“What the fuck 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 ass 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 fuck-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.”

“Damn right. And don’t ever forget I own your ass.”

Ditto.

“You want to explain to me what you’re doing in the damned bull’s-eye of this case?”

“Not my fault,” Michael said into his phone. Detective Mason Callahan could bitch 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 grass, 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.

“Fuck 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 shit 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 pissed. 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 bastard 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 fuck 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. Fucking 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 fuck 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.”