Page 64 of Deadly Waves

“You two really are gross tonight,” Sophie said, shaking her head. “Go back to Peterson. When I first met him, I thought he was harmless. After talking to him a few times, though, I recognize him for what he is.”

“And what’s that?”

“A small-time player who things he’s going to make it big one day,” Sophie replied, not missing a beat. “Peter always warned me about men like that. If someone is bigger in their own mind than they are on paper, that makes them especially dangerous because they believe they can take whatever they want instead of having it freely given to them.”

“Wow,” Mandy intoned, her eyes widening. “That was almost poetic.”

Sophie smiled. “Was it Jawesome?”

“Not unless you do it while naked and make me beg,” Mandy answered, earning a chuckle from James and glare from Grady. “What? You act like this is something new. We’ve always been like this.”

“Perhaps I merely forgot,” Grady said, snapping his fingers in James’ face. “Peterson, dude. What did you get on him?”

“Oh, right, my impatient little brother,” James said. “Here’s the thing: Peterson doesn’t technically have a record. That doesn’t mean he’s bereft of troubling personality defects.”

“I have no idea what you just said,” Grady said. “Have you ever noticed that your grammar gets more flowery when you and Mandy have a lot of sex? It’s weird. It’s like you somehow earn an English degree from her vagina or something.”

“I haven’t noticed that but now I’ll be on the lookout,” James said. “Okay, here’s the thing about Jon Peterson, he’s never been charged or directly named as a suspect in a crime. He’s been adjacent to quite a few, though.”

“For example?”

“Well, five years ago he was a high school teacher in Miami,” James replied. “One of his students showed up pregnant. She never named Peterson as the father. She named the father of a friend, though, and he was arrested. Before a paternity test, this guy hung himself in jail because his wife left him and ran away with the kids.”

“Okay.” Grady knit his eyebrows together. “What are you getting at?”

“A paternity test was done after the fact and the baby did not belong to the dead guy,” James answered. “The girl never named the real father and she didn’t get a dime from the estate, but two witnesses who gave depositions said there was a rumor about the girl and Peterson.”

“So he had sex with a student, knocked her up, blamed another guy, and then got off without any punishment?” Sophie asked. “That sounds … lovely.”

“There’s more,” James said. “A year later another student turned up pregnant and did name him. He denied it. The school investigated him. The girl went missing before any formal charges could be filed, though. She’s never been heard from since.”

Sophie’s mouth dropped open. “Do you think he killed her?”

“I can’t answer that,” James said. “It seems like quite the fortuitous turn of events for him, though, doesn’t it?”

“Fortuitous?” Mandy asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I heard it that time,” James said. “Grady is right. I could be a poet after you grace me with your love.” He pressed a firm kiss to her mouth before turning back to his brother. He purposely ignored the glare Grady lobbed in his direction. “Where was I?”

“Annoying the crap out of me,” Grady replied.

“Right, Jon Peterson,” James said, licking his lips. “There is one other incident in his past. Six months ago he was dating a fellow teacher at the school. She went missing, too. She was an adult, but all of the records say she looked younger than her age.”

“That sounds like a preferential predator to me,” Sophie said. “He might’ve picked the legal-aged teacher to cover his tracks.”

“That’s what I think, too, but we have no proof of that and I don’t want to focus on Peterson to the detriment of everyone else,” James said. “We don’t know that he killed those women. We have no idea if they’re actually dead. We simply know that Peterson has been crime adjacent quite a bit over the past five years.”

“That’s a nice way of putting it,” Grady said. “How did he end up here?”

“Well, the school board launched an investigation into him and he tendered his resignation as soon as he got wind of it,” James replied. “As to how he ended up here, I’m not quite sure. He does have one tie to Davenport.”

“And what’s that?”

“Davenport’s daughter is Peterson’s former student.”

Grady stilled, the ramifications of what James said washing over him. “You don’t think … .”

“I don’t know,” James said. “Tabitha is sixteen and full of herself. I have to think that Davenport did his due diligence and ran a background check on Peterson before hiring him. I plan on finding out tonight. I invited Will and Tabitha to eat dinner with us.”