dread snaked through Chris’s stomach. Why would Pete want him beat up?
“Yeah, but we weren’t supposed to just attack you. You weren’t supposed to be breathing the next day and because we failed, he went after my sister, Louisa. I don’t know if she’s still alive or not, but he’s got her. I know he’s got her. She always comes home. She’s a good girl and she didn’t show up last night. Maybe if you report it, they can find her before it’s too late.” His hands clenched into fists and he watched Chris to make sure he understood the information he shared with him. “Make him pay,” he demanded and with that, the guy took off running.
“Do you think he’s telling the truth?” Colton asked.
“I don’t know. He risks a lot if he’s lying just by coming here. Why would he lie? But why would Pete do this? He’s never seemed to have a problem with me and he’s a good cop. What’s going on here? Come on, we need to call Brian.”
Luckily Brian was in the area when they called, so he arrived within fifteen minutes. The two of them ushered him into the conference room.
He sat down and pulled out a notebook. “So, Chris you mentioned on the phone that you had some new information about the attack on you.”
“Yeah, when we arrived here this morning one of the guys involved that night was waiting for us in the parking lot. He said if I didn’t press charges that he had some information for us.” They proceeded to tell him what the guy told them. As they talked, Brian’s expression became more and more closed-off and unreadable.
When they were finished, Brian asked, “He said the missing girl’s name is Louisa?”
Chris nodded.
Brian pulled out his cell phone and placed a call. “Barnes here. Do we have an ID on the victim from last night yet?” His eyes widened at the information being relayed to him over the phone line. “Louisa Jenkins. She wouldn’t happen to be related to Slade Jenkins, is she?”
Brian listened for a moment more before he murmured, “Damn,” and sunk his head into his hand. “Okay, I’m following up on a lead right now. I’ll be in the office in about an hour or so.”
He hung up the cell phone and met their curious gazes. “I don’t know what’s going on here. We have a dead girl in the morgue who’s the sister of the local gang leader, but I find it hard to believe that Pete’s behind this, no matter what his problems are right now. It’s very likely some kid in this gang has an issue, since it looks like she’s the latest victim from our serial, and Slade is trying to protect his own. Regardless, I need to go talk to Pete. I need you two to keep quiet about this until I unravel it all. Don’t mention this to anyone else, especially Toni since she’s involved with Pete.
* * *
Julie was about to leave for lunch when her cell phone rang. “Hello?” she answered.
“Hey, Julie, it’s Pete.”
“Pete, how are you doing? We missed you in class last night.”
“I know, I’m sorry. There’s just a ton going on.” She could hear the strain in his voice. It didn’t sound like things were getting any better. “I was wondering if that offer to talk was still available.”
“Absolutely. In fact, I was just about to go on my lunch break. Do you want to meet me somewhere?”
“Actually, would you mind coming over to my place? I don’t feel like dealing with other people today.”
“No problem. I’ll even bring food. Does bbq sound okay?”
“Sure, that sounds great, Julie. I’ll see you in a bit.”
She gathered up her purse and debated texting Chris before she left, but then remembered they had a lunch meeting today at Mad Rob with some of the local contacts from the Department of Homeland Security. She’d just have to wait to catch up with him after work. Right now, she had a friend in need of cheering up.
* * *
As Julie crawled out of her car, clutching the bag of food to her chest at Pete’s house, she was surprised to see Toni pull up and park. She hadn’t noticed Julie yet as she gathered what looked to be her own bags of food out of the passenger seat. As she stepped away from the car, she looked down at her phone. Her stride faltered when she finally glanced up and