Hello My Angel - Sue Brown Page 0,25
front of them, two more fingers lay in the jewelry boxes, a grim reminder of what they were here for.
“The receptionist at the hotel ID’d Chyna as the person who delivered the package,” Gil said. “She didn’t make any attempt to hide her face.”
“And my neighbor saw someone put something through my letterbox,” Max said. “She couldn’t ID Chyna, but she thought it was a woman because of the long hair under the baseball cap.”
Josh stared at the thick wedding ring on one of the severed fingers. He’d not even thought about Weatherly being married. Her rings were as big and bold as she was.
“Who’s dealing with her husband?” he asked.
Dave shook his head. “She’s a widow. She lost her husband about six months ago.”
Not another one.
“How did he die?”
“Prostate cancer. He’d been in remission, but by the time they found it this time it had spread.”
Josh grimaced at the thought, but at least he could take Mr. Weatherly off the list. “At least he wasn’t one of Chyna’s.”
Dave nodded. “We did check him out when we were looking for deaths in the agency.”
“Does she have any kids?”
“Two adult children. One’s emigrated to Australia and the other is in Scotland.”
“I’d hate to be the one telling them we’re getting their mother back, piece by piece.”
“That’s Mullins’s job,” Cal said grimly. “We focus on finding the rest of her, although now I don’t know if we’re going to find her alive.”
“Should we focus on Weatherly?” Rick asked. “We’ve spent all our attention on Chyna Moles. Dave and I have driven Weatherly, we know where she lives.”
“Good point. Your families are safe?”
Rick and Dave nodded.
Rick said, “Mine have gone to her mother’s. The woman’s a witch. She’ll put a hex on anyone trying to hurt her family.”
“You and Dave spend the rest of the afternoon focusing on Weatherly,” said Cal. “Max and Gil, you go through the CCTV footage near Max’s home. Josh and I have a meeting, then we’re going to take a side trip to the Isle of Wight.”
Josh raised an eyebrow. “We do? We are?”
“Jesse wants to talk to us and it occurs to me the Isle of Wight is a good place to hide Weatherly. It’s off our radar.”
“Okay.”
“We’ll talk in the office over there.”
“More coffee and I’m ready.”
“What are we going to do with the fingers?” Max asked.
“For now, we repack them. I’ve contacted the detective. Although the other fingers are outside his jurisdiction, DCI Walters has worked her magic and he is now our liaison with the police on this case. He will be collecting the evidence later this afternoon.” Josh twitched and Cal smirked at him. “Down boy.”
Max looked at him blankly. “Eh?”
“Josh has got a thing for Detective Fox.”
Josh opened his mouth to deny it, then he shut it again and shrugged. “He’s not bad for a cop.”
“Not bad? Jeez, you sound more like a Brit every day.” Gil did not sound impressed.
“Hurry up with the coffee, Angel. Jesse will be calling soon.” Cal hurried into the office.
Josh mock-saluted him. Okay, it was more of a single-fingered salute, but Cal was being an ass. He smirked at Gil and wandered over to the coffee machine.
By the time he got to the office, Jesse was on the screen. He looked amazing. The man had been on the edge of cracking up from the strain of his partner being stabbed, but now he looked tanned and relaxed. It was a real shame they were about to change all that.
“—and Dan and Dominic like each other. Like really like each other. They’re talking about going fishing. Maria’s all for it if it gets Dominic away from the office.”
Josh couldn’t think of anything worse. “No, no, you can’t let Dan turn to the dark side.”
“I think it’s too late,” Jesse said.
Josh shook his head. “I’ll never be able to talk to Dan again.”
“Sorry, mate,” Jesse said, not sounding the least bit sorry.
“Let’s get down to business before you make Josh’s day even worse,” Cal said. “I assume Dominic’s told you the news about Chyna.”
The amusement faded out of Jesse’s expression. “I can’t believe she is Ileana Ramirez.”
“You don’t recognize her now?” Cal queried.
“Not at all. She was a young kid when I met her.”
“Not so young. She was older than her brother.”
“She seemed young and very naïve. Quite sheltered considering the family business. She was engaged to be married then. She was so excited.”
Josh frowned, adding a question in his notebook. “I wonder what happened to the fiancé?”
“I