Page 104 of Slow Burn (The Boston Beauties)

DREW

I heard a light rapping at the bedroom door. I turned over to see light pouring in from the living room. ‘Drew?’ Breton’s voice came from the almost-closed door.

I sat up. ‘Yeah, man,’ I called back as he opened the door. ‘Anything?’

‘Not yet, we just got here,’ he told me. ‘We’re going to start setting up.’

I nodded, ‘Let me splash some water on my face and I’ll be right out.’

I ended up taking a much-needed quick shower and changing into pair of jeans and a t-shirt.

When I walked out to the living room, two other guys were setting up computers on the large table in the dining room, and Breton was in the kitchen making coffee. ‘I just placed an order for breakfast sandwiches and shit from uber eats.’

I took a seat at the island and watched the two guys in my dining room hooking up equipment.

‘Nyall, Tom,’ Breton called out and the men looked up and stopped what they were doing to join us in the kitchen, taking the cups of coffee that sat next to me. ‘This is Drew, my best friend and Jessa’s husband.’

They both extended their hands and I shook them. ‘Nice to meet you,’ Tom told me.

‘Nyall helped with getting Jessa off the boat,’ Breton offered, and I looked up to the massive guy.

‘Thanks, any leads on getting my wife back?’

‘Not yet. We weren’t able to do much on the airplane, we had spotty satellite internet, but the software we use needs pretty fast internet. We’re just setting it all up now, should be ready to go in another ten minutes or so.’

‘Catch us up,’ Breton asked, taking a seat next to me as the two guys went to set up the equipment in the dining room and Breton opened up a laptop that was in a pelican case.

I told them what had happened; the play by play. Tom asked some follow-up questions from the next room, making mental and written notes.

What was found, why I thought it was Lisa, the cops and the bitchy Detective Landry.

‘She’s a hard-ass,’ Breton said. ‘I went to school with one of her kids back in the day.’

I was operating on autopilot, regurgitating the information as I knew it, drinking my coffee only because it was in front of me and eating when Breton reminded me. I had been up less than an hour and I was already pacing. I tried to check email and text with Joe, but my mind was everywhere other than with work. I tuned out the news that was on in the background. Thankfully, this incident hadn’t made it to the news; there were strict instructions from the DA to keep this limited in scope for the time being.

We had already gone through a Public Relations nightmare. I would need to call Zoe soon to let her know if Steve hadn’t already. I didn’t think he had, as Zoe would have called me right away.

Steve and Colleen arrived shortly before nine in the morning with more food and coffee. The detectives showed up not long afterward.

‘What’s going on here?’ Detective Landry asked, seeing the small operations station set up on my dining room table, looking at everything with an evil scowl on her face.

Steve walked into the dining area. ‘This is my nephew Breton and his co-workers, and they are assisting on the case.’

‘I know who he is,’ she looked at Breton with a death glare, ‘I want to know who authorized this.’

‘Do you know where the fuck my cousin is?’ Breton asked, not even bothering to look at her and kept typing away at his keyboard.

‘We are working on it…’

‘How? Tell me what leads you have, who are your main suspects, what kind of car were they driving, what direction did they go?’ He drilled her with multiple questions.

He finally looked up at her. ‘Well?’

‘It is an ongoing investigation…’

I stepped in, ‘Do you have any updates for us?’

She looked at Breton and the two other men. ‘Not at the moment.’

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