CHAPTER 33 JERRY
JERRY
If Jez had to list her least favourite activities, surveillance would certainly have made the top ten. But hunting for the proverbial needle in the haystack of flora and fauna that was the Virginia wilderness? In the rain?
That was worse.
With a multitude of possible dump sites, extra womanpower was needed for the search in Fairfax County.
Barbie had taken over the surveillance of Serafina down in Richmond, and Jez had travelled north as Echo worked through the night, analysing satellite photos of the land Justin owned to come up with a shortlist of likely locations based on Jez’s criteria.
There were so many assumptions, the biggest being that they were dealing with a foe that thought the way she did. A pro. A planner.
He’d been paying Amie for information for years, so it was entirely possible that she’d passed him a list of Norquist’s properties.
She wouldn’t have seen the harm in such an innocuous request, would she?
Because she thought like a dumb PA who’d sell out her boss for a quick buck, not an operator who could exploit the tiniest piece of information to their advantage.
Anyhow, the team had an initial list of seven properties to search.
All were empty of tenants and had reasonable vehicular access, enough undergrowth to hide a body, and a lake or ravine nearby that could be used to conceal a car.
The problem? The smallest piece of land was seventeen acres.
And the largest? Over a hundred. There would be ten people searching, and only six were competent—Jez, Ari, Dawson, and Chase, plus two Choir girls.
Spider was more at home breaking and entering, but Sin would at least bring Kermit, the pet mutt she’d begun training as a cadaver dog.
The problem? Kermit lived in Vegas. He was allergic to rain, mud, and every other type of inclement weather.
Brax had press-ganged Grey, Zach, and Nolan into showing up.
They were all in this together, he insisted.
Jez figured the trio might hinder rather than help, but Nolan understood how to take orders, Zach could do a coffee run, and her inner sadist wanted to see Grey wade through mud in Brioni loafers.
And this gloomy hillside near Culpeper was a quagmire in places.
The lock had been broken off the gate, and the track Echo noted from the satellite photos wound into the trees.
A quarter mile into the tangle, they knew there was an old cabin, the perfect place to stash a kidnap victim if a man felt so inclined.
Or was it? Now that Jez was here in person, she saw tyre tracks, too many tyre tracks.
This place was in regular use. But who was coming here?
Hunters with no respect for trespass laws?
Kids looking for a make-out spot? Or Diamondback Devils scouting for a dump site?
Echo and Sin were both working every source they had to get background on the motorcycle club, but both were spread thin on the ground.
Sin had even tried calling Hawk Hauser, but Hawk had told her that Uncle Sam could fuck off.
So she’d called him back again to explain she was working in a more personal capacity this week, and he’d grudgingly told her that “the Devils are assholes, but not that kind of assholes.”
Huh.
When Jez looked back on the whole disastrous series of events, she realised Hawk’s half-assed warning was the first real hint of what was to come.
The first inkling that the Blackstone affair was more fucked up than they’d ever suspected.
But that gloomy Friday morning, she’d just hopped out of her SUV, laser-focused on proving Justin’s innocence and Levi’s guilt.
Spider climbed out of the passenger side and stretched, her back stiff after being stuck on an airplane and then in a car. Ari exited from the rear, followed by Sin, who waited by the door.
“Hey, Kermit! Time to go to work.”
Kermit, a shelter special of questionable parentage—he had the colouring of a German shepherd, the ears of a basset hound, and the haughtiness of a poodle—jumped out of the car, turned around, and jumped right back in again.
“Fuck,” Sin muttered as Jez started laughing.
Brax drew up alongside them with Grey riding shotgun, and the look on Grey’s face was more pained than the dog’s.
“Why the hell am I here?” he groaned as he reluctantly got out. Yup, loafers. Called it.
“To support one of your few true friends in his hour of need,” Brax told him, and then Grey spotted Jez.
“Why the hell are you here?” he asked.
“Good to see you too, jackass.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“Clearly not. Tell me you brought boots.”
“I have a spare pair,” Chase said, always the Boy Scout.
He’d collected Zach and Nolan from the airport, dropped off their luggage at Brax’s place, and driven them straight here.
Nolan was at least wearing a parka, and Ari must have reminded Zach to look at a weather forecast because he’d brought a knit cap and a scarf.
Dawson was riding in the back of Brax’s Porsche Cayenne, and he’d come prepared for an expedition, in body if not in spirit. Violet had also offered to put on a pair of gumboots, but Dawson said “no way” and left her at Nyx.
Jez ignored the nosy glances and the judgment that came with the “volunteers,” and summarised the events to date for the benefit of the newcomers. There were no pleasantries. They hadn’t been slammed back together out of choice, and she wanted to get this over with as fast as possible.
“We’ve divided the territory into sections. Nolan, you and Zach can work together, and Grey, you go with Brax.”
Dawson was no fool, Ari and Chase were both reasonably capable, and Jez trusted Spider and Sin with her life. They’d be fine on their own, if Sin could just get Kermit out of the damn car.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Grey asked.
“A body. Possibly a shallow grave, but I doubt it—the ground’s been frozen for weeks. So much for global warming.”
“Climate change, my dear. Not global warming.” Grey took his position on the Environment subcommittee seriously, a rarity among congresspeople.
“Whatever. If my theory is correct, the body won’t be too well hidden.”
“Unless she’s well-wrapped, you’ll smell her before you see her,” Spider put in, and Grey turned a faint shade of green.
“Can’t you get the cops to do this? That’s their job.”
“Firstly, they’ve fucked up just about every aspect of the investigation so far. And secondly, I want to check out the body before they do.”
“Why on earth would you want to do that?”
For Jez to see if she was right. To see whether Amie’s killer had staged her to resemble Ruby.
If they found a body all the way out here, then good news—Justin was clearly off the hook.
He simply wouldn’t have had the opportunity to drive out to Culpeper on the evening Amie disappeared, not with Jessalyn acting like a limpet.
But with Justin removed as a suspect, this might be the only chance they got to take a good look at the body.
Sure, Echo could rustle up a copy of the autopsy report, but that would show someone else’s observations.
A snapshot rather than immersion. Jez needed to see the scene for herself.
Because even if Justin was eliminated from the investigation, she wasn’t walking away. Levi was fucking with them. And unless somebody showed him the error of his ways, he’d try again.
“Because I know CPR,” she said.
“Are you fucking kidding—” Grey started, but she held up a hand.
“You’re wasting time.”
“I wasn’t even there when Ruby died.”
“We know. You never stop reminding us. But you did get catfished by an undercover reporter, ran your mouth, and basically told her Ruby was a slut.”
“That wasn’t inaccurate.”
“She was dead, and she was our friend. Did you have to destroy her reputation as well?”
And it wasn’t just Ruby he’d insulted. No, he’d told Wendy Turner from the Richmond Chronicle that Jez was a bitch, Justin was dull, Brax was ruthless, Zach was a manwhore who never took anything seriously, Nolan was uptight, and Dawson was too nice to make it in business.
None of which was untrue, and Grey swore she’d embellished his words, but it still hurt to see those words from “a source close to the investigation” splashed across the front page.
At least he’d been smart enough to leave Echo out of it, although if he hadn’t, he’d be living like an eighteenth-century monk because she’d fuck with every electronic gadget he owned.
“I said I was sorry.”
“Now you can show it.” Jez dismissed him with a flick of her wrist. “Get to work.”
Sin put a set of boots on Kermit, and a waterproof coat, and bribed him with snacks, and the dog finally deigned to join the hunt.
He looked about as enthusiastic as Jez felt.
As Grey cursed and tried to pull a borrowed boot out of the mud, Jez trooped into the trees, wishing she’d put a bullet through Levi Sykes’s head a decade ago when she had the chance.