This guy was an idiot.
“I hate to have to tell you this, but that was a real gun filled with real bullets being used to really kidnap that pretty lady.”
“No.” Billy looked from Morris to Gil, then back to Morris. “No. No. No.” Each word was softer than the one before, until he was mouthing the word, his head shaking back and forth, tears streaking down his face.
Morris had a look on his face that made Gil suspect he was questioning all the decisions he’d made in his life that had led to him sitting in this room interrogating this moron. “Can you give me a description of the man who hired you?”
Now Billy’s nose was running. Gil grabbed a box of tissues from a small desk in the corner and slid it across the table.
Once the snot situation had been resolved, he sniffled out a muted, “He was a Marine.”
“What?” The word escaped Gil’s lips, and he clamped his mouth shut.
“Yeah. Had the tattoo on his arm. You know the kind the Marines get?”
Gil knew the tattoo.
“Big guy. Not fat big. Strong. Muscles. Dark hair cut short, like a Marine.”
A strong, muscular Marine? Gil pulled his phone from his pocket and sent Faith and Tessa a text.
See if you can get a lock on Abott Percy’s current location.
Morris continued to interrogate Billy, but he couldn’t give them much else to go on. An officer came in and took Billy to a sketch artist.
“I’m gonna have to lock him down for his own safety,” Morris said after Billy left the room. “They must have had a plan for neutralizing him before he could do any damage.”
“They probably planned to drop him as soon as he delivered her to the car. Either that, or they were going to give him some polluted drugs and he would be dead—another overdose. He’s lucky to be alive, and he doesn’t have a clue.”
“What’s got you tweaked about this guy being a Marine? I’m a Marine. Hate to think of a Marine being behind this, but it does happen. We aren’t all angels.”
Gil ignored the bizarre vision that flitted through his brain of Morris with a halo. “Ivy’s ex is a Marine. He’s also built and hasdark hair he still wears in a high and tight even though I’m guessing he’s been out for close to a decade. Long enough to get a PhD in bioengineering and become a professor at Georgia.”
Morris pulled out his notebook. “You got a name?”
“Abott Percy.”
“Any reason to believe he’s in town?”
“Every reason. She had dinner with him on Thursday. He was at church on Sunday but didn’t approach her. Came to her office yesterday while I was there.”
Morris cut his eyes to him. “Bet that went well.”
“About as well as you would imagine.”
“What’s his motive?”
“The money? Jealousy? He made a pitch yesterday to the same company Ivy talked to today. They’re competitors for the grant.”
Morris rubbed his shiny head. “Think he’s infatuated with her and is trying to create a situation where she has to come to him, see him as the hero, in an effort to restore their relationship?”
“I’ve considered that. She doesn’t think he’s a threat, but he keeps showing up, and I don’t get a good feeling.”
Morris chuckled.
“What?”
Morris’s chuckle morphed into a snort. “You aren’t ever going to get a good feeling about any of her exes. You’ve got it bad, and I hope you don’t think you’re hiding it. You might as well be holding your heart in your hands and following her around with it while singing love songs and promising her a future where you spend your life adoring her and making beautiful babies with her.”
