Shattered (LOST #3)(22)

“And two of my men will go with that patrol,” Gabe said. He inclined his head toward a watchful Wade and Dean. “After all, we were contacted directly, so my team will be involved throughout this investigation.”

“That’s not—” Cross began angrily.

“Take it up with your captain,” Gabe snapped.

Cross flushed.

But at least the guy finally got moving. He stood and marched for the door. Jax moved a bit, placing himself closer to the exit so that Cross had to look his way. Disgust tightened his face. “So now you’re with them?” Cross asked Jax. “What are they doing, using a criminal to catch a criminal or some twisted bull like that?”

“You’d know,” Jax said, keeping his voice low so that only Cross would hear him. “Isn’t that exactly what you do?”

Cross wasn’t a cop with a spotless reputation. His flush deepened as he jerked open the door. “Excellent cooperation we have here,” Gabe murmured. “Amazing.”

Jax’s lips almost twitched.

“We’ll report back in once we get to the victim’s house,” Wade said.

Ah, so Wade was calling her the victim already. Based on the photo Jax had seen, the woman definitely qualified as that. He was curious to see just what the LOST agents and the cops were going to do to find her.

Because he already had his own plan of attack forming.

When Wade and Dean left the room, the door shut softly behind them. That left Sarah, Gabe, Victoria, and Detective Brent West in the room with Jax. He kept his shoulders propped up against the wall . . . and he waited.

“You want to talk to the brother, don’t you?” Brent said as he rubbed a hand over his face. “But until the PD can confirm that Molly Guthrie has been abducted, I can’t let you see him again. The guy has a lawyer now—court appointed—and no one but PD can see him.”

Then Brent glanced over at Jax. His head inclined slightly, just the faintest of movements.

“Now,” Brent murmured, “I’m going to see what I can find out about Molly Guthrie. I’ll talk to her brother, and if I learn anything—”

“You’ll let us know?” Gabe pushed.

Brent nodded. “And you let me know if you get any other calls.” The cops had confiscated Sarah’s phone as soon as she arrived and told her story. They’d done some tracking work and found out that Molly Guthrie’s phone had actually been used to text Sarah—and that was the number Sarah had called back.

Only now Molly’s phone seemed to have vanished from the grid. It wasn’t pinging on any towers, at least not according to the cops.

“I want us to work together on this,” Brent said, and there seemed to be sincerity in his tone. “Because I know just what your team can do, and my priority is to bring that victim back alive.”

Then he was striding toward the door.

While Sarah, Victoria, and Gabe talked, Jax slipped from the room. He strolled down the hall, and then he saw Brent, standing near an office on the right. They both ducked inside that office.

“What the hell is going on?” Brent demanded as he glanced toward the door, probably trying to make sure they weren’t being watched. “Since when are you working with LOST?”

Jax had plenty of eyes and ears around the city—and not all of those eyes and ears belonged to criminals. “Since I took a personal interest in them.” An interest in Sarah.

“What have you stepped in here, man?” Brent demanded. He blew out a hard breath. “First that kid Guthrie goes after the sexy shrink, then, this morning, he pretty much admits someone else put him up to the attack—”

“What?” Jax closed in on him. “Run that by me again, nice and slow.” Sarah had told him some about her little chat with Guthrie, but Jax wanted all the details.

“I—I let her back to talk with him for a few minutes. I know I shouldn’t have, but, shit, maybe it’s those big, dark eyes of hers. They just—they got to me, so I thought . . . what would a few minutes hurt? And she’s a professional after all! Not like I’m sending in some civilian off the street.”

The guy needed to hurry along his little story.

“So she gets to talking with the kid and the guy—Eddie—he’s all pissed about what her dad did. Says that’s why he attacked the shrink.” Brent gave a low whistle. “You’ve heard the story, right? Her father is Murphy Jacobs! Murphy the fucking monster Jacobs! Do you know how many people he killed?”

From the accounts that Jax had read, no one knew, not for certain.

“The kid went after her because Murphy killed his mother. Only when he’s talking, right there at the end, Eddie says, ‘He told me where you were.’ ”

“Who told him?” This was the part of the story that interested Jax the most. Sarah had brushed it off, trying to act as if Eddie had just been spouting bull. But if he was spouting BS, then why did Sarah seem so afraid when she first came into the hotel room?

“I don’t know! The kid shut down after that. Even after she left, I couldn’t get him to say more.” Brent nodded. “But someone sent him to that hotel. He was the weapon that someone else used. Just aimed him and fired him at the shrink.”

No wonder she’d been afraid. Despite her words to Jax . . . Sarah knows someone else is after her. Would that be the same someone who’d sent her that picture of Molly?