Color Blind (27 page)

“I
felt like that was worth something to you,” Jenna said. She looked only at Yancy. Tolerating Hank’s disapproval wasn’t conducive to focus right now, and his condemnation wouldn’t help this case move forward any more than her anxiety over Claudia’s release.

“Perfection. He said, ‘head in the clouds.’ Don’t bet your two good legs on this or anything, but since I’ve only got one, I think I’m reasonably safe betting the bad one that the ferry shooter’s playing a Celestial.”

“Which is what?” Hank asked. Now no animosity in his voice. Only intrigue. Luck with an UNSUB would do it every time.

“Imagine if a thousand years ago an angel did the nasty with a human, and they spawned really attractive descendents with special powers,” Yancy answered.

“Angel X-Men. Got it,” Hank said.

Yancy’s visual tick didn’t escape Jenna, but he shook it off well. She stifled a small laugh as red colored her thoughts. The males were battling for dominance.

“Assuming Isaac met this guy
through
the game also assumes he had to have targeted him. Isaac would’ve had to have seen him somewhere. Either the ferry shooter has to have been Isaac’s clan, or the ferry shooter was a top-ranked player,” Jenna said.

“Isaac commented about his high standards, so I’m guessing the ferry shooter was ranked. If he’s playing a Celestial, that narrows it down some.”

“How much?” Hank asked.

Yancy shook his head. “Crap. I don’t know exactly. It’ll vary depending on servers the game goes through. Worldwide, there are a metric shitfuckton of servers, but the ferry shooter and Isaac would have had to have played on the same one, say, the East Coast one. I say that because unless the ferry shooter plays twenty-four hours a day and takes his food through a tube, he’s not gonna be ranked in the top thousand in the world. So you’re talking thousands instead of millions.”

“Okay. Dialing Irv for the ranked Celestials,” Jenna said, hitting the speed dial on her cell.

“He might not be ranked today, though,” Yancy muttered.

Jenna hung up immediately. “What?”

Yancy shook his head. “He’d have had significantly less playing time after he got started playing pop goes the weasel with Isaac here. Anytime you’re not on for days at a time, you’re at risk of dropping. There’s a reason the stereotype of gamers who live with their mothers exists.”

Mother.
Claudia was probably being released from the Sumpter Building as they spoke.

Jenna picked up her phone again. Irv answered on the second ring.

“Hey, buddy. Odd request,” she said.

“You say that like your requests usually involve taxes or grocery lists,” he answered.

“Odder than usual, I mean. I need you to check out the accounts of the top thousand ranked players in Land of Valor, but this time, narrow it down to accounts with Celestial characters whose rankings dropped around the date of the first Gemini killings.”

Irv chortled. “Your very specific wish is my command, ma’am.”

Jenna hung up just as Hank’s phone rang. She hoped answers would come soon. If they had the ferry shooter, they’d have more information on Isaac Keaton, and then maybe the link from Isaac to Thadius. The more they had on Keaton, the more they could charge him with. Right now they might not have a death penalty case, regardless of what he’d confessed up to this point. With the ferry shooter in custody, they’d be able to prove Isaac masterminded the Gemini killings as well as somehow manipulated Thadius’s spree.

“If the ferry shooter is a Celestial, does that mean Isaac played one, too?” Jenna asked.

Yancy made a face. “Doubt it. He’d probably want to play something more supposedly all-powerful, like a warlock. Not as much skill required. Completely over-rated. Assholes.”

“So a Celestial isn’t that powerful but has a lot of skill?” Jenna asked.

Yancy cocked his head back and forth, weighing. “Eh, I wouldn’t say that exactly. They’re just different types of people entirely, and usually different types play them. Celestials tend to be people who don’t want to lead
or
follow. They want to stand on their own, separate.”

Jenna nodded. Colors coalesced in her mind, confirming the royal blue hue her mind had settled on for the ferry shooter long ago. Submissive traits influenced it, but those alone would’ve been lighter. Beta males usually showed up as a gentler sky color. Omega males, however, were the types of men who preferred to strike out as lone wolves rather than be a part of the pack. Alphas tended to stay on the warm-colored end of the spectrum, betas cool but pastel. But nearly every omega male Jenna had met simply settled into a brighter, more jewel-toned version of the color her mind conjured up when she first talked to him. Based on her profile of the ferry shooter up to this point, everything Yancy was saying made perfect sense.

It also didn’t bode well, because the ferry shooter wouldn’t want to blend into the background if he was an omega. He’d want to strike out on his own path if he wished to be known. Maybe he was under Isaac’s complete control, and yet maybe he wasn’t. The scary aspect of the possibility canceled out any comfort Jenna found in it.

On the other side of the room, Hank spoke in hushed tones on his cell. “Keep me posted. Yeah. Bye.”

When Hank turned around to face Jenna, he didn’t wipe the panic off his face fast enough.

“What?” she asked.

“Irv’s finding the Celestials?”

“Hank . . .”

He bit his lip, the dark skin whitening under the pressure of his bite.

“Who was that?” she demanded.

“Saleda,” Hank replied.

Just Saleda. Another one of the team. And yet Hank’s face.

“Oh, Jenna. I’m so sorry,” he said.

Before she asked, before he said it, she knew. Even so, she needed to hear it to make it real. “Say it, Hank.”

“I put Saleda on Claudia when she left Sumpter this morning,” Hank said. He sounded like he was going to be sick. “She followed her to the lawyer’s office. She didn’t come out. By the time she went in, Claudia was gone.”

Jenna’s head spun, and the ground seemed to sink under her. “I have to go.”

“Jenna, you can’t do anything! The best thing you can—”

She spun around and pointed a finger in Hank’s face. “The best thing I can do is get my little girl, father, and brother the hell away from our home.
That
is what I can do.
You
apparently don’t know shit about protecting people from Claudia. I
do.
”

T
hadius knelt beside a bearded Jasper Jeremiah Higgins. The man’s whole body trembled like a pine tree in the breeze, and sweat slicked the seat of the plush leather office chair underneath him.

“I’ll ask you again, Jasper. Tell me
why
you represented Sebastian Waters.”

Thadius had known going in this wouldn’t end well for the man. Others, he gave a chance to explain themselves. This guy, though? The lawyer knowingly worked so Sebastian Waters could walk away from the courtroom with nothing but probation. Police arrested Sebastian Waters for possession of illegal firearms, which he’d planned to use to gun down his peers at his high school the day of graduation. If helping a would-be school shooter get off free didn’t contribute to Sebastian making his way toward Emily, Thadius didn’t know what did.

Which was why he hadn’t messed around with pretending he was someone else when he paid Jasper Jeremiah Higgins a visit that morning. Secretary wasn’t there on a Saturday, and Jasper shouldn’t have been either. Not technically. But when Thadius called as a potential client needing immediate assistance, Jasper lived up to the advertisement on his business card that said available anytime.

They’d come in, Jasper offered him a cup of coffee. Thadius offered him a seat and a belt to tie him to his chair.

Unfortunately, the more brazen technique had resulted in one squirmy, tongue-tied lawyer. Not surprising. These weasels were all the same.

Thadius expected the guy to say he
had
to defend Waters. He’d preach how everyone deserved a fair trial and representation. Probably give some BS about how Sebastian was only a kid at the time, deserved another chance. But hearing the truth was important to Thadius even now. Maybe even more than before.

“He was young. I . . . I know it sounds bad, but his parents called me. They were upset. Needed someone to help them.”

Don’t talk to me about his parents’ desperation.

“Waters planned to use those guns on other
kids
,” Thadius growled.

“I know! But
he
was a kid. Just a pissy kid. Surely he didn’t have the guts for something like that! Probably didn’t hang around with the popular kids, I don’t know! He made a mistake, and if he went to jail, his life would be over forever. He seemed nice enough. Remorseful.”

Thadius leaned in toward Jasper’s ear. “He wasn’t.”

Jasper jumped at the gun at his head, then shook harder. “I’m sorry if he hurt you somehow! I didn’t know! It was a long time ago! I can’t take it back!”

Emily’s face filled Thadius’s mind. Her first day visiting home since she’d gone to college, she’d stood in the driveway plucking honeysuckles from the bush, twisting off their ends. “Never gets old,” she’d said.

“You’re right. You can’t take it back,” Thadius said. He stood, aimed the gun.

The lawyer’s feet backpedaled, and the chair wheeled backward. “He got what was coming to him, didn’t he?”

Thadius’s trigger finger relaxed reflexively. “What did you say?”

For the first time, Jasper’s shakes eased. “Yeah! He got shot!”

“What? How? Where?” Was Jasper making this up?

Jasper nodded toward his desk at the newspaper. “The Gemini killings at the theme park! Waters was one of the victims.”

Thadius’s heart thumped fast, and he reached for the newspaper. Sure enough, the front page bore a list of the victims of the recent shootings at the Enchanted Kingdom. Sebastian Waters, wounded. Plain in black and white.

“Wounded?” Thadius whispered, again facing Jasper. “I wouldn’t exactly call that revenge.”

He closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.

J
enna threw Ayana’s things into a bag. If she forgot something, they could buy more. Stuff wasn’t important.

Hank was already on his way to a new crime scene that most likely contained Thadius Grogan’s latest victim. Jenna opted not to go with him this time. More important things to do.

Her dad stood in the corner, watching, his own little duffle at his feet. Yancy waited in the living room reading
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish
to Ayana.

“Do you think the pink hoodie or the green? The pink is warmer, but this time of year it probably doesn’t matter—”

“Jenn, do you really think all this is necessary?” Vern asked quietly.

She stopped folding the green jacket. “You think we should test it out first?”

A door shut in the living room. “Who the hell are you?”

“Uh-oh,” Jenna muttered, pushing past her dad into the living room. “Charley, this is Yancy. A friend.”

Charley’s hackles visibly relaxed. “Hey.”

He glanced past Jenna to the packed diaper bag on the love seat, the bedroom pillows set there. “Weekend trip no one told me about?”

This was a battle she wouldn’t win, but she had to try. It was for his own good.

“Claudia’s out, Charley. They lost track of her.”

“Lost track of her? What is she, a tomcat? Don’t answer that.”

“Charley, you have to come with us. We’re moving you guys to a safe house.”

“No way, Rain Man. I’m good here.”

“I don’t ask you for much, Charley,” Jenna pleaded. Why couldn’t he do this one thing for her? After all, he was the one who wouldn’t leave Florida and his band and his friends when Jenna first begged him and her dad to move to Virginia to help with Ayana after she and Hank broke up. Vern had been ready and willing to leave this godforsaken town behind, but Charley had insisted on not letting Claudia run him away from the one place he’d ever known. So she’d come back here, to be with her dad and brother, the brother she’d saved from the woman now running free. After everything, he couldn’t do this one thing.