Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 83986 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83986 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
“Well, just don’t look for anything, anywhere, that you’re gonna get in trouble for. Search, don’t hack,” I told Owen, who was punching the keys on his laptop as screen after screen popped up.
“Why are you warning him?” Ash asked.
“Owen is a very accomplished hacker, so he needs to always be on the right side of the law, absolutely no question.”
Owen groaned. “I’m not a child. I know what not to do.”
When the silence dragged, he looked up at me.
“Listen, I haven’t hacked my way into any government agency in over two years.”
“Alert the media,” Nash grumbled, calling someone on speaker at the same time.
“Speak,” our boss ordered instead of greeting us.
“First off, Mr. Lennox is here with us,” Owen told him.
“Good morning, Mr. Lennox,” Jared Colter greeted him.
“Good morning, sir. Thank you for sending Owen and Nash here and making sure I didn’t have to deal with the FBI.”
“Of course,” he said gruffly. “Now, Owen, what do you need?”
“Okay, do you have access to the report about Voss’s crash site?”
“I do. Lemme get it open.”
“We’re wanting to know if there was any sign of movement around the car. Drag marks, footprints, anything at all.”
There was silence, and then our boss said, “No. Just the car, flipped on its side and burned.”
“All right,” Owen began, “from questioning Mr. Lennox, we think that Voss possibly killed the actor Kit Riggs, who would have played him in the movie Riggs and his team pitched to Mr. Lennox—that’s what was happening in those pictures: Mr. Lennox was having a pitch meeting with Riggs, who was impersonating Voss at the time, and Riggs’s two writers, Dennis Ing and Bob Abernathy. Furthermore, it would follow that Voss killed the writers—they’ve been missing since then, along with Riggs, but since they were not found in or around the car, he probably dumped their bodies somewhere else. We need to find them.”
“So the conclusion can be drawn that Voss killed Riggs so he can walk around free, presumed dead,” Jared stated. “Do we know that Riggs and Voss were in contact?”
“I’m looking for that now—Voss talking to Riggs or the writers. They would have wanted to get the facts from him.”
“I’ll talk to the Feds and give them this new information,” Jared told us. “The remains at the site are proving difficult to identify. They’re going with Voss being dead because it’s his Mercedes, but the gas tank exploded, so the fire burned really hot. There’s not much left.”
Ash got up then and left the room.
“Shit,” I groaned.
“What happened?” Jared asked.
“I forgot for a moment that we’re talking about Ash’s friend probably being dead. I think the finality of this just hit him.”
“Well, please, give him my condolences,” my boss said gently. “And yes, there’s a slim possibility that this is not what happened, but I think it’s far too much of a coincidence for Voss to be dead and Riggs to be missing over the exact same time period.”
“Agreed.”
“Okay,” he said with a sigh. “I think we’ve bothered Mr. Lennox enough. Again, please tell him how sorry we are, and Nash and Owen will clear out of there.”
“Before they go, can I get Owen to do something for me?”
I found Ash sitting on the end of our bed, looking absolutely wrung out for someone who had only woken up less than an hour ago.
Saying nothing, I closed the door behind me, walked over, and took a seat beside him. I put an arm around his shoulders and kissed his temple.
“I’m sorry I just walked out of the room, but—”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” I assured him. “Learning that your friend has probably been killed would be hard on anyone.”
We sat there together in silence for a while.
“Your friends must think I—”
“They think you’re great, and they’re looking forward to seeing you again.”
“Again? Did they leave?”
“Yeah.”
He groaned. “Shit. I wanted to say goodbye and tell them how much I appreciated that they made the trip out from Chicago just to keep me from being interrogated or—”
“You said that to our boss. That was more than enough.”
“Yes, but—”
“And you can tell them to their faces when you see them again,” I soothed him.
“When will that be?”
“Hopefully when you visit me, right?”
Jolting, he sat up straight and turned to look at me. “Shit. Yes, of course. I—God, what was I thinking? I’ll see them, of course I’ll see—”
“It’s okay.” My tone was gentle as I took his hand in mine.
“I don’t want to give you any reason to doubt me or my feel—”
“You haven’t. But just don’t worry about anything but your friend, all right?”
“But that’s the thing,” he said, exhaling deeply, holding my gaze. “And why I feel so shitty right now.”
I waited because he was working through something.
“I don’t know if I have the right to be sad.”