Game (Jasper Dent #2)(102)

“Do you think…” Howie started, then stopped.

Tanner shrugged as though he’d said what was on his mind, anyway. “I don’t know what to think,” he said. “But we’re gonna look into all of it.” He started talking as if Howie wasn’t even in the room. “Go to the phone company and try to trace the texts from there… Probably go back to a burner… Maybe track where it was bought… Might give us a lead.” He clucked his tongue. “Damn, boy. Wish you kids’d come to me right from the get-go.”

Howie suddenly felt very small and very young. G. William’s calm, measured disappointment somehow stung worse than his outbursts. “Yeah, I know. But it was for Jazz, you know?”

“Just… just get Connie in here right away so that we can get elimination prints from her. We’ll need them from you, too.”

“I didn’t touch anything,” Howie said. “Well, just the box, but I was wearing gloves. I’ve seen CSI. Plus, it’s cold out and my hands get all scratchy.”

“Fine.” G. William picked up the phone on his desk. “You call Connie, and I’m gonna call—”

“That might be tough. She’s out of touch right now.”

G. William paused with the receiver halfway to his ear. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Howie suddenly realized that it would be bad if he told Tanner where Connie was headed, but he didn’t have a lie prepared. Not for the first time in his life, he wished he had Jazz’s think-on-his-feet-edness.

“Um…”

“What are you not telling me, Howie?” Tanner asked, his voice quiet and serious. “Now’s the time. Remember: I can always decide to file charges later. Evidence tampering. Maybe obstruction. You’re a minor and it’s your first offense, but trust me when I say this: Going into the system is no fun.”

Well, hell, there’s something else Jazz and I would have in common—juvenile records.

“There’s nothing else, sir. I swear it.” His voice didn’t sound convincing even to himself. “Oh, wait! I almost forgot. There’s a chance Jazz’s aunt is also totally a psychopathic serial killer, too. I sort of have my fingers crossed against that one, though.”

“Stop trying to distract me with nonsense!” G. William thundered. “Tell me where Connie… Oh, Lord. She’s gone to New York, hasn’t she?” G. William’s eyes widened with horror. “Jesus God, Howie! How could you let her do that? How could her parents—”

“She didn’t really give them much of a choice.”

“Erickson!” G. William bellowed with all his considerable lungpower. The deputy appeared almost immediately in the doorway—Howie figured he’d been loitering nearby, listening in.

“Yeah, boss?”

“Get the state lab on the phone and tell ’em I’ve got evidence I need fingerprinted and run through the state database and IAFIS ASAP. Plus, sweep this thing”—he gestured to the lockbox—“for any possible DNA.” As Erickson moved to scoop up the lockbox, Tanner said, “But before you do that, call the Halls and tell them that we’re getting their little girl back safe and sound.”

“Yessir.” Erickson vanished as quickly as he had appeared.

“Which airport is she landing at?” Tanner asked Howie. Howie realized that he didn’t know, and also that he would never be able to convince Tanner of this. But before he could say anything, the sheriff waved him off. “Just get out of here, Howie. I don’t have time to deal with you now. I’ll track her through her credit card.” He started jabbing buttons on the phone.

As Howie made for the door, Tanner said, “And don’t leave town!” Howie nodded meekly, biting back the urge to say, “Did you really just say that?”

He slipped out of the sheriff’s office into the night. He stared up at the sky, the same sky being navigated by Connie’s plane on its way to New York.

Fumbling his smartphone from his pocket, he quickly tapped out a text to Connie:

go ghosty, girlfriend. 5-0 headed your way





CHAPTER 46


“If this is all true,” Hughes told Jazz, “and I’m not saying it is… then who ran things before Billy escaped?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the Impressionist. I haven’t figured that connection yet. But Billy was able to communicate from prison, somehow. So maybe he’s been running this all along.”

“Then who’s Hat?” Hughes still sounded skeptical, but at least he was asking the right questions.

“I don’t know. He could be anyone. The FBI profile might match him or it might not. You guys were profiling two killers at once without realizing it. One of them the woman-hating rapist with supreme organizational skills. That’s Hat. Then there’s Dog, Belsamo—women might as well not exist for him. He’s obsessed with men and their power, his own power and the power of other men. No wonder there were so many apparent contradictions—you were looking at a portrait painted simultaneously by two different artists.

“Belsamo’s the one who helped me figure it out,” Jazz went on. “It wasn’t just the game aspect—at first I thought he was playing a game with Billy, not being played with by Billy. But then I thought about him waving his dick at me in the interrogation room. Talking about his power.”