Page 78 of Dropping Like Flies

Flynn shoved his chair back from the table violently, his gaze darting around the room as if he expected to find something hiding in the corner. “How do you know that?”

I ignored his question. “Who masterminded this thing? Because I don’t think it was you. I think you’re doing it for someone else. You told Aaron that as well, right? You mentioned a woman. What woman?”

“There is no woman,” Flynn said disdainfully. “Just me.”

“His mother,” Kendrick said. “And he has a lot of mixed-up feelings about her.”

I pinned Flynn with a look. “Tell me about your mother? You don’t get on, right? Why would you kill people for her if you don’t get on?”

Flynn shook his head. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Baros says we need a name,” Kendrick said, “and that you need to keep him talking until we have it.”

Yeah, Baros would say that. Did he really think I wouldn’t do that, anyway? That he cared more than I did? I’d lived and breathed this case for weeks. I’d nearly died for it. I was getting it out of Flynn if I had to turn him upside down and shake it out of him. “What did she do, your mother? Did she not spend enough time with you as a child? Did she send you to bed without any supper? Murder your favorite teddy bear?”

“Leave my mother out of this.”

Not likely. “So was it just you, your mother, and Janessa? Or was there a Daddy Psycho as well?”

“I want to take a break.” Flynn lifted his gaze to the one-way mirror. “I’m entitled to breaks and you haven’t given me one for a while.”

“He’s hiding it,” Kendrick said. “It’s right there, but I can’t quite get to it.”

I said a silent prayer that those stationed outside the door hadn’t gotten bored and wandered away. And I also apologized to my mother for the words about to come out of my mouth. I leaned forward and clicked my fingers. “I’ve got it. You and your mother had a sexual relationship, right? Did she fuck you before or after puberty?”

Even though I’d known it was coming, there was no avoiding the lunge across the table. Flynn’s added weight had my chair crashing backwards, both of us going down with it. He straddled me again, his hands wrapped around my throat, the whole thing so familiar that I almost laughed. At least, we’d skipped the part with the baseball bat.

He squeezed, and I had a few seconds to ponder how quickly strangulation could occur before he was being dragged off me, the rush of oxygen back into my lungs leaving me feeling light-headed.

When Kendrick’s voice came over the earpiece, I was panting too hard to make out what he said. “Say again,” I said, my voice hoarse.

“Abigail O’Reilly,” he said. “That’s the name of Flynn’s mother.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

Paranormal Problems Bureau

Griffin

I’d been planning my interrogation of Asher all the way here. Unfortunately, when I exited the lift on the top floor of the PPB, it was to find the over-ostentatious reception room—if you could call such a large room a reception room—completely empty. I wandered over to Asher’s desk and made myself comfortable in his chair. If I’d hoped the intrusion into his private space might make him magically appear to chastise me, I was to remain disappointed.

Oh well! If the man himself wasn’t here, perhaps I could learn something useful from the contents of his desk. When a scrutiny of its surface provided nothing interesting, I opened the top drawer and started rifling through it. Pens. An unused notepad. A large A4 diary. The diary proved uninspiring with nothing but work appointments detailed within its pages when I’d been hoping for something more like this is how I knew an address I should never have known.

When the rest of the desk drawers gave up a similarly uninspiring bounty apart from a bumper pack of Mars Bars hidden right at the back of one—who knew Asher was a secret sugar freak?—I made my way to Cade’s office and entered without knocking.

Cade sat at his desk. His head jerked up at the sound of my footsteps, but he relaxed when he saw it was me. “Come in,” he drawled sarcastically.

“I did.”

He glanced over my shoulder, frowning. “You and Ben were asked to attend this meeting. Where is he?”

I feigned surprise. “Damn it! I knew I’d forgotten something.” When Cade only raised an eyebrow, I gave him the proper answer. “He had something he needed to do first. He’ll be here soon.”

“How is he?” Cade asked.

Instead of taking the chair, I lowered myself onto the corner of his desk. “He’s okay. The doctor said it’ll be a few weeks before he recovers fully from the concussion. He’s not letting it slow him down, though. He’s stubborn like that.”

Cade nodded. “He impressed Kendrick. He said he’d never seen anyone be quite so brutal with their words.”

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