Walker (Bowen Boys, #1)(46)
“Look at me, Lynne. You need to pledge to me. Right now, you need to pledge to me.” He jerked her face to his when she closed her eyes. He could hear her heart slowing and she was losing blood fast.
“Now? I don’t think so. I’m tired. Tell Walker I’m sorry.” She was sounding far away and he was afraid for her.
“Pledge to me. Now.” She looked at him, her eyes fading. He could hear her breaths slowing. “Please, Lynne, now, or I can’t bring your cat to save you.”
“You can’t save me, dickhead. Why would you want to?”
He looked up when four cats entered the room, one of them a large white Bengal. Khan looked down at her as Walker came toward them as a human with a medical bag in his hand. Khan was terrified it was too late for anything he might have in that bag.
Her voice was low, but he heard it. With those two little words, he commanded her cat to come forth. It was a horrible and extremely painful way to shift, but she would have a chance if she shifted. When her cat began to appear he watched her still. He just hoped he wasn’t too late.
~~~
Warren looked at the man sitting chained to the table. He wasn’t much of a man, short and thin, but he had a wealth of information. He glanced down at the yellow pad that he’d been taking notes on then back at the man.
“You said that Small is working for someone in Afghanistan? Do you know who?”
Nestor nodded and grinned. “He’s a captain in the United States Marine Corps. His name is Jackson. I don’t know if I ever heard his first name, but I know what he looks like. He calls too. Would you like his cell phone number?”
Numbly, he pushed the pad at him again and watched as he wrote this number down too. There were a total of ten names on the first sheet alone, as well as last known address and phone numbers. Warren nodded at Marshall. He would take the name they’d just been given and search for him in their database. He glanced at Reed Bowen, who was helping them with the searches.
“They’ve been working together for nearly ten years, well before he decided to be in politics. But Jackson insisted that they could make more money if there was someone on the inside that could get the information to them firsthand.” Nestor laughed. “They were cutting out the middle man, you see.”
“And how did you get involved?” Reed had done that three times now, asking questions without consulting anyone first. But instead of telling him to shut up and do his job like he’d been asked to do, Warren was beginning to like where the kid’s head was.
“Oh that was easy. I was in the right place at the right time, you might say. I knew that he’d wanted his family killed and had helped him get them all together. He said that they knew things about him that, if questioned, he wouldn’t be able to have a library card much less run for any kind of office. I knew things as well, but I told him that they were somewhere safe and that if he didn’t take me along, or something unknown happened to me, then I’d make sure he was buried right along with me. It’s sometimes nice to have a little dirt on the person you’re working for. It makes things so much easier when you have to tell them no.”
Warren didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, but nodded all the same.
He looked down at the file Marshall had gone to get when Nestor had been arrested trying to leave the country. Nestor had sang like a bird as soon as he’d been approached, starting with telling Marshall that he had enough evidence on Small that what Caitlynne had would look like child’s play. Warren was beginning to believe him. He’d told them where to find this information as well as a whole lot of other things.
“Jeffery Jackson, last known address is in Washington. He has a house in Florida and one in France. He has eight thousand dollars in his bank account and the last deposit was just over two weeks ago for seven hundred twelve dollars and four cents.” Reed glanced at him then at Nestor. “Do you know if he has an offshore account?”
“Oh my, yes. We all do. I don’t have Jackson’s number, but I do have the information on mine and Jerry’s.” He didn’t even ask this time, but took the pad back and wrote down all the information on both accounts. “I’m also putting the account information on two other accounts you may want to look into. One of them is Conrad’s, God rest his soul, and the other belongs to Norris Freeman. I don’t believe you have him in custody as of yet.”
“No. No we don’t.” Warren slid the information over to Reed and watched him tap on the keys of his laptop for several seconds before he looked at Nestor again. “What is his involvement in all of this? I mean, his name has never come up be—”
Marshall cleared his throat before speaking. “He’s on the FBI’s most wanted. He’s attached to several murders of key people all over the world. He’s been known to work with a partner on occasion, but who—”
“Oh, that would be Seth Clarke. He’s a terrible man and I’ve no use for him, but he did seem to get the job done.” Nestor looked at Reed. “You may want to see if there are any unsolved murders of prostitutes in the area lately. If they are blond and tall, that would be his work. He had a fetish for murdering them then having sex with them. As I said, a terrible man.”
Reed looked at him for the first time. He could see the horror in his eyes and waited for him to bolt. He was just a kid, probably only in his early to mid-twenties, but he seemed to know his computer stuff. When he looked back at Nestor he thought the boy was going to tell him he was lying or, at the very least, tell him that he was wrong about him being only terrible.