"Of course she does, and she's fine with it."
I wasn't sure about that but to each their own.
"No comment on that. So what did you find?"
"Not as much as I would've liked. I dug into Hannah's life. I can see why you didn't find much to begin with. For a drug addict, she has sure stayed off the police's radar. I thought for sure I would find some arrests but nope. I did manage to sweet-talk the nice nurse at the rehabilitation center to give me the name of the individual who beat Hannah up, and boy did that prove to be worth it."
I should've known I made the right decision handing this off to Hendrix. He had a way of getting people to talk that didn't require torture. I didn't know what his secret was, though, because the man wasn't what I would call a sweet person.
"What name did she give you?"
"Kyle Jones and he does have ties to a Joel Daniels."
Bingo. At least I hoped so.
"Send me a picture. I'll show Vanessa and see if it's the guy who's blackmailing her."
"Sent." I could hear the typing of keys on the computer right before a ding, which indicated I had an email come through.
"What else did you find?"
I held my breath as I waited for what Hendrix was going to say next. My gut was telling me I wasn't going to like it.
"Here's the interesting part. If this is our guy, then he also has ties toLos Cangris."
And there it was. The connection we needed.
"Son of a bitch. Those guys never go away, do they."
"Nope, and it makes sense as to why they wanted the identity of B. Feather. The person wrote about them when everything was going down."
My team had no idea that I knew Jo was behind the newspaper articles. I conveniently left that part out when I told them what was going on. Eventually it would come out, but that would be when Jo was ready, not before. It was one thing to tell Vanessa, who I trusted, and another to inform my entire team. Even though I trusted them, it wasn't my story to tell.
I sighed. "This is going to be a shitstorm."
Hendrix chuckled. "Most likely but what else is new? We've been dealing with shitstorms since we moved here. Maverick was an idiot if he thought this small town was going to be quiet.”
In Maverick's defense, it did appear the town was pretty quiet until we moved in. At least for the most part. That was until a known gang tried to push their way back in. Then things got interesting, and it would seem like they didn't stop.
"Let me show this picture to Vanessa, and I'll call you back. If it is, we'll get the team together and see what our next steps are."
"Sounds good. If you need anything from me, in the meantime, just send a text. I'm more than happy to continue cockblocking you."
"You're an asshole."
I hung up, as Hendrix laughed like a damn hyena, and went in search of Vanessa.
I found her in the kitchen right where I had left her. Standing in front of the fridge with a dazed look on her face.
"You okay?" I walked straight to her and placed my hand on her neck.
"What?" She looked up at me through her eyelashes, and I could see her lips were still puffy from when I had kissed her just minutes before.
"I said, are you okay?"
"Oh yeah." Vanessa shook her head like she was clearing it. "I was just thinking is all."
"About anything good? Our kiss perhaps?" I gave her a cocky grin.
