“Gabe knows him, and he cleared him. This person knows that Gabe wasMY MENTOR. I was trained by him, and knows that. What Chrissy said was another clue. He was trained by someone to be the best. Ethan, who did Gabe train to be the best?”
They all pointed at her.
“We didn’t think anything of the rest of the things tied to him. Because for me, Gabe’s word is golden. He knew I’d trust it implicitly, and it would remove him from my suspicion, making him the least likely person. I’d think that a rich person like himself, wouldn’t do the dirty work of this, and he was right. I thought that, but I was wrong. He was trained by a psychopath to do the dirty work.”
Ethan listened, and it was fitting for him.
“His parents were divorced, and how much do you want to bet that he sympathized with his daddy. That he spent time with him too. He made a point to tell me he stayed here with his mother, but he was based out of Salt Lake City, where his father lived. Twenty years ago, he would have been fifteen-ish, and his father started sharing that with him. He taught him. His father likely hated women, after his wife divorced him, or maybe his wife divorced him for something she knew.”
She was right.
“So, he pointed us at the right people. He said he inherited that business. How much do you want to bet that if we dig into that pharmaceutical company, his father was on the board or tied to it.”
Jesus.
“MATE,” she said, and her AI assistant popped in.
“You rang?” she asked.
Elizabeth was to the point.
“Is Devon Slater’s father on the board of trustees for the pharmaceutical company that owned Sundown Realty?” she asked.
MATE began working.
“The clue was the realty company. He’s all about real estate. He was giving me another clue, to see if I picked it up. Again, I didn’t because I passed it off to the detectives.”
MATE alerted her.
“There is no Slater mentioned on the board.”
Elizabeth thought about it.
It was her ADHD against this nut’s.
“Pull up the birth certificate for Devon Slater. Then, find the marriage license for his parents.”
MATE hummed, but in front of them, in holographic form, there were both forms.
“Jesus,” Ethan said.
And she knew why.
“Richard Devon James married his mother, and look at her maiden name. Slater.”
Gene got it.
“That was one of the clues. When he pointed this at Alexi, he took his mother’s maiden name to not be tied to his father’s crimes. We never researched Slater’s family because the dude was dead.”
She nodded.
“Yeah, again, there are sick little Easter eggs all over this shitshow. We’re not going there. That’s what he’s expecting. We’re going to his business. We might catch him there, and trust and believe, I’m putting a bullet in him.”
Racing out of the vehicle, they climbed in.
“Ivan, get me there ASAP,” she said. “Light it up,” she said, and he did.
The blacked-out vehicle hit the main road, lights on as it blew past traffic.
