Page 74 of Jon's Helter Skelter Cold Case

Okay, yeah. I could see how the thing went crazy out of control. “Are you going to have to break it up?”

“Size is partially why the FBI is now reviewing it. Ebook wise? No, no need to do that. But for print? No one wants to lug around a thousand-page brick. Although lugging around two books half the size isn’t any better, so…honestly, I don’t know what they’re going to decide. However! Good news for me is, they’ve given me a royalty advance for it already. It’s a very tidysum. And I didn’t have to sign away all rights to it, I can still publish it for public consumption. The FBI just gets it first.”

“And he has to update it once a year,” Grant tacked on.

“I do.” Alan shrugged, clearly not bothered by this. “I’m not egotistical enough to think I’ve already found every possible psychic type. I mean, the Materializers are something I had no clue about, so I already have to update the draft. I’m not concerned about this. Well, my poor formatters are going to be tearing their hair out trying to keep page count down, but it is what it is.”

How did I get such a smart cousin? You had to be damn good at your job if the FBI came knocking and then gave you money for your project. Just, damn. Totally impressed right now.

My phone rang and I answered it. “Hey, Sho.”

“Hey, got a hit for you.”

I loved it when he said stuff like that. Sho’s intel was never wrong. “Hit me.”

“Got a birthday party video, and facial recognition says this is the guy Marc’s been trying to find. I’ve already given him the video, and the poster’s contact info. He’s working on locking the party down. It was only posted an hour ago, so I don’t know if the party’s still going on, but maybe something there will give Grant a boost. I wanted to give you guys a heads-up. Should have a location really soon. You’re in the general area already, as this took place just outside of Atlanta.”

We were maybe a half hour north of Atlanta already so that was great news to hear. “Sho, you’re awesome.”

“I do try. I’ll keep on this, but right now, this is my best lead for you.”

“And we appreciate it.”

My phone rang again, but this time it was Gonzalez.

“Sho, got to hang up.”

“Sure, bye.”

I ended the call and answered Gonzalez. “Hey. Sho just said he found a location?”

“Good, you’re almost caught up. Just spoke to the woman who posted the video, she’s an aunt of the birthday kid. Said the clown they hired left twenty minutes ago but the party’s still going on. We’ve asked her to move it inside, which they’re doing now. I’m shooting you an address. Meet us there.”

“That we can do.”

“Also, are you sure we can’t have Sho?”

“Pretty sure, man. Lots of people are very attached to Sho.”

“Dammit. Fine. Meet you there.”

Sho had job security, if nothing else. The FBI would love to get their hooks into him.

The address popped up on my screen and I immediately opened Maps and got navigation started. When Sho said we were in the general area, he hadn’t been kidding. Location was in Smyrna, which was north and a tad west of Atlanta. Sweet, that meant we were about twenty minutes away. Sho, bless your timing. Otherwise, we would have needed to backtrack.

“Babe, not this exit, but it’s the next one you’ll need to take.”

Jon nodded and flicked the blinker on. “Got it. Ugh, finally, a lead on this guy. I thought he was playing ghost or something.”

Certainly felt that way.

Jon drove to the address like he knew precisely where to go, and we almost beat Gonzalez and Marc there. They pulled in about twenty seconds before we did, so we parked right behind them. It was kind of aKeystone Copsmoment as we all piled out of the car and toward the house.

A tall Black woman with a lot to love met us at the door, looking distraught. “Um, Agents?”

“That’s us,” Marc answered, pulling out his badge to show. “Marc Gonzalez.”

“I’m Serena. Lord, y’all are scaring me. How bad is this guy?”

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