Page 113 of Devil and the Deep Blue Fish

Manning stared at them. “Your entire firm is batshit insane,” he said.

“Yes, we are,” Ellery told him. “And we also need to get a move on. Arthur was able to get us an appointment with Gannett Hoover in half an hour. With any luck, you’ll be caught up with Jackson by then, and you all can scope out the back entry onto the property to see if there are any other kids there or anything suspicious. The rest of us will take a look from the big house in the middle, and Jade will stay out with the car and do her own, uhm, assessment.”

“Snooping,” Jade said, a rather smug smile on her face. “You can be honest.”

“I don’t want to use that word with Hoover and Dwayne,” Ellery said primly. “Remember, our entire strategy is that they won’t notice you.”

Jade smiled contentedly. “Because I am a Black woman,” she said, tapping her temple. “Why you get paid the big bucks.”

Ellery snorted and shook his head. “For the last time,” he began, embarrassed in front of Manning.

“I don’t want to be a lawyer because I couldn’t do what you do,” she finished, and he narrowed his eyes at her. Oh dear Lord, so much bullshit. Times like this, and he could see the familyresemblance between Jade and Jackson and nobody could tell him different.

“Well, this time we can’t do what you’re going to do,” he said. “But be careful. If theydonotice you, they’ll be more likely to shoot you, and Jackson would never forgive me.”

“Neither would Henry,” Galen intoned dryly. “Do stay safe.”

Jade grinned up at Galen and patted his cheek. “Now from you, it sounds like you care.”

“But… wait… I’m not saying—” Ellery sputtered, and then she pattedhischeek and turned to the FBI agent still fussing over his pocket square.

“Are you about done?” she asked, and the young agent, dressed in the traditional black suit, held his hands up and backed off. “I thought so. Let’s drop this dude off and motor.”

And with that, Manning did one last check-in with the two follow cars before he and his partner lit out across the field toward the little flashing dot that represented Jackson on his phone, while Ellery and his mother gathered their briefcases and loaded into the Town Car, Ellery’s mother in the front.

“Don’t be nervous,” Galen reassured next to him as Jade took the car smoothly through the rolls and turns that this part of the country seemed to require from its roadways.

“I’m not,” Ellery retorted, trying not to think about why they hadn’t heard from Jackson during the drop-off.

“Then don’t be pissed off,” Galen said.

“These fuckers shot Henry,” Ellery told him, uncompromising. “Iampissed off.”

Galen blinked. “Well, then, so I shall be too. Because you’re right. These people aren’t here to play.”

“And neither are we,” Ellery said. And something about that consensus seemed to drive all the nerves out of his belly.

AS THEYturned into the next chamber, the reek of infection threatened to take Jackson and Cody out at the knees.

Then Preacher gave a happy little woof, and Preston praised him, and as Jackson and Cody entered the area—blessedly lighted from another path that appeared to creep up toward the surface—Damien said, “Guys, c’mere. He’s not hitting on a cadaver.”

And then they heard a small, faint moan.

Jackson’s eyes, which had become accustomed to the dark and the artificial beams of their flashlights, were now adjusting to the half light filtering in from the rise upward, and he could make out two crumpled heaps in the corner of the chamber, almost obscured by some stubborn granite boulders which probably hadn’t been shifted during the original mining.

Jackson sank next to the one that was moving, and he fought hard not to gag with the smell. As he pulled the mass of graying frizzy hair from the woman’s face, he could see the green pus seeping from the wound on her arm, and that alone would have confirmed her identity.

Retty had indeed become the package—and odds weren’t great that she’d make it out of here to be anything else.

“Retty?” Jackson murmured as Cody and Damien moved to the other body crumpled in the cave. Damien grunted in distaste, and Cody shook his head. Whoever it was—and from Jackson’s angle he could still see a slight feminine form in slacks and a green cardigan. He had no idea who this was, but nobody deserved to be dumped in a cave to die.

Preston was telling Preacher what a great dog he was, and Jackson wanted to second that, but at the moment, he needed some answers.

“Retty?” he said again.

“Loretta Jane,” she muttered. “Betty. My mom called me Betty.”

“That’s sweet,” he said, because as awful as she’d been to the kids, he’d gotten the sense from the investigation that shit trulyhadrolled downhill. She thought that’s how subordinates were treated because that’s howshehad been treated, probably her whole life.

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