered if there could be more to it than that.After she’d learned that Mannix’s phone and car were at Winters’s house on Tuesday night, she’d started to look over Winters’s social media presence.That’s what she’d been focused on when Webb had walked into the bullpen.And what she found didn’t make sense, at least not if Mannix was having an affair.
There were a ton of photos of him on Sarah Winters’s socials: at restaurants, bars, farmers markets, and even a few that looked like they were from a trip to Tijuana.He didn’t appear to be trying to hide their time together, which seemed odd.
With a “wife” back in L.A., shouldn’t he have been more cautious about his face being plastered on dozens of photos with another woman?That is, unless trying to keep them off social media would cause more trouble than it avoided, which might dovetail with a theory that Jessie was noodling with.
They stepped into the research department, which was filled with the sound of soft but relentless clicking as both Jamil and Beth typed away, eyes fixed on their screens.
“Hey guys,” she said, getting their attention, “this is Special Agent Webb with the state Bureau of Investigation.They are taking over the Lauren Mitchell case and he’s on point.So, any information you have for me needs to go to him too.”
“What about Detective Bray?”Jamil wanted to know.
“She’s not on the team anymore,” Webb told him.“For now it’s just me, Ms.Hunt, and I guess, the two of you.”
Jessie didn’t appreciate the man’s smirk.At first glance he seemed like a standard issue agent.Likely in his late twenties, he had the obligatory navy suit, the short cropped black hair and typical “fit but not overly pumped up” physique.
But his manner was off-putting.He always seemed to be frowning or sneering.His gray eyes darted around like tiny pinballs, and his brusque demeanor wasn’t winning him any fans.
“Did Detective Bray do something wrong?”Beth asked.
“No,” Webb told her dismissively before asking, “Where are we at on whatever you’re researching?”
“Actually, I had a request before we get into that,” Jessie interrupted, hoping to prevent any objections from them by redirecting their attention.“This may sound weird.I was going over Sarah Winters’s socials but it got overwhelming.So I was hoping you could filter through them a little bit to home in on her relationship status.Specifically, can you check for anything that suggests that she and Jason Mannix might have been married?”
“What?”all three people in the room asked at once.
“It’s just a hunch,” she told them, “But reviewing her photos with him, they don’t give off the energy of secret lovers.They seem like a couple.”
“You think he was a bigamist?”Jamil asked, already pulling up what she suspected was the San Diego County records database.
