He wanted us to know that he’s here.
And that he’s pissed.
I can’t fucking wait to add his fingerprint to my album.
EIGHTEEN
Gabriel
“Oh my god,” I whisper because I don’t quite know what else to say. Honestly, it’s the only thing that comes out of my mouth while I stare at the presentation in front of me. He wasn’t going to let Nadine live even after all that we’ve done. He was going to do what he could to make sure she never got away.
“Do you think she knew something, and he wanted to make sure she couldn’t talk?” I ask as I look up and discover that Liam seems mesmerized by this. I already knew he was going to figure out whether Whitaker was still alive or not, but I didn’t realize how fixated on him he was.
“Liam,” I snap before someone else notices his expression. He quickly covers it as the security guard walks in and gasps.
“Oh fuck,” she whispers before jerking back, and I hear her radioing the others, telling them to surround the area and not to let anyone go. I walk up to stand beside Liam, my heart aching for this woman I’d never even talked to. It’s an emotional whirlwind to have gone from thinking she’d died there in thattrunk only to find that we’d saved her. We’d really saved her… only for her to end up like this.
“Do you think she knew something and he wanted to make sure she wouldn’t talk?” I repeat.
“No,” Liam says quietly so only I can hear. “I think… I think this is for Jesse.”
My eyes snap up to him. “What the fuck do you mean this is for Jesse?” I whisper.
“Call him.”
“We don’t want him here, do we?”
“I need him to look at the body,” Liam says.
I really don’t want to drag Jesse into this, though Liam is so adamant that I feel like I don’t have a choice… but still. What if we’re wrong and Whitaker doesn’t know about him? What if we’re putting Jesse in danger by bringing him here?
“Liam, what if itisWhitaker and he doesn’t know about Jesse and we pull him in here where Whitaker sees him?”
“He knows,” Liam replies, but before I can say more, the door opens and Matthew comes in with Jesse trailing after him.
Jesse slowly walks up to the body and stares down at the way it’s been displayed, and the look on his face tells me that Liam is right, even if I want him to be wrong. Jesse jerks back, hiding his expression, and turns toward the door. Appearing anxious about what’s going on, Matthew reaches for him, but Jesse dodges him and rushes out of sight.
“What… what was that for?” Matthew asks, knowing very well that out of all of us, Jesse wouldn’t be squeamish when it came to a body.
I look over at Liam and see him staring after Jesse but he’s not making any moves, so I hurry after him. I look both ways down the hallway, but I don’t see Jesse, so I just pick the direction that has the fewest people and go down it. I find him onthe other side of a wall, leaning against it like without the wall’s support, he’s not sure he could stand.
“Jesse…”
“Well… it was a semi-decent life for a couple of years there,” he says with a laugh, like he thinks making a joke will hide how he truly feels.
“We don’t know that it’s him,” I whisper in case anyone comes around the corner.
Jesse’s eyes snap up to mine as he shakes his head. “He displayed her like she was getting anautopsy, Gabriel. How much clearer can you get? He knows. And now he’s going to kill me. Ha… I never should have gotten you guys involved. What if he targets either of you now?”
I grab Jesse’s shoulder and turn him to face me. “Jesse, we are homicide detectives. This is what we do. You’re not a kid anymore who is facing the world alone. You are surrounded by some pretty damn good detectives, if I might say so myself. Now pull it together. Let’s end this.”
“How? How am I going to even explain who this man is without condemning myself?”
“It’ll be easy. If he’s the guy who was posing as her brother, we’ll be able to make it public that it’s Whitaker. Simple as that.”
“Ifhe was the guy,” he says as he pulls out his phone. After a minute or so, he flashes a picture at me.
“Not as simple as that,” I realize.
