Chapter Three #3
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “That’s the problem. If Shade betrayed me, we’re screwed. And if he didn’t betray me, then someone else is using his intel to manipulate us.”
Deacon’s pulse kicked up, slow and steady like a warning drum. This was bigger than a grief-stricken ex-operative like Wynn spiraling into violence.
Jessa stared down at her phone as if she could force it to ring just by willing it. No such luck. The silence stretched long and tight between them, filled with too many questions and not nearly enough answers.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s start with the obvious. Why the hell would Brett Calder, AKA Shade, help Wynn? He got paid off? That it?”
Jessa didn’t look convinced. “Money could be the reason. But Shade doesn’t work cheap, and Wynn isn’t exactly sitting on a tech fortune.”
“So extortion?” Deacon offered. “Blackmail? Somebody leaning on him?”
She hesitated, and that hesitation told him she’d considered it already. Hell, she’d probably been considering it since the second Shade went dark.
“Maybe,” she murmured. “But then there’s the other angle. Shade’s a survivor. He doesn’t get involved in messes he can’t walk away from. And Wynn is… a mess.”
Deacon grunted agreement. “So if he’s helping Wynn, it’s either for something bigger than money, or Shade’s not the one pulling his strings.”
“That’s what scares me.” Her voice dropped. “Because if someone else is orchestrating this, Wynn could be just the weapon.”
“And that someone hasn’t shown their face yet,” Deacon finished.
Jessa nodded, her jaw tight.
Deacon shifted the conversation, because the next name on the suspect list was gnawing at him. “What about Corbin?”
She looked up sharply. “What about him?”
“You said Shade might be pulled into this for money or leverage,” Deacon said. “But Corbin? His connection’s personal.” He paused, watching her reaction. “Lauren didn’t adopt him along with Roman. That’s the story, right?”
Jessa’s expression flickered, something like guilt, something like sorrow, but it was gone in a heartbeat.
“Corbin was never meant to be her foster,” she said quietly. “Not long-term. Lauren got Roman out of a bad situation and Corbin was part of the same foster home for only a few months. She didn’t have the resources to take them both.”
“But he thought she should’ve,” Deacon said.
“He was sixteen,” Jessa replied. “Angry. Sure he’d been passed over. But Lauren didn’t choose Roman instead of him. She simply couldn’t take both.”
Deacon wasn’t convinced. “Some people hold onto anger for years over less.”
“Corbin?” She shook her head. “He holds grudges, yeah. But that? It doesn’t feel like enough. Not for this. Not for murder, ambush, surveillance, all of it. That’s more than a childhood resentment.”
Deacon studied her, watched the tension coiled tight around her shoulders. “But he’s still in the mix.”
“He is,” she admitted. “And that worries me.”
Deacon had to agree. Corbin’s sudden appearance tonight hadn’t sat right with him. Not the timing, not the attitude, not the way he’d watched Jessa as if he was keeping score.
Noah slid his phone into his coat pocket and came back toward them, the tension rolling off him like heat from asphalt. Whatever he’d heard, it had carved new hard lines into his face.
“I’m sorry,” he said, stopping in front of them. “I’ve got to go. A mission just went sideways. I need to get back to Crossfire Ops and get my secondary team on it.”
The shift in him was instant. Deacon had seen that change a hundred times over the years. Noah didn’t leave fires unattended.
“Give me a couple of hours,” Noah continued. “Then maybe you two can come out to HQ and we can put our heads together. Or…” His gaze flicked to Deacon. “…I can come to the sheriff’s office instead.”
Deacon didn’t hesitate. “Sheriff’s office is better. Jessa needs to give her statement, too.”
Jessa stiffened beside him, and Noah noticed. His attention snapped to her with a mixture of concern and something Deacon couldn’t quite read. Maybe guilt. Maybe the beginning of questions he wasn’t ready to ask.
“Understood,” Noah said quietly. “Two hours.”
He gave Deacon one last look. A silent acknowledgment of how bad this night had gotten. How bad it could still get. Then he turned and strode down the hallway, the automatic doors sliding open just long enough to let a blast of cold air roll inside.
The doors slid shut behind Noah, the cold air fading, leaving a heavy quiet in its wake. Deacon turned back to Jessa, and she stood there rigid, arms folded, eyes darting everywhere but at him.
He’d let her dodge long enough.
“Spill it,” he said quietly. Not angry. Not demanding. Just done with being kept in the dark.
Jessa’s breath hitched, barely, but he caught it. She looked past him, toward the waiting room chairs, the scuffed tile floor, anywhere that wasn’t his face. Her throat worked in a swallow.
“One of the secrets Wynn is peddling…” she began, voice so low he had to lean in to catch it, “is the reason for the rift that happened between my mother and me.” She finally looked at him. “And that secret is I’m Noah Riggs’ biological daughter.”