Double Vision (26 page)

W
alking into Glory was like entering a strange combination of an art gallery and a dentist's office. The dark brick walls of the open, cement-floored space were plastered with abstract paintings, and some of the countertops could pass for wet bars in a different context. As it was, they were covered in spray bottles and canisters of cotton balls. Black lounge-style chairs were set every few feet like stations in a hair salon, but the buzzes of the equipment sounded more like dental drills than blow-dryers.

“Welcome to Glory,” a brunette with streaks of dark burgundy through her pigtails said. “Do you have an appointment?”

Jenna glanced around at the bustle throughout the studio. A girl with the strap of her tank top pulled down sat smiling as a guy with a shaved head inked her shoulder. A middle-aged man lay back perspiring as a girl with a messy blond ponytail worked at his wrist.

“Um, not exactly.”

She pulled out her badge and she felt Porter do the same behind her. “We need some information about a certain tattoo. Specifically, whether or not someone here might've inked it.”

The girl blinked, wide-eyed, at the badges. “Sure thing. Let me get Wren.”

She walked away and disappeared behind a back curtain. Porter stepped toward the counter, flipped a page of the book of designs set out for perusal. “Did she say ‘Wren'?”

Before Jenna could answer, a guy who could've passed for The Rock's brother stepped from behind the back curtain, the pigtailed girl following him.

“I'm Wren,” he said, stretching out a hand. “I own the joint. How can I help?”

A little ashamed in the face of the brilliant work in the flip book in front of them, Jenna held out the modest drawing of Eldred's. She quickly explained the story behind it, then filled in the other specifics that weren't in the sketch, just as she had for Irv.

“We were told this was probably the only place around with artists who could pull off those sorts of colors and details,” she said, hopeful.

He held the drawing, studying it. “As much as I hate to say this, no one around here did this. We do mostly black-and-white stuff here. We're boss at cool shading. But while we do keep some colors on hand, like I said, we're almost only black-and-white. Any color access we keep is strictly to complement those black and whites in a very limited capacity. The variation you're talking about wouldn't be something we could pull off with our supplies.”

“Color access?” Jenna repeated.

“Yeah. It's not particularly sanitary to mix ink colors, so a studio like this one is limited in color ink we have available. If the tat had a lot of subtle differences in colors like this guy said, the person commissioning it would need someone with skill
and
a massive assortment of colors.”

The parlor owner's brow furrowed again. The raspberry color Jenna associated with recognition flashed in.

Wren gestured to the red and pink streaking Eldred had drawn to indicate the ripping effect the artist had tried to achieve. “I've seen this somewhere. A guy a couple towns over who does some specialty work turns out a lot of 3-D effects. I've sent people to him who've come in here wanting something in colors we didn't have. He's done some things like this.”

Jenna's pulse picked up. They had to find the Triple Shooter now so that they could find the second UNSUB who was after Eldred. If UNSUB B had tried a second time to quiet the old man, at this point, he wouldn't stop.

“How do we find the guy?”

Jenna had called Saleda the second she and Porter had left Glory and Wren to tell her team leader they needed to get to Richmond. They could drive it, but flying would be quicker. The team had also sent field agents to Molly's house, despite Yancy's protests that he had it under control. She should've done it all along, damn it. Something about this whole thing didn't sit right. A pink-tinged orange color kept creeping into Jenna's psyche, but she pushed it away each time. It'd have to wait until after they talked to this tattoo artist.

As the chopper clipped high above the city, Jenna and Porter filled Saleda and Teva in on any details about Glory they hadn't heard yet. Jenna couldn't explain why, but she suddenly wanted to keep Saleda close by and up to speed. Her gut said this thing was about to break wide open, and when it did, her team leader needed to be on hand and ready to roll.

Once they were on the ground and had power walked the few blocks to the joint owned by the tattoo artist Wren had mentioned, Saleda pushed open the door. Jenna followed her in while Porter and Teva waited outside. Jax Hallenbrand's studio looked a lot less modern than Glory, and a lot less clean to boot.

The mohawked Jax looked at Eldred's picture for about ten seconds. “Yeah, I remember this. Guy was here for a good twelve hours. Normally I'd break that up into a few sessions, but he was traveling, so I told him I'd do it in a sitting.”

Yes.

“Do you remember his name?” Saleda asked.

“Oh, God, no,” Jax said, scratching the back of his neck. “That was a good while back. I don't forget a tattoo, but I can forget names plenty. As long as he paid me, I probably wouldn't have ever thought about him again if you hadn't come in.”

Normal guy with nothing particularly extraordinary about him to make him stand out. Everyday customer, other than the out-of- town part.

Out of town.

“Did he drive here?” Jenna asked.

Jax stared at her for a moment like she was speaking a foreign language. Then he cocked his head.

“Come to think, yeah, I do remember that. It was the reason he couldn't come back for multiple sessions. Didn't have access to his own vehicle. He was on company time. Drove a big delivery truck. Some furniture place or something.”

That'd explain how the Triple Shooter saw Ainsley Nickerson's address.

“Jax, we need the name of the company. Did you see the truck?”

The guy rubbed the nape of his neck again, a thinking tic. “Nah. I can't remember it. I'm sorry. It was so long ago . . . I'm talking months . . . maybe a year.”

Fuck.

Saleda thanked him for his time. Jenna followed her toward the door, disappointment taking her over.

It's not over. It's just not easy.

She stopped just short of the glass door where she could see Porter and Teva lingering outside. “We know somewhere he's parked recently,” Jenna muttered to Saleda.

Phone out, Jenna texted Irv:

Need video surveillance footage from Harford Suites the day of and leading up to Pesha Josephy's death. We're looking for a delivery truck.

She stuffed the phone back in her pocket, returning Saleda's nod of a job well done. Saleda pushed the door open, the bell on it jingling.

From behind them, Jax called out.

“By the way, if it makes a difference, it wasn't a dragon, exactly. It was more specific than that. He wanted a three-headed hydra.”

T
he clip of the helicopter blades filled Jenna's ears, drowning out whatever it was her brain was trying to piece together. Something about the second UNSUB knowing where to find Eldred. The salmon in conjunction with the knowledge. She'd seen that color before, but it wasn't coming to her.

She'd called Victor to send him to the house of Molly Keegan and the Tylers, hoping he could sort out any mess there. She didn't know why she trusted him. For all the fighting she'd done with herself to realize she should trust Yancy, somehow the newfound confidence in the police officer had slipped in, unnoticed. Maybe it was because he was Hank's brother. Maybe it was because he was protective of Ayana. Either way, she couldn't question it right now. She wasn't on the ground, and he was all the help she had to send Yancy at the moment.

Her cell blinked.

“Aren't you supposed to turn that thing off in the air?” Porter yelled sarcastically.

“You know me. I'm a rebel,” she called back, opening the text she'd left the phone on to receive.

It was from Irv, as expected.

Surveillance shows truck for Furniture Fast in the Harford Suites parking lot the day of Pesha Josephy's murder. Cross-reference of victims' names shows Ainsley Nickerson bought a living room set there the week before she died.

Jenna wasn't shocked. She typed back:

Save the fanfare and give me a location so I can turn this bird around.

She alerted Saleda and the pilot to the current situation as she awaited more from Irv.

“A furniture delivery? Why didn't we notice this until now? That reeks of stranger danger,” Saleda said.

Jenna wondered the same. She texted Irv to ask, her curiosity getting the better of her.

He replied in about twenty seconds.

Knew you'd ask. We checked the employees on the delivery and the sale. Squeaky clean. Guy wasn't listed anywhere near Ainsley Nickerson, though he had to have seen her order somehow. But he was the one driving the truck a few days ago when it was at the Harford Suites. Tobias Gray. Oak Pointe subdivision, not too far from our first victim's location.

Jenna typed a quick thank you, then called to the pilot.

“We're going to Alexandria.”

•   •   •

H
e heard them coming.

Justice ran to the middle room, hands clapped over his ears. He'd always expected them, and yet, he'd worked so hard to appease them he'd hoped he'd never have to see them.

Now the itching bit through him so intensely he couldn't even begin to try to scratch. He knew it was futile.

Instead he picked up his gun. Whether or not guns would work against them, he wouldn't know until he tried. Until this moment, he'd never dared oppose them, but now they'd come for him. It was the only way.

He sat in the middle of the room amidst the plethora of equipment he'd amassed for just this moment, fear gripping him. He had failed to do what the angel had said. Now he would pay.

•   •   •

T
hey'd been cleared to land in a football field a street over from the house—practically in its backyard. No way he wouldn't hear them coming. So much for the element of surprise.

Backup from the locals was meeting them there. By the time they'd trekked through the fence of the school toward Tobias Gray's home, the barricade was already set up outside, and guns were drawn, trained on the single most bizarre picture Jenna had ever laid eyes on.

A small white house in the middle of a suburban block, completely lit up with Christmas lights covering every inch possible. The sun would still be up for hours, and yet the house glowed like a small planet plopped down in the center of the street.

“Well, that's something you don't see every day,” Porter said.

“You know what they say about hiding in plain sight,” Saleda replied.

“
That's
hiding?” Teva ventured.

Jenna moved faster. “Neighbors probably chalk him up to being that crazy guy next door and don't bother wondering if he really
is
crazy or not . . .”

What the hell?

They reached the barricade and were updated by the locals that the man inside had been screaming at them from the window. “Incoherent babble,” said the officer in charge.

“What
kind
of incoherent babble?” Jenna asked.
It's probably not as incoherent as you think.

“Something about creatures of darkness not taking him without a fight, begging ‘them' for mercy, whoever
they
are . . . shit like that.”

So Tobias Gray thought the Furies had come for him. Made sense now, the lights. Calliope Jones's words echoed in Jenna's mind:
“The three goddesses of vengeance, sometimes known as the Daughters of Night. It's a misnomer though. They were the children of Mother Earth, Gaea, and Uranus.”

The creatures were supposedly children of Night, and they were from Hades itself. Wouldn't be the first time this guy had believed whatever information he'd randomly learned about mythology. They'd established a while ago that he was an amateur enthusiast at best. In other words, the son of a bitch was scared out of his mind.

And more important, he wouldn't let them take him without a final battle. A problem, seeing as how they needed him alive in order to learn more about the other UNSUB.

“Let me go in and talk to him,” Jenna blurted.

“Absolutely not,” Saleda said. “He's barricaded himself inside his house while he's hearing voices, and he thinks we're them. He'll blow anyone coming within a few feet of him sky high. Reasoning with this guy isn't going to work, Jenna. You know that.”

“Oh, come on. You
know
I'm the most qualified to talk to him, and the fastest way to the other UNSUB is through him. Besides, he believes what he's hearing is real. Law enforcement end up using force against mentally ill people all the time because they think they're more violent than they are. Most of them aren't.”

“Jenna, with all due respect, we
know
this one's violent,” Saleda said.

Touché.

“Okay, so let's use his own idea against him. Let's blind him from taking shots long enough for me to talk to him.”

•   •   •

T
his had to be the worst idea she'd ever had.

Kevlar in place, Jenna walked toward the Triple Shooter's window, knowing explosives that would mean Ayana didn't have a father
or
a mother anymore might come next. This was stupid, but she had to do it. She had to find out who had put Molly Keegan's life in jeopardy.

It had taken about twenty minutes to get the strobe light here. If Tobias Gray was epileptic, this would go downhill fast.

She crouched beneath the windowsill and nodded to Porter at the switch. He hit it.

Electric lights flew through the afternoon air.

“Tobias, it's not who you're afraid of. Look at the window.”

Silence.

Then a soft sound, like he was moving around inside.

“Who are you?”

The voice was right beside the window.
Shit.

“I'm a friend, and I know about the Furies.”

“You . . .
know
?”

Bingo.

Most people tried to talk schizophrenics out of their delusions. She'd rather talk him into them.

“Yes. I know, because they talk to me, too. They told me about . . . a little girl. In a grocery store not long ago. Did they tell you about her?”

Nothing.

Jenna hesitated, not wanting to push him too hard. She needed to say more though. Had to. “I haven't found her, but I'm looking for her. I'm afraid they won't be satisfied until I find her . . .”

When he spoke again, his voice was low, afraid. “That's why they're still mad at me. Why the itching won't stop, no matter how many heads I cut off of the evil. I didn't stop her, either.”

Jenna took a deep breath.
Heads I cut off.
The hydra tattoo.

“Maybe I can stop her for both of us. The thing is . . .” Jenna said, thinking of the way Tobias had taken the visual cues from all of his victims to let him know they were bad. “I still haven't seen her do anything to confirm she's the one. Did you?”

Quiet again.

“I need to be sure I have the right person,” Jenna said, trying to shove confidence through her tone even though she was shaking like a bikini-clad woman in the Arctic.

“I . . . I didn't, either,” he said, nervousness seeping from his voice.

“But you tried to find her, right? How did you know it was her?” Jenna asked.

Moving again, maybe shifting in place. “An angel told me.”

An angel?
This was a curveball Jenna wasn't ready to respond to, but she had to keep talking. But what to say? The wrong thing could make this take a bad turn fast.

“What did the angel tell you?”

“You already know!” the Triple Shooter yelled, suddenly sounding angry. “Bad things happen then. The threes . . . and seven . . . and that day. Bad things happen that day.”

“Which day?” Jenna asked, racking her brain for a connection.

“You . . . you told me you knew . . .”

Oh, fuck.

A fist smashed the glass from the other side of the window, and sharp shards rained down on Jenna. She covered her head, knowing what came next.
Please. Ayana.

Shots from all directions popped loud in her ears as she planted herself as flat as she could get against the porch, arms wrapping around her head. Deafening, everything. Screaming. Yelling. Her name.

Something dropped above her. Warm liquid, a weight.

Then it was over.

She peeked from under her arms and saw Porter, gun drawn, cops running from the lawn toward them. Saleda reached her first, lifted the heaviness from her. A thud as something solid dropped. A gun.

Dear God . . .

Jenna rolled over just in time to see Saleda and another local police officer pull the body of the Triple Shooter, crumpled at the waist over the windowsill, out toward them. Paramedics pushed through the crowd, but it wasn't going to matter. Porter's bullet had hit him directly in the head.

As glad as she was to be alive, she was equally sorry to see Tobias Gray dead, whatever he'd done. The quickest way to find the person who had told him, for whatever reason, to kill Molly was the Triple Shooter's connection to them, and now they'd need to do it the hard way.

You'd think being almost shot was the hard way.

“Are you okay?” Saleda asked, now helping Jenna brush glass off herself.

“I'm fine, but Eldred might not be. We have to find the second UNSUB.”

Porter had joined them. “Thoughts on how we do that?”

Jenna shook her head. “Retrace his steps, I guess. And as much as I hate to say it, find out what the hell day he was talking about.”

“Who would know that except the dead man in there?” Porter asked.

Jenna blew out another breath, wishing the tightness in her chest would let up.

“The only person I can imagine who'd know would be Molly.”