him, he'd gone on vacation with a couple of friends. It also happened to be the same weekend as the PLG tournament in Denver that year, yet his alibi had been in Pueblo. There was a college there.
Sometime that night, Zara pulled him to bed, but Jason couldn't stop thinking that there was something he was missing. Something was staring him right in the face, and he couldn't figure it out! But when his woman slipped lower under the covers, he stopped thinking about anything but her hands and mouth. Yep, she knew exactly how to help him relieve a little stress.
That led to him returning the favor. The damned bed squeaked loudly, making it very clear what they were doing, but he didn't care at all. Zara wasn't exactly the kind to enjoy herself in silence either. And when they finished, both of them were giggling about it.
But he was right back at his computer on Sunday morning. Bradley sent back everything he could find on the five men who'd been charged with Dez's assault. Jason was reading over their basic files when one thing stood out: Pueblo, Colorado. That was the previous address of the third guy to die. Just because he could, Jason looked at the history of the six men he knew, and that was when it all made sense.
Arturo Ganza had gone to Baylor University in Dallas. The third man had attended college in Pueblo. They were all roughly the same age. Within five years, at least. Another guy lived in Austin, which was where Dez had been abducted. All of them shared just enough that they'd either been very close friends - which negated the need to use their fake color names - or there was something much bigger going on.
Without thinking, he grabbed his phone and dialed the one guy who could get even deeper. It rang, then rang some more. Finally a strange voice answered, "Knock's phone, it's fucking early."
Jason looked at the clock, realizing it wasn't even eleven a.m. on a Sunday morning, which meant ten in Texas. "Cade?" he asked.
"Mhm. Who's this?" Yeah, the guy had clearly just woken up.
"Cynister. I need Knock."
"Jeff," Cade said. "Hey. It's Cyn. Sounds like he needs something. Wake up, baby."
Jason pressed a hand over his mouth to hold in the laugh. Yeah, those guys were cute. But a moment later the phone crackled like it was being passed over, and a woman's voice came over the line. "Cyn?" That had to be Jericho.
"Are all three of you in bed together?" he asked.
"Don't knock it until you try it," she shot back. "What's up?"
"I need a deep background on six men. Deep, as in I'm looking for any crimes against women that would've happened in towns where they lived during a specific timeframe."
"When?" she demanded, and it sounded like she was moving.
"Jeri!" Knock groaned in the background. "Give me my phone."
"Put on pants," she said. "We need all of Ruin. He's got work. Cade? Would you -"
"Make coffee," Cade finished.
Then Jericho was back. "I need dates, Cyn. I need the names of these people. Anything you have on them really."
"Well, four are dead," he admitted. "Two are alive. I need ties between them, any ties to gamer girl violence would be a bonus, but I have a feeling this will be something random against women. Put unsolved cases at the top. And if you can back-trace those five prisoners, their online communication, and where the hell they were all converging before they were arrested, that's a huge help, but it's from eight years ago."
"Shit," she breathed. "That's not going to be easy, but let me get the whole crew on it. I'll even pull in Jinxy, Hottie, and Zoe. We'll make something happen. May not be what you want, but it'll be something."
"Which is better than nothing," he told her. "I'm tired of chasing this guy. The FBI just got embarrassed, and that gives us a lot more room to work. Do what you need to. I'll cover it."
The girl chuckled softly. "That's exactly what we like to hear. Hey, Cyn?"
"Yeah?" He was braced for anything from this girl.
"I'm gonna break the law a little. Fuck playing by the rules. This is our internet, right?"
"Yes, it is," he agreed. "Tear down the walls, Jericho. Tear them all down."
Chapter 9
The sound of someone clattering up and down the stairs pulled Riley from sleep. She rolled over, looked at the clock, and groaned. Before noon on a