Page 53 of Playing With Love

“You will be okay,” he promised.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been okay,” I admitted.

“Liza! Tucker!” Carter shouted.

Tucker didn’t move.

However, I needed a mental vacation so I did.

With a tug of his hand, I started in the direction of the conference room. I knew Tucker was allowing this, giving me what I needed, letting me have my play even though he looked like he wanted to whisk me away to his office and finish our conversation.

Maybe this time it was okay to hope.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Liza was unusually quiet. Listening more than she was speaking as Nick laid out a new plan. It was a gamble and was contingent on Allyson agreeing to make our introduction to Mackenzie, but it was the best option we had.

“Thoughts?” Nick asked the room, though his gaze was firmly on Liza, clearly interested in her opinion.

“If Allyson agrees I think it’s a good plan. However, with our age difference I think we need to ask Jessica if she’s okay being brought into this. It’ll work better if I’m a high school friend of Jessica’s instead of Allyson. But the rest is good.” Liza paused to look at Dylan. “That is if Brady can invent the back story.”

I briefly glanced at Dylan, finding him smirking at Liza.

“I’m sure I can pull something together.”

That meant he’d have a long history of friendship between Liza and Jessica easily found on the internet within an hour, complete with fake pictures of them together as teenagers as well as a record of Liza graduating from the same high school as Liza. He’d throw in some group shots to include Allyson and other fake friends that would be untraceable deepfakes.

“What about college?” Jason threw out. “Should Jessica and Liza attend the same college?”

“Before we go too far down the rabbit hole, Liza’s right; we need to ask Jessica if she’s alright getting pulled in,” Nick stated. “And Allyson has to agree to take Tucker and Liza back to Tennessee with her. If they’re both agreeable, then yes, they should attend the same college. Lifelong friends. Family. A strong bond with Allyson, too.”

“That’s easy enough,” Dylan returned.

“What about—” Liza was interrupted by her phone ringing. “Sorry.”

She maneuvered her phone out of her pocket and announced, “It’s Shannon.” A few taps on her screen and she greeted her boss, “Hi, Shannon. I’m in the conference room at TC, you’re on speaker phone.”

“Who’s in the room with you?” Shannon asked.

“Tucker, Nick, Carter, Jason, and Dylan.”

“Gentlemen.”

After a round of hellos, Shannon didn’t delay the reason for her call.

“The lab’s back with the ballistic report for the Beatrice Collins case. No striations on the bullet. The coroner report showed polycarbonate present at the entry wound.”

“Well, fuck me,” Dylan mumbled.

That about summed it up nicely.

“And the shell casing?” Nick asked. “Any prints?”

“No,” Shannon answered. “And the coroner confirmed the angle of entry. Miss Collins was on her knees when she was murdered. Stippling around the entry wound suggests the barrel was no more than twenty-four to thirty-six inches from Miss Collins’ forehead. However, the burn pattern or lack thereof is inconsistent with a shot fired at close range.”

“They’re evolving,” Liza surmised. “The first three victims were done with poorly tooled eighty-percent lowers. The guns found in the house showed whoever made them had rudimentary skills. They’ve moved to 3D printing. Smart. Easy. Untraceable.”

Liza wasn’t wrong. 3D printers were easily accessible. Filament for the printer just as easy to find. And unfortunately, the plans to print a weapon were all over the internet—though not untraceable.