Page 50 of The Last Straw

“Knock yourself out,” he said.

Wyrick hid a grin, then proceeded to cut her sandwich in four squares.

“Hank Raines called this morning. The ATF was serving an arrest warrant on Preston Davis yesterday when he pulled a gun on them. He’s dead.”

“Cowards always choose the easy way out,” she said and stuffed one whole square into her mouth.

Charlie smirked. “Such a dainty little thing you are,” he said.

Wyrick chewed and swallowed, then licked a smear of peanut butter from her thumb. She was reaching for another piece when her phone rang. But it was the “Hallelujah” chorus ringtone that startled Charlie and sent Wyrick bolting from her chair.

“What?” he yelled.

“Someone just named one of the hit men. I have to check my email,” she said and ran.

She was gone in a flash of silver, the click of her heels marking her speed as she bolted down the hall. But Charlie wanted to see the man’s face, because her enemies were his enemies.

Wyrick had the email open, sitting motionless at the monitor, staring at a face.

“Is that one of them?” Charlie asked.

“Maybe...probably,” she said.

“What’s his name?”

“Jessup Wallis,” she said, then switched screens and pulled up a file listing the members of the Church of The Righteous. “His name is on the list of members.”

“How can you prove he’s one of the three who were sent?” Charlie asked.

“I hacked into Jeremiah Raver’s phone records when I was making the case for money laundering. Most of the calls on his phone were from parishioners, or Preston Davis. But after Barrett Taylor tried to kill me, I checked Raver’s phone records again. There were three new numbers he’d never called before, but they were local to Raver’s area—and made within the past week. One of them belonged to Barrett Taylor, and I already knew he was hit man number one. Then Raver had a call from the Dallas County Jail right after Barrett Taylor was arrested. I assumed it was a plea for Raver to get him a lawyer. So that verified one of those three numbers did belong to a hit man. I ran a search on the other two numbers. One belonged to a man named Jessup Wallis.” She pointed to the screen. “And that is Jessup Wallis. The man who turned him in is a man named Jordy Gooch. Gooch does not belong to the church, but is a local in Paulette. I’ll have to do some research to make sure he’s no relation, but I think I just got number two.”

“Location-wise, do you know where Wallis is?” Charlie asked.

“Now that I know which number is his, I enter it into my locator.”

“If he’s in Dallas, then that means you’re still in danger,” Charlie said.

“He’s not in Dallas. Neither of them are,” Wyrick said.

“How can you be so sure?” Charlie asked.

“If they’ve been notified about the video, they’ll both be worried about who knew what they were doing, and who might turn them in. They’ll be looking for a place to hide, and to deny, deny, deny the accusations.”

“Are you going to stay here in the office for a while?” he asked.

“No. Rachel Dean takes precedence over this. I’m just sending an email to Jordy Gooch, telling him verification is in progress. I’ll be back in the kitchen in a sec. Don’t eat my PBGJ.”

“As if,” Charlie said. He looked long and hard at the photo again and then left.

Wyrick paused, pulled up one of her apps, entered Jessup Wallis’s cell number, then waited for a cell tower to pick up on it. It took a few minutes, but when it did she relaxed and logged out.

Once she got back to the kitchen to finish breakfast, they talked about the pending search, but neither mentioned Rachel’s name. The days since she’d gone missing were passing, and neither they nor the police had a clue as to what had happened to her. Charlie had promised Millie he’d find Rachel, but he didn’t want to find her dead.

As Wyrick carried their cups and plates to the sink, Charlie reached for his phone.

“I’m giving the manager a heads-up that we’re coming back this morning, so he’ll be there to give us a key.”

“Good idea,” Wyrick said and loaded the dirty dishes into the dishwasher. “I’m going to get my laptop. I’ll be right back.”

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