No, he wasn’t.And that was the problem.Brantley was itching for a fight.
“He was with her,” Brantley stated.
Reese’s forehead creased.“Who?”
“Deck.With Meredith.Eddie.Whatever the fuck you wanna call her.She was in New York.Right under our noses.”
“We didn’t know about her at the time.”
“Maybe we should have.For fuck’s sake, maybe wecouldhave if Z hadn’t kept us in the dark.At some point, your brother needs to be upfront with us about his agenda.He’s got one.The man doesn’t do much without a plan.”
“I agree.”
“So what is it?What the fuck is Z up to?Did he hope we’d stumble upon Deck and Meredith?Did he expect us to tow her back here, though we didn’t even know who she was?Or was that supposed to be a field trip to help us with this moment?Maybe your brother’s fucking psychic.”
Brantley grabbed his head, tipping it forward as he paced.He didn’t expect answers to those questions, and he didn’t get any.They remained in silence for a moment while Brantley tried to cool the fire in his veins.
He stopped and turned to look at Reese.“Why?Why does this piss me off so much?”
“Because it dredges up painful memories.”
It did that.Really painful memories.Losing Kylie had been … he couldn’t even put it into words.
“It would be so much easier to just pass this off to someone else.To ignore it.To pretend Holt didn’t find anything.How is finding her gonna benefit us?How is taking down some corrupt FBI agents—alleged—gonna help us?”
“It might not.But that’s not who we are.We have to see this through, no matter the outcome.Like it or not, Meredith Prescott is family.She’s your cousin’s wife’s mother.”
“His dead wife,” Brantley grumbled, choking the emotion that clogged his throat whenever he thought about it.
“We’ll work this the same way we do all the others.With an open mind.”
He didn’t bother telling Reese that he could not be open-minded about a woman who’d taken advantage of a fourteen-year-old boy.That was disgusting, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever get past it.However, he could find her, bring her home, and figure out what kept her running all these years.
Brantley nodded.“All right.Let’s get this over with.”
He followed Reese back to the barn.As soon as they walked in, the team took their seats.Brantley could feel their concern, knew they were wondering when he was going to flip his lid.
“Let’s pick up where we left off,” Baz said, taking control of the meeting.“Decker, you mentioned someone made up the story of Meredith seeing Max.”
Brantley looked from face to face, wondering if they’d continued the conversation while he was gone.
“Yeah.”Decker held a cup of coffee.“As I said, Eddie was with me that night.At my apartment.”
“You’re saying there wasn’t a witness to a hit?”Simon asked, driving the back-and-forth between him and Decker.
“Since we were told Eddie would testify exactly as instructed, I’m fairly sure there wasn’t a hit at all.”
“Told by who?”
“The FBI.”
“What’s the agent’s name?”
“Martin Calloway.”
“He approached you?”
“No.Eddie said he cornered her when she was leaving school.”Decker’s gaze dropped to his coffee cup.“Told her she had two choices: testify that she saw Max kill someone or go to prison, and the world would find out she had sex with a minor.”
