Page 105 of Spooked

“Do you have any other questions?” Ari continued. “I’m sorry if I haven’t talked things through with you enough—my mind’s going at a hundred miles an hour on a case like this, and I don’t tend to take time away from the nitty-gritty to provide a full report if that hasn’t been requested.”

“I have a hundred questions, but I suppose the most important one is why are we still sitting here?”

“Because there are times when you push, and times when you hold back to see what unfolds. Things are unfolding. Silvio is spooked, and when people are nervous, they make mistakes. Let’s see what Jerry and Tulsa find. Plus Alexa’s a cyber guru, and she’ll be taking a look at that phone as soon as it reaches her.”

“I just feel so…so helpless.”

“I feel better knowing that Alexa’s involved. Her methods are unorthodox, but she gets results.”

“I wish they’d tell us what they’re doing.”

“There’s a part of me that does too. But a bigger part would rather stay in the dark. When Alexa dodges questions, it’s usually because I won’t like the answers, and I suspect Jerry and Tulsa are cut from the same cloth.”

“Jerry scares me a bit.”

“Me too. But at least she’s on our side.”

CHAPTER37

BRAX

“What the fuck?” Brax asked.

Jerry paused halfway across the kitchen. “Relax. Go back to bed.”

“Relax? How the hell can I relax? You’re carrying a body.” A man, judging by the shape, and reasonably slender. The bag over his head hid his identity. “Is he dead?”

“No, just sleepy. And technically, I’m only carrying half of him.”

Because Tulsa had the feet. But that didn’t make the situation any better.

“Explain.”

Brax had known they were up to something. When he’d spoken with Alexa earlier, she’d been even more evasive than usual, although Jerry’s caginess was nothing new. But this… Brax had been known to skirt the law on occasion, but he’d never kidnapped anybody.

“Since the cops seem hesitant to ask Silvio questions, we figured we’d try the DIY approach.”

“Have you lost your damn mind? My girlfriend is upstairs, waiting for me to bring her a drink, and there’s an unconscious murder suspect in the kitchen. What are you going to do after you’ve questioned him? Give him Tylenol and let him go back home?”

Jerry considered the question for a moment. “Probably not. It depends on how involved he was in Meera’s disappearance.”

“Right now, we don’t know for sure that he was involved at all.”

“Yeah, we do. You never used to be this uptight, Brax.”

“And you never used to be a raging psychopath.”

Tulsa blew out a breath. “Ouch. Ex-lovers’ tiff.”

“Wrong. I’m the same person I always was,” Jerry said. “You were just too busy fucking me to notice.”

“That’s—”

Jerry held up a hand, dropping one side of Silvio in the process. His head hit the terracotta tiles with acrackthat made Brax wince.

“I’m not done. You asked for help, and we’re here providing that help. The brief was to find Meera Adams as quickly as possible, and that’s what we’re doing. But if you prefer, we can go surfing, and you can ask the police nicely if they’d mind interrogating this piece of shit. Up to you, dude. I get results. I don’t play by some arbitrary set of rules.”

Whatever Jerry said, this wasn’t the woman Brax had known a decade ago. She was tougher, more confident, and that confidence had turned her into a brick wall. Hard and unforgiving. Kind of like Alexa, but with added duct tape and no agoraphobia.

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