Buried: A Bone Secrets Novel Part 9

Gerald's phone vibrated in his car console. He popped it open and scowled at the screen. Already? He's asking for an update already? s.h.i.t. He hit the green b.u.t.ton.

"Yeah."

"What the f.u.c.k happened this morning? What did you do? There are cops crawling all over the Jacobs house."

Gerald's chest tightened. An adult bully. Gerald overlooked it because he knew it meant his boss was sweating a bit. And he liked the pleasure from putting his boss in that situation.

He had control. Not his boss.

"I was looking for a lead on her brother. You knew that. I didn't expect her to come home so fast. She might have got a bit banged up on my way out."

He wasn't about to mention that the woman had neatly handed his a.s.s to him.

"What'd you find?"

"I've got a stack of paperwork and mail to look through. A couple of address books, too." He lied.

"I got something that'll work a bit faster for you."

"Like what?"

"Michael Brody, a reporter, is showing an unnatural interest in Jamie Jacobs."

"I figured he was watching the story pretty close because of his brother, but you mean a personal interest in the woman?" Gerald's gut twisted in an odd way. Something about Brody and Jamie together didn't sit right with him.

"Exactly. A personal interest. And I know this guy. When he's got his nose deep in a story, nothing gets in his way. He's gonna dig until he unearths Chris Jacobs."

"You want me to wait and follow him?"

"See? You're smart. That's why I hired you. Other than the one big f.u.c.k-up way back, you usually pull things through."

Gerald swallowed the bitter words he wanted to hurl at the man. "You know me best, boss."

"d.a.m.n right. And don't ever forget I own your a.s.s."

Ditto.

"You want to explain to me what you're doing in the d.a.m.ned bull's-eye of this case?"

"Not my fault," Michael said into his phone. Detective Mason Callahan could b.i.t.c.h all he wanted, but Michael knew the man held a grudging respect for him. And vice versa.

"I could swear I told you to stay away from the Jacobs woman."

Michael ignored him. "They told you he beat her up pretty good?"

"Yeah, she okay?"

"She will be." Michael leaned against the fender of his truck, twisting to catch sight of Jamie. She still sat on her lawn, the Mylar blanket next to her on the gra.s.s, trying to recall the tats she'd seen. A cop handed her a bottled water and squatted beside her as she sketched, studying her drawing.

"I was told the attacker wanted to know the whereabouts of Chris Jacobs. And that he told her he'd made the scars on her brother's face."

"That's right," said Michael. "And threatened to do the same to her."

"Doesn't mean he's the one who actually made the marks on her brother. It was even in newspaper articles back then that the boy had been burned with cigarettes," Callahan stated.

Michael didn't have an answer for that.

"What reason could he have to want her brother if it's not because Chris might get some of his memory back and identify him?" Michael argued.

"Maybe he owes him money," Callahan quipped.

"f.u.c.k you."

Callahan laughed. "I'll interview Jamie. Hear what she has to say."

Michael wasn't done. "She thinks he was in his late forties, maybe early fifties. That'd put him at the right age to pull that s.h.i.t twenty years ago."

"I'm not saying he didn't. Christ, Brody. I'll follow up. Right now I've got a stack of children's autopsy reports on my desk. I take a break from reading them every fifteen minutes to go punch the wall, I get so p.i.s.sed. After I get through those reports, I have a smaller stack from the pit with the adult remains. I'll make you a deal. I'll swap jobs with you. You read, and I'll drive around town in the sun, getting a tan and sticking my nose into other people's business."

"I get it, Callahan."

The detective's voice lowered. "I'll get to her, Brody. I want the b.a.s.t.a.r.d as bad as you do."

"Impossible," Michael muttered.

"Too bad he's so average looking. Nothing really stands out visually."

"What?" Michael stood straighter. "Didn't they mention the tattoos?"

"Tattoos?" Callahan asked sharply.

"Tats on the backs of his wrists. Jamie got the impression they went a lot farther up his arms."

Callahan's swearing made Michael pull the phone away from his ear.

"What?" Michael said when Callahan stopped to catch a breath. "What the f.u.c.k is up with the tats?"

"We've got pictures."

"Pictures? Pictures from what?"

Callahan had turned away from his phone and was urgently talking to someone in the background.

"Callahan. What pictures?" Michael spoke through clenched teeth.

"Lusco's pulling them up. f.u.c.king pervert."

"Lusco?" Michael could hear the other detective's voice in the background now.

"No, Jamie's attacker."

Michael was ready to strangle the detective. "What the f.u.c.k are you talking about?"

Callahan cleared his throat. "We found pictures in the bunker. Old Polaroids. Sick Polaroids. They weren't even hidden. They were just left on one of the shelves for anyone to find."

Michael's stomach turned to pure acid. Daniel?

"The creep took some nasty pics of those kids. His hands, or someone's hands, show in some of them. There're tats on the wrists."

"His wrists?"

"Yeah, they don't look like they go up his arms. Forearms are clear. It's just a few Asian characters on the backs of the wrists. Pretty big, though. About an inch and a half in diameter."

"You can't see his face?" Michael asked. His head suddenly felt weightless. He leaned on his elbows on his hood, head down.

"Not of him. Just the kids. Nothing else shows of the adult."

Michael didn't want to know any more. No details. His brain was supplying too many details of its own.

"What'd Jamie say the tattoos looked like?" Callahan asked.

"She didn't say. She's working on some sketches with the cops. I don't know if she saw specifics. She said there were a lot of them."

"He could have added to them."

"Hang on, Callahan." Michael strode over to the lawn where Jamie sat. "Hey, princess, you come up with any images yet?"

Jamie gave him a weak smile. "Don't call me princess, please." She looked down at her paper. "I don't know what I'm doing. I can't picture them."

"I told her to start with just colors," the cop next to her said. "Then add stark lines or shapes."

"Let me see." Michael held his hand out for the paper.

It appeared she'd traced her own hands and wrists for the outlines. She'd made muted multicolored swirls that started at mid-forearm and spread nearly to the knuckles. The colors intensified on the backs of the hands. Blues, reds, greens.

Directly on the wrists, over the colors, she'd drawn thick black crisscrossing slashes, like pound signs.

Acid from Michael's stomach burned up his esophagus.

"It's him," he said into the phone. "We'll be downtown in thirty minutes."

At the police station, the young woman in front of Mason looked like she'd been brutalized, but she held her chin up, her stance solid, her back straight. Jamie Jacobs was tough, and he admired that. Looked like Brody was admiring her, too. Mason hadn't ever seen him hover over a woman like this before. He'd been plenty protective of that little dentist, Lacey Campbell, but that was in a big-brother type of way.

Mason caught his partner's gaze, and Ray Lusco nodded with a wry smile, agreeing. Looked like the reporter had been hit in the head with a love stick.

The bandages on her face p.i.s.sed him off, and Mason knew she had more under her light pants. She was agitated, trying to reach someone on her cell who wasn't picking up.

"Are you sure it's the right number?" Brody asked her.

"Yes! It's in my contacts and in the call history. I know it's right, but it's been disconnected."

"Has he ever left you without a way to reach him before?"

"Never. There's always been a phone number. Sometimes he doesn't get right back to me, but he's never done anything like this before."

Mason interrupted. "You're talking about your brother?"

Unusual light green eyes looked to him.

Holy c.r.a.p. No wonder Brody's smitten.

"Yes, and no, I don't know where he is. But he's always left me a number to call in the past. Maybe someone got to him...like that guy got to me today."

Brody carefully took her hands, getting her to look at him. "Jamie, you've told me how smart your brother is. I think he's well aware that someone from his past could one day seek him out. I think that's part of the reason he left and why he doesn't let you know how to find him. I have no doubt he's gone deeper into hiding."

Mason raised a mental eyebrow at Brody's soft and rea.s.suring tone. Yep. He's in deep.

Jamie stared at Brody for a few seconds and then nodded. "We need to warn him, though. He should at least know what happened to me today."

Mason cleared his throat. "Let's talk about that." He waved a hand at two chairs. "Have a seat."

Ray tactfully and thoroughly led Jamie through the events of the day. Surprisingly, Brody kept his mouth shut but watched everyone in the room like a hawk.

Mason only interrupted once, directing a question to Brody. "You traced his call?"

"Yep."

"How?"

Brody said nothing and just looked back at Mason.

"Okay. Fine. I suppose you're still planning a trip to find him?"

Again, Brody just looked at Mason and then asked a question of his own. "Tell me about the tattoos in the pictures."

Mason noted he didn't ask what else was in the pictures. He only wanted to hear about the tattoos.

Mason moved Jamie's sketch of hands and wrists to the center of the table. "There's a lot more color and detail here than in the pictures. Possibly, he's added ink." Mason pulled out four hazy close-ups of wrists that they'd created off the Polaroids. The pictures weren't the greatest, but anyone could see that the tattoos in the pictures were in the exact same position and same size as the black marks on Jamie's drawings.

Jamie stared at the close-ups. "Those are them. They've been enhanced with design and colors. It must be the same person."

Mason shook his head, but Ray spoke up first. "No, we have to keep open the possibility that two people could have the same black tattoos. Maybe they're a.s.sociated with each other. Maybe some sort of private, sick club."

Brody snorted.

Mason agreed with Brody's sentiment, but he knew better than to jump to conclusions. "We know it's unlikely to be two different people, but we won't rule it out. Yet. I've pa.s.sed the Polaroids and drawing to a detective in the gang unit. No one knows more about tattoos than this guy. And if nothing jumps out at him from the images, then he knows who to ask and where to look."

"I doubt it's gang related," Brody argued. "We're talking about a white guy with tattoos from twenty years ago. To me that makes the tattoos sound more military related or foreign."