Page 71 of Say Yes to the Death

He flushed, and his brows knit together.

“I understand you have some qualms with our shared history, but this is all trivial in the light of what we’re facing.”

Trivial?

Claire turned away from him and pressed her hands to her face. Her nostrils flared. Had she not suffered enough? Would this hellish nightmare of a summer ever end?

“Let me see your credentials,” she said flatly. No way she was going to take his words at face value.

“Fair enough.” He flipped open a small black wallet and handed it over.

“Jack Hartley, special agent. That’s just…great.” She folded it back up and fought the urge to fling it at his head. Her hands shook as she handed it back. “So, twenty missed birthdays and an unanswered invitation to my wedding is trivial?”

“I’d like to talk to you about all that sometime. I really would. But right now, I need your help. The country is facing an imminent threat.”

“Unless there’s an emergency overstock of tacos in a bunker in Waco that is about to expire, I’m not interested in helping you.”

“Claire. This is serious.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Clearly he wasn’t going to go away. “Do you mean Barney? He’s in prison.”

“Barney?” Jack scoffed. He paced up and down the hallway, checking the door frames and feeling underneath side tables. Was he trying to find her emergency pizza money? “You got a note before you left, yes?”

“That’s really none of your business. Detective Smith is handling it,” she said, crossing her arms in front of her.

“I’m afraid this is out of Detective Smith’s jurisdiction.” He opened then closed the blinds on her kitchen window. “We don’t believe that note came from someone looking to get a rise out of you. We believe Barney was a minor cog in a much bigger, much deadlier machine.”

Her blood ran cold. More Barneys? Could it even be possible? “I don’t understand.”

“Most of this is confidential,” he said as he ran his hand over the top of Claire’s windowsill and peered into the bottom of a vase. “But I’ll tell you what I can. We don’t think Barney was working alone.”

Claire’s breath caught in her chest. So, her note-leaver wasn’t just a punk kid playing a horrible joke? “But the Widowmaker victims—he knew them all. What motivation would someone else have?—”

“Yes, Mr. Windsor knew all his victims. But there are over forty thousand missing women in the United States at any given time. We’ve received some intelligence that suggests that some of these disappearances are connected in ways that we never dreamed.”

“What, like the A-A-S-K? The American Association of Serial Killers?” Claire shook her head.

“That may not be far off.”

Claire’s stomach fell into her butt.

The wooden chair creaked. Mindy gripped the arms with wide eyes.

Claire’s hands shook, and she curled them into fists. “What kind of intelligence?”

Jack resumed his pacing, over-polished shoes barely making a sound on the hardwood floor.

“Over the past several decades, numerous bodies of missing women have been recovered across the country. Over one hundred of these women had a symbol etched into their skin. And those were just the ones who hadn’t decayed beyond recognition. There’s no telling how many more there were.”

“How old were these women? Where did you find them? What’s the commonality?”

Jack turned to look at her. Did he look…impressed? No, that was definitely wishful thinking. “That’s the thing. The commonality isn’t clear. They were found as near as Philadelphia and as far as Anchorage. The only common thread that links the victims is that they’re all women. All different ages. Most were young and beautiful, but some were older. Many were career-driven, powerful women.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Would this nightmare never end? As if things weren’t bad enough when there was just one Barney. Now there was a legion of Barneys across the country? And they wanted revenge on Claire? Absolutely not. Time to move to Canada.

Something about his explanation didn’t sit right. “That doesn’t make sense,” she said slowly. “None of Barney’s victims were particularly powerful. Ariel was a waitress. Courtney was a perpetually intoxicated architect.”

“Regardless, we believe they’re connected. We never saw the symbol on a live person. Until we saw you on TV.”

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