Shattered (LOST #3)(96)

Not good at all.

“He wasn’t there,” Viki said. Her words quavered.

“Who wasn’t?” Wade asked as he, too, crept closer.

“They brought the bodies in. Three bodies,” Viki said.

Gabe nodded. “Right. Carlos, Mitch Fontaine, and Murphy Jacobs—”

“No.” That was the problem. “Carlos.” She nodded. “Mitch Fontaine.” They’d identified them both very quickly. “Not Murphy Jacobs.”

Gabe’s eyes widened. “What?”

“The remains for the third victim . . . we just identified them. They didn’t belong to Murphy. They belonged to a guy named Nate Tremaine. He—he worked for Jax. I don’t know how he wound up there . . . maybe he was selling Jax out, too, just like Carlos. Or maybe Mitch was torturing the guy to get information, but his body was there. It was recovered. Him, not Murphy.”

Wade’s face had gone slack with shock. “So where is Murphy Jacobs?”

Victoria shook her head. “I don’t know. Sarah said that he’d been shot, but the firefighters didn’t find his remains.”

“Maybe there just weren’t enough remains left.” Gabe’s voice was grim.

“No. There should have been something.”

“They just haven’t found him yet.” Wade straightened. “That’s all. They got the three bodies, so they slowed down the search. We’ll call them and let them know another body has to be there. Remains, something—”

He broke off and they all looked at one another.

“Murphy Jacobs is dead,” Wade said.

Victoria wasn’t so sure.

“He is,” Wade said again, but he sounded as if . . . as if he were trying to convince himself.

And Victoria remembered the faint humming she’d heard, the sound blending with the fire . . .

That humming had been oddly familiar, a tune that she’d heard before . . .

Hush little baby, don’t say a word . . .