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Donny chokes back a laugh, but I’m not laughing. Johnson was a terrible profiler,
tarnished the reputation of the unit so badly that he was promoted. Gotta love fucking politics. As shitty as he was, he was invaluable because of the knowledge he had, so they “promoted” him to a bullshit position and gave him bullshit tasks to keep him under their thumbs.
He’s also the Godfather of the department, because he pretty much took profiling in the direction it has grown to be today, made it an actual thing with actual results, no matter how flawed those preliminary results turned out to be.
“You’re saying he ignored two dead kids?” Donny asks, no longer laughing as the words catch up to him.
“I’m saying he didn’t give a shit. And now I’m putting one foot in front of the other—metaphorically speaking, obviously—to stay out of the past. Now, unless you have something pressing to speak to me about, please leave. I have things to do.”
My phone rings as Donny tries to pry more out of him, just something to figure out what really happened.
I see it’s Alan calling, and I stand up, walking down the hall a little to answer.
“What the hell?” I hiss.
“Sorry. Sorry. Sooooo sorry. I don’t know how I missed it, but I got Donny’s text, and yes, Jacob Denver is definitely paralyzed from the waist down. Happened four years ago, to be exact. A drunk driver side-swiped him—hit and run. He was on a motorcycle. He’s been in a wheelchair ever since.”
Why does this still feel off?
“Thanks. Don’t miss anything this big again. We thought we had our unsub.”
“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just a small mention in his records. It’s not like I can open hospital files, and I wouldn’t have seen it at all if I hadn’t been looking for it.”
“Right. Okay. See if you can dig up any other friends from the past he might have shared with the Evans family. Something is definitely off with him. He never asked who was killed.”
Something topples to the ground from the room I’m standing in front of, and I try to open the locked door, curious as to why it’s locked.
“Can I help you?” Jacob asks, wheeling over to where I’m jiggling the doorknob.
“Why is this locked?” I ask, putting my phone away.
“Um…because it’s my house, and I don’t like people walking into my office. What’s your deal?”
He seems genuinely private, but why lock a door when you live alone unless you’re hiding something?
“Do you care if we look around?” Donny asks him, trying to sound non-imposing.
He studies us critically before finally blowing out a breath and rolling his eyes.
“Fine. Fine. But then you leave and leave me alone. I don’t need you barging into my life and dredging up memories better left forgotten.”
He wheels back to the living room, picks up a set of keys, taking his time to do so, and he comes back, unlocking the door. He backs away, and I open it, looking around. I see the computer screen is blank, and my eyes land on the cracked window in front of where there’s a thing of tacks scattered around on the floor.
“Damn it. Not again,” he groans, wheeling by me to the mess of tacks. “You can go now. I need to clean this up.”
I nod to Donny, and we walk out, leaving him to his task. As soon as we’re outside and the door shuts behind us, I glance over, seeing the cracked window.
“Someone is in there with him,” I say quietly when we reach the street.
“Looks like the wind caught the curtain, and the curtain knocked over the tacks to me.”
“That window was closed, along with the blinds, when we came up. There’s a closet in there. Someone was there.”
“Why didn’t you open the closet?”
“Because whoever it is may be our unsub.”
I pretend as though we’re taking our time to get in the car as Jacob shuts the window and closes the blinds once again. We loiter on the street, while I call Lisa.
