JJ was doing her best to remaincalm.
It wasn’t easy. The only thing keeping her together was the fact that Evan had informed her that Round Rock PD had not booked Baz yet. According to Evan, they would’ve done that immediately if they had an open and shut case.
Of course, they didn’t because Baz was innocent. The man wasn’t a murderer. She didn’t doubt that for a second, even if she knew he was both capable and likely driven to the point of wanting to. His moral compass was calibrated for good, not evil. Even if he’d had the opportunity to kill Sonny and Molly, he wouldn’t have.
“I got somethin’,” Luca announced. “Crime scene photos.”
JJ’s stomach twisted as she thought about what she might see when she looked at them. She wasn’t sure she wouldn’t get violently ill if she saw Sonny’s face blown off or a knife sticking out of Molly’s throat.
“What the hell is that?” Slade asked, standing behind Luca and looking at his screen over his shoulder.
“What is it?” Holly asked from the desk beside her brother.
“Is it gory?” JJ asked, still debating on whether she wanted to look.
“Are you sure this is what they’ve got?” Slade asked Luca.
“From what I can tell, yeah. Unless they haven’t logged everything.”
“So there’re no bodies?”
Wait, what?
JJ got to her feet and wandered around behind Luca. She took a deep breath and looked at the computer monitor.
Blood. That was all there was. The little crime scene tags were set up, but there weren’t any bodies that had been hacked to pieces. Hell, there weren’t any bodies at all.
“There’s got to be more,” JJ said.
“There’s not. I double-checked.”
“Do you know where this is?” Slade asked.
Luca flipped to another image. This one was taken from farther away, just outside what appeared to be a storage unit. There were several orange roll-down doors. All of them closed except for the one with the blood in it.
“Let me see if I can get the geo-tag,” Luca said.
JJ turned and started for the kitchen. She needed some water. She was feeling light-headed. From relief? Fear? She wasn’t sure.
“Looks like it’s off 79, just inside the city limits. Probably ten minutes from here,” Luca announced.
There weren’t any bodies in those photographs, so how did the police claim there’d been a murder, much less two? Sure, that was a lot of blood. But JJ knew from experience not everything was as it appeared. The blood that Dante and his goon had doused her with hadn’t been human. They’d set it up to look like Dante had been killed, but they’d been smart enough to realize that much blood would’ve killed him, so they’d opted for animal blood.
Obviously, the cops would’ve tested it, right? How else would they have been able to tie it back to Sonny or Molly if they didn’t have DNA?
This couldn’t be happening.
Was Molly behind this? Did she stage this to… to what? What were they hoping to get out of this? How did framing Baz for murder help her?
Unless they hadn’t intended to frame Baz but rather JJ. It would’ve made sense that way. Get JJ arrested, and then Molly could have Baz all to herself. So why did the police think Baz was responsible? Was it a double cross? Did Sonny set it up that way on purpose? That also made sense because JJ had seen firsthand how the man looked at Molly. He cared about her. As much as a crazy fuck like him could care about anyone.
JJ grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator and rolled it across her wrists, letting the cold settle the nausea churning inside her.
Those two looney tunes weren’t that smart. Were they?
Granted, they had managed to kidnap JJ in broad daylight in the middle of town. But that was more luck of the draw, right? Sonny had intimidated her with that stupid horse tranquilizer. Had she not been pregnant, she would’ve fought him. Had he known that? Or was it luck on his part?
“Call Brantley,” Luca said. “Tell him that they don’t have bodies.”
