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“His profile is bare-bones,” I said, pulling it up and giving it a quick scan. “Looks like he stopped posting about three years ago. His last status reads, ‘This pain is excruciating, I don’t wish it on my worst enemy. Why? Why did she have to hurt me?’ And then it turns to a couple of weird memes he shared about people cheating on their spouses.”
Jason looked at me with an eyebrow arched, questions multiplying in his gaze. “He’s talking about his wife? The one who died in the accident?”
“I think so.” That struck me as odd. Grief was its own monster that presented itself in a kaleidoscope of different ways, whether through anger or resentment or a devastating sadness. Everyone’s mourning process was unique, but something in Derrick’s words felt troubling.
We continued our walk, the two of us slipping into a heavy silence as we worked through our own theories.
That’s when it hit me, crashing down on me like a piano falling from the sky. I stopped midstep, reaching for Jason’s arm and almost toppling him over with the sudden loss of momentum. I grabbed his other arm and turned him to me. “The necklace,” I said, everything starting to become a little more clear, as if rain clouds were slowing drifting away from me. “The initials were J & D—Derrick and Jenny. On top of that, his physical description is pretty fucking close to the person spotted driving away from the police station after the necklace was robbed.”
“And in your book yesterday,” Jason said, the bigger picture forming for him as well. “You were reading about the Pegasus—”
“About how he had a brother.”
We both said that last word at the same time. An icy chill seeped into my veins, coming from absolutely nowhere. The sun was framed high in a cloudless sky, but I could no longer feel its warmth.
“We need to talk to him,” Jason said. He looked back over his shoulder at the diner that was only three blocks behind us. “Was he still in there?”
I shook my head, remembering how he left about five minutes before we did. I pulled out my phone and dialed the first number that came into my head.
“Who are you calling?” Jason asked.
Before I could answer him, the call connected. “Hello, Mayor, you’ve got a minute?”
“Yes, of course. What’s going on, Agent Hale?” She sounded anxious. I didn’t blame her, not after the disastrous meeting at her house.
I decided to try and play this as cool as possible, even if my skeleton wanted to leap out of my skin and run a fucking marathon. “I was calling because we bumped into Derrick and Byron today at Juno Pine’s. When we were leaving, we noticed they left Derrick’s credit card on the table, so we wanted to return it. I realized we didn’t have either of their numbers, so would you be able to tell me where I could find Derrick so I can drop this off?”
The mayor remained silent for a couple of moments before offering a prolonged “hmmm” and then saying, “that’s weird. Derrick’s always been very anti-credit. He pays everything in cash.”
Fuck. I didn’t expect my little white lie to have a massive shit stain smeared across it.
“Maybe it was Byron’s. Let me check—oop, yeah, it’s Byron’s. They were together, though. Do you know where they are, by any chance?”
A longer stretch of silence. Jason watched with narrowed eyes. I knew he was running every facet of this case through his brain right now, working it like a Rubik’s cube. This was one of those times that being an overthinker came in handy.
“I don’t,” Emma answered. “I can try calling, but I just did about ten minutes ago, and the call went straight to voicemail. For both of them.”
Another voice came through the speaker, sounding from somewhere behind Emma. “Who is that?”
I could hear the calculation in the mayor’s voice as she weighed what she should tell her husband. I looked to Jace, realizing the two of us had nothing to hide from each other, now or ever. I squeezed his hand in mine.
“It’s just someone from my office. I’ve got some things I have to wrap up for the big fundraiser.”
I heard more movement. Emma must have been walking to another room. She knew something was going on, and she didn’t want her husband interfering. But what exactly did she know?
A door closed, and the mayor’s voice returned to the speaker, hushed. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s totally fine,” I said, violently aware of each second that ticked by. I was close, I could feel it—I just needed to figure out where the hell Derrick and Byron went. “But Emma, I really need you to help out right now. I need to know where Derrick is.”
“This isn’t about a credit card, is it?”
