“Like you?”
Jay smiled. “Yes. The point, however, is not my hacking, but rather your place in all this.”
Dr. Daniels bristled. “If you think for even half a second that I’d ever having anything to do with something like that—”
“I don’t. If I did, there’d have been no point in speaking to you.”
“So, let’s just say for a minute that I believe all this rubbish. What makes you think I’d risk getting entangled in it?”
Jay tilted his head to the side, regarding her closely. “Because, fifteen years ago, your daughter visited Seattle. She never returned. Her body was found almost a year later. The report, from what they could tell, showed that she had been tortured, her body broken in specific ways. Cause of death was assumed to be drowning though this wasn’t confirmed.”
Dr. Daniels had turned pale. Jay stopped talking as she fell back against another table. He took a small step forward and her eyes darted to his.
“I believe my friend has been taken by the same monster who took your daughter. I want you to help us stop him. For good.”
She shook her head. “No. The killer was caught.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Your tails are getting anxious,” Gregory murmured.
“Keep them busy.”
Dr. Daniels watched Gregory leave and slowly pushed herself up. “I’m done talking nonsense with you. If that really is—”
“It is easily proved. Open a drawer.”
She eyed him for a moment but seemed to decide he wasn’t a total madman. Slowly, she pushed the barrier aside and pulled open a drawer. Jay took in no more than the blond hair before looking away.
“The damage to her body will match your daughter's.”
Dr. Daniels ignored him, moving from drawer to drawer, opening and shutting them.
“I want to see the files. Now.”
Jay shook his head. “I don’t want to risk your life. This finger was meant to be found by me, and I am meant to know who it belonged to. if you only do that, then they will not harm you.”
Jane Daniels marched up to him and although she only reached his shoulder, she seemed to be looking down on him. “One, I want your name. Two, I want to verify your claims, and three, if true, I will help you to the best of my ability to catch the real killer.”
Jay smiled softly. “Very well. Then for now, forget you saw those bodies. Take the cooler. Do what I have asked with the remains. Here is my email. If you add an asterisk after my name, it will trigger another email with an address. Go there, and you’ll meet a man named Gary Peters. He’s a private investigator. He’ll get you the information you want.”
She took the paper and glanced down, “Jayden Roe.”
She said the name as if it sounded familiar. Jay felt a fissure of worry crack through. If she had heard of him, it was likely because of the news sensation he had caused four years ago. Knowing he had been convicted for murdering an old woman would likely not help her to trust him any.
“Look into the files before you make any decisions,” he said then turned to leave. “I will do my best to protect you, but I can make no guarantees.”
Dr. Daniels smirked. “Don’t worry, Mr. Roe. I wouldn’t believe them anyway.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Dave leaned back from his computer and felt far more relaxed than he had earlier. He had returned from threatening his stooges to an empty house. A quick check had shown him that neither Jay nor the finger were in the house.
A quick call around his eyes and ears had given him enough to make him want to go to Stella and remove something altogether more vital. Jay had taken the finger to the police station and met with some unknown who had followed him in.
He had found enough there to be sure of two things. One, Jayden Roe had surpassed his abilities, managing to get enough on Jane Daniels to ensure she would prioritize the finger without alerting anyone else. Two, there was something off about the system. Dave hadn’t been lying when he had told Jay that he had spent much of his teenage years hacking and honing the skill. This laptop was set up in a very sophisticated way. More so than he believed Jay had the capability to produce. Not even he had been able to breach all the walls. He did, however, find an encrypted feed that seemed to link to an external source somewhere in Carthage.
He had sent it to his own computer and was now pleased that his own programming would soon dismantle the encryptions. He would soon learn one of Jay’s secrets.
The sensor he had monitoring the drive went off. He stifled the renewed flash of anger. He wanted to rush down the stairs and demand to know why Jay insisted on going behind his back all the time. Instead, he moved back into the other room and double-checked that he had left everything exactly as it had been before moving to the head of the stairs. He put on an expression of relief, ready to collapse it into irritation.
“Jay?” he called as Jay entered the kitchen. “Jesus. What the hell, Jay? If you didn’t want a partner this badly, you shouldn’t have offered me a job.”
Jay’s gray eyes had widened slightly as they took him in. “I got what I needed, so I took the finger into that forensic tech I mentioned.”
Dave pinched the bridge of his nose. “So you’ve been with Dr. Daniels this whole time?”
Jay turned to set down his keys as he answered. “Yes. Where’d you think I was?”
