Page 68 of Haunted

Duncan strode across the room, coming to a stop directly in front of me. The sympathetic look on his face—on both their faces—was almost too much to take.

“Get outta your head, kid,” he grumbled. “We need you at your best, not wallowing in self-pity.”

“Kinda hard to do when the ‘poor Keaton’ vibes are rolling off the two of you faster than a tidal wave in a storm.”

Placing a hand on my shoulder, he squeezed a little harder than necessary. There was fire in his eyes when he spoke next. “Don’t twist our concern into something it’s not. We’d show the same amount of compassion for any member of this team. But make no mistake, we’re fucking livid this is happening to you of all people.”

I blinked once, then did it again as I staggered back out of his grip. The overwhelming urge to take a swing at something was clawing at me from the inside and the last thing I wanted to do was strike out against my mentor. Although he’d take one for the team, the risk of breaking my hand on his jaw was too great.

“Speaking of the team, how do you want to handle bringing them up to speed?” Waverly rounded her desk, resting her butt against the corner; arms crossed over her chest.

When I stormed out of her office, I did it without a plan. The only thing I knew for certain was my team…my best friends would have my back. My steps faltered slightly when my thoughts shifted to Henley and how she would react to the news. Knowing my Little Bird, with her huge heart, she’d wrap me in her arms and assure me everything would be all right.

The problem was, I didn’t know if it would be.

“What the hell?” Koen leapt to his feet, his left hand immediately going to the service weapon on his hip. Not that I blamed him for overreacting, since I’m sure I looked half-crazed tearing into the room.

“Stand down, Agent Banks,” Waverly boomed; her high heels clicking in rapid succession on the floor as she tried to keep up with me.

“DNA results are back,” I announced without preamble.

“Okay. Still doesn’t explain why you charged in here like a bull going after a red flag,” Lanie quipped.

“I’ve got an uncle,” I blurted.

“Shit,” Duncan spat. “That’s one way to burst the bubble.”

“Congratulations, I guess?” Noah said.

“My uncle is our killer.”

Silence reigned supreme. Four federal agents—including Nelson, since he technically was one—and Sammy stood with their mouths agape. Eventually the quiet was broken by a chorus of “fucks.” Then questions were being hurled faster than I could keep up with.

At Waverly’s suggestion, we gathered in the interrogation room where I explained how the lab ran the blood sample they collected from underneath the fingernails of our latest victim through multiple databases, resulting in a match to our suspect as well as a partial familial match to my father.

“Why would your dad keep his brother a secret?”

“That’s the six-million-dollar question only a dead man can answer, Noah.”

“Hold on,” Lanie rapped her knuckles against the wooden table. “If this guy is in the system, then we have a name.”

“We do.” I nodded, clearing my throat. “Declan Marches.”

“Never heard of him.” She shrugged.

I was poised to respond when my cell phone chimed with a text alert. Normally, I would have ignored it, however with the storm raging outside, I’d asked Henley to message when she got home. With all the craziness between the attack on Jennifer Collins––in which miraculously, she’d only suffered a non-life-threatening stab wound to the gut––and the discovery of my long-lost, murderous relative, I hadn’t realized how late it had gotten.

Standing, I moved away from the discussion going on and a smile lit my face when I noticed she’d sent a video instead of typing out a message. Swiping my finger up the screen, I allowed the facial recognition software to unlock the device, then pushed the triangular button in the center to play.

The video came into focus with Jade, front and center, her wrists zip-tied to the arms of the chair she was seated in, a gag in her mouth, with tears streaming down her face.

“Fuck!” I yelled, garnering a flurry of activity to happen around me. Metal chairs scraped against the floor as everyone crowded my back, but I was zeroed in on the screen and the robotic-sounding voice which sounded through the speaker.

“You thought I was playing with you before, Calvin. Well, you better hurry before the real games begin.”

Fear, like I’d never known, slammed into me as the camera panned to the right and I saw her. My Henley. My beautiful girl, lying seemingly unconscious on a disgusting bed wearing only her bra and panties. There was no way to stop my reaction even if I’d wanted to. My fist drove elbow deep into the nearest wall. I pulled back to strike againwhen arms the size of small tree trunks wrapped around my chest.

“Enough, Keaton,” Duncan growled in my ear.

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