All Hail - J. Bree Page 0,99
ass.”
He huffs and I send him a copy of the DNA profile I need run through the system. I’ve already had my usual guy no it but when it came back with sealed records, I knew this was a case for Jackson.
“You already know about the fucking Devil, who else is there? I have a file for her daddy, do you want that?”
I shake my head. “The one you gave Atticus? I have it already. I need to know who else flags as a match.”
He stares at me and then starts the search. He starts listing off the siblings, and I mentally tick each one off. Colt, Chance, and Noah are in the system thanks to their rap sheets, Lips is in there because of her hospital stays. Poe was also hospitalized as a toddler thanks to her drug addict mother and Wyatt had his tonsils out.
Nate isn’t in the system.
No surprises there.
There’s a long stretch of silence and then Jackson blinks at the screen for so long I start to wonder if he’s had a stroke.
Then he curses under his breath and runs the search again. “This can’t be right. What the fuck is in that man’s DNA? Is he some sort of super villain or something?”
My stomach drops a little and Viola glances over at me. “What is it Jackson? Stop messing around.”
He scowls at the screen and then sighs, hitting print and I fuss with the hem of my skirt as I wait for the files to print out.
He sighs. “Listen… Senator Blakeley is on the Crow’s hit list. He’s got some pretty big power moves happening at the moment about trafficking and exploitation laws so there’s a lotta eyes on him from our neck of the woods, if you catch my drift.”
I think I do but he’s such a freaking psycho that I have to ask. “Break it down a little more for me. He’s against trafficking?”
Jackson cracks his fingers as he talks like the action is unconscious. “Yeah. He’s been a big hitter about kids going missing, women being taken and sold, and the string of prostitute deaths they’ve been having in DC. He’s been getting traction on a lot of laws that will make things a lot harder for that kind of crime to happen.”
I nod slowly. I’m not sure where he’s going with this but I guess he’ll get there eventually if I let him ramble on. “Why would the Crow want him dead then? I’d say that’s the type of senator this country needs.”
Jackson shrugs and his knee starts bouncing. I don’t understand how he spends his life down here in the dark if he needs to move so much to focus.
“The Crow offered to back him, give him a whole lotta money for his campaign because he does want that kind of man making decisions. Blakeley said no, told him once he had the trafficking thing under control he was going to focus on breaches of information. Extortion, money laundering, all sorts of shit that he knows the Crow has interests in. Told him he wasn’t ever going to be a kept man.”
I nod. I think it’s naive but noble enough.
Jackson turns the monitor around until I’m staring at a screen full of data that means nothing to me. “Blakely’s DNA matches. He’s the other Graves sibling.”
As I walk back through the secret tunnel back up to the house, I use the light on my phone and I almost miss it. I have to turn the light off to make the call but there’s no other sounds in the tunnel so I decide it’s worth it.
“Jackson… where does the other tunnel lead? Is that the way down to the basement?”
He grumbles down the line, “What do you mean, there isn’t a basement.”
Even in the dark my eyes narrow at his bullshit. “Second strike, Jackson. One more and you’ll be dead.”
He chokes on air and sputters out, “There’s no fucking basement! I’ve been through the house blueprints, I know the whole place like the back of my hand. There’s service tunnels and that secret exit you used to come see me but there’s no basement. I swear! I swear on Viola, there isn’t a fucking basement.”
Huh.
I actually believe him. The panic is real in his voice which I know for sure because Viola is in the background of the call trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
So this basement is at the same level of security as mine is…