Page 73 of Jon's Helter Skelter Cold Case

“In a nutshell. He’s taking a nap right now—we were up until dawn this morning—but I’ll wake him up in about two hours and inform him we’re going. How about that?”

“Sounds good to me. Um. We need to leave tomorrow morning, though. Want me to swing by and grab you? You can just ride with us.”

“Sure, works for me.”

Curiosity overcame me and I had to ask. “If it was an all-nighter, did you guys save them?”

“Fortunately. It was a carjacking case, but there were twin boys in the back seat.”

“Oh shit.”

“Pretty much our reaction. Because the car was constantly moving, it took Grant all night to find the location when they actually did stop. Boys were okay. I mean, hungry, needing a diaper change, but otherwise all right. They’re not even two, so I don’t think this will be something they even remember.”

Fortunately for them. No wonder Grant had burned up so many hours, though. “I’m glad to hear it. Well, be ready to roll by nine. I’ll let you know if the plan changes.”

“Will do.” Alan hung up.

“Uh, Master?” Abby called from the bar.

“Yes, my young grasshopper?”

“Donovan wants to know why he got a random address from Marc.”

“Text him back and say we’re chasing down a perp tomorrow with Grant and Alan.”

“Okay.”

I loved apprentices who could text for me. Since I, y’know, couldn’t.

Even as I called Marc back to confirm Grant and Alan were available and coming with us, I had a feeling I’d spend more time on the phone coordinating with people than actually packing for this trip.

Hopefully, though, this would be the break in the case that we needed. It was all well and good to free Dwayne, but I was stillhalf convinced his sister was alive. I wanted to catch the perp who did all this even if she wasn’t. A rogue Materializer loose in the world was the perfect nightmare fodder. No thank you. Seriously, no thank you.

Now. Hopefully, with mine, Grant’s, and Marc’s powers combined, we could catch this sonuvabitch.

25

I must say, doing a road trip with both Grant and Alan was much more fun than I’d anticipated. For one thing, Grant had somewildstories to tell, and he had a flair for telling them, so it helped the miles pass. For another, Alan had caught us up this morning on how much he’d learned from this case and a few others.

It was quite the update.

Jon was driving, which let me twist in my seat so I could more easily speak to the two in the back.

“What do you mean, you’re going to get FBI funding for this book?” Out of all the things my cousin could’ve said next, I hadn’t expected that.

Alan shrugged, but I could tell from that smug smile he was pleased with himself. “Gonzalez made good on his promise. I showed him a sample chapter—the one I wrote on Grant—and he went from interested to eager to have it. He somehow wrangled an appointment with the head of the FBI, and they’re reviewing my rough draft right now.”

“Holy shit, that’s awesome!”

Grant snorted dryly. “Honey, tell him how big it is.”

With all the psychic types, I expected large, but Grant’s expression hinted at a freakin’ tome. “How big?”

“It’s at two hundred thousand words,” Alan admitted. “Authors and publishers go by word count over page count, but in layman’s terms, about a thousand pages?”

I let out a low whistle. “Daaaaaayum.”

“Rather hard to not let it balloon to that size. Each psychic type has a description of what they can do, their known limitations, an interview from a psychic of that specialty, plus a well-known case that showcases the ability. It’s about thirty pages per type, thereabouts.”

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