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“Not the motto of Blue Rock,” he said. “Flannagan’s team alone could take a stand at the Alamo.”
“His ‘team’?”
“Almost like special-ops, only no one ever says anything like that, of course. However, Flannagan’s team could be construed as an elite force; you’ll re
member they were the first that Lynch asked to help tighten up security around here.”
“I guess I didn’t catch that,” she said. “So they work as internal vigilantes?”
“Sometimes.” He eyed her jacket. “You keeping that on?”
“For now, yeah.” Though the temperature was warmer in the cottage, Jules was still cold to the bone, her toes tingling as they warmed deep in her socks.
“Let’s see what I can do about that.” He retrieved the carrier from the mudroom, and she followed him into the attached kitchen, little more than a nook with a sink, a tiny refrigerator, a two-burner stove, and a few cupboards that had seen better days. The floor was cracked linoleum and stopped at the edge of an archway that opened to the dining room and living area to be replaced by scuffed hardwood. He paused for a second at the thermostat and cranked it up.
“So who gets to play with guns?” she asked as he set down the carrier on the counter. She reached into the charred remnants of the files, the first of which had lost its tab. She flipped open the seared manila folder and saw the first document with the name Slade, Ethan visible in bold type.
“All the usual suspects are legal, have permits. You know, Eric Rolfe and Missy Albright, Ethan Slade, Zach Bernsen.”
He drew the shades throughout the house, then went through the motions of making coffee, tossing old grounds into a trash can under the sink, then filling the pot with water.
“All TAs?”
“Nah. Mostly, though, I suppose.” He paused as he measured coffee into a new filter. “I think Drew Prescott was being considered.”
“Really?”
“Only Flannagan knows for sure.”
She leaned against the short bank of cabinets. Ideas were gelling in her mind as she thought of everything she’d learned recently. “You know, Shay told me she thought that there was a secret cult among the TAs. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Really? A secret cult that does what?”
“I don’t know, but Shay thinks they might be tied to the murders of Nona and Drew.”
His eyebrows knitted as he hit the ON switch, and the Mr. Coffee machine gurgled to life. “She’s sure?”
“Sure enough to mention it to me.”
“Far-fetched.” He shook his head, but she could almost see the wheels turning in his mind, considering Shay’s theory. He lifted the wood carrier and its charred contents, carrying it into the nearby dining area. “So let’s see what you risked your life to retrieve. You know, Lynch is gonna be pissed as hell when he walks into his office tomorrow and sees that the ash has been disturbed. He’s gonna know by the color, content, and amount of debris in the fireplace that something’s up.”
“And the carrier’s gone. I’ll worry about that later.”
“Takasumi and Taggert saw you. There’s gonna be hell to pay.”
“I said later.”
For once he didn’t argue and led her through an archway that branched in two directions, one to bedrooms and a bath, the other to the living area where a square oak table surrounded by mismatched chairs occupied a space near the windows. Nearer to the front door, a faded love seat and beat-up leather recliner were grouped around a blue rock fireplace flanked with bookcases. Within the grate, a fire was banked, red embers visible through a thick layer of ash.
Trent kicked out a chair and placed the carrier on it, allowing Jules to sort through the charred remnants of Lynch’s private documents.
“Cozy,” she remarked as he double-checked that all the shades were drawn.
“That’s one word to describe it.” He almost smiled, relaxing a bit as he fiddled with the thermostat again while Jules willed the warmer air to heat the chill in the marrow of her bones. Slowly she started to thaw.
As Trent worked on the fire, Jules tackled the files. Her jacket was bulky, so she stripped it off and tossed it over the back of one of the dining chairs. Warm air was humming through the air vents, chasing away the cold.
She began working by separating out the pages that weren’t totally destroyed, placing them in some kind of order. The files that were intact were easy. Other loose pages were singed and blackened, some falling to pieces when she touched them. That part of the job was tedious, those fragile pages taking much longer to sort.
