Drained (Edgars Family #6) - Suzanne Ferrell Page 0,40

Department of Veterans Affairs to get service records and a last name.”

“You thinking this might be personal?” the Captain asked.

“It would be good, if it were. Otherwise…” Aaron just left that hanging.

A sick look went across his boss’s face. “It would be a random victim killing and we’d have to wait for another body to figure out what kind of crazy we’re dealing with.”

Aaron weighed the decision to tell his boss about reaching out to Jake Carlisle for a profiler. Protocol would be to wait for a second body to be found with the exact same staging and cause of death before contacting the FBI for a profiler to look at the case, but his gut was telling him this was going to get ugly fast and the more they knew now the quicker they’d get a hold on things. Problem was how pissed was Stedaman going to get when he told him?

Best to pull the band-aid off quick.

“I put in a call to a friend last night.”

Stedaman groaned. “Please tell me it wasn’t the feds. We don’t need them charging in here and making this a news sensation before we even know another body will drop.”

“It will,” Aaron said.

“And you know that how?”

“His gut told him,” Jaylon said from his desk, a little smirk on his face. “You know he trusts it more than a sworn affidavit from the Pope.”

Aaron arched one brow at him. “And it hasn’t failed me, or you, yet.”

“True that.” Jaylon lost the smirk, probably remembering one or two times when Aaron’s gut instinct had saved both their lives.

“I know I’m going to regret asking this,” Stedaman said, drawing their attention back to him and the case, “but who did you call?”

“A friend who is a retired FBI agent that now runs a private investigation and security company. Got the name of a profiler to run the case by.”

“Okay, so no one official, yet?”

Aaron shook his head. “Not ’til I talk with the profiler. Jake says he’s on leave between cases. The guy is one of those that completely focuses on one a case until it’s finished.”

“Sorta like someone else we know,” Jaylon said, eyeing him.

“Some of us are better at concentration and perseverance,” Aaron said. “He’s on my list of people to contact this morning.”

“Any witnesses? Anyone see this guy being carted into the building? See any cars of vans on the street? That’s not a spot you usually see vehicles parked on the roads nearby,” Stedaman asked, focusing on the case and facts.

Jaylon exchanged eye contact with Aaron.

“You gonna tell him or am I?” his partner said.

“Tell me what?” their boss asked, and not very patiently.

“I have a witness who we think saw our victim being abducted,” Aaron said, trying to sound confident. Problem was, he wasn’t sure if Stanley had been with Art when he was taken, and he wasn’t sure if the dog would be any help identifying the killer. Right now, though, he was the only real lead they had.

“Good. Bring him in and get him to look at some photos. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll ID someone,” Stedaman said.

Jaylon half-snickered, half-snorted from his side of their joined desks. Aaron shot him a deadly look.

“And what’s so funny about that?” Stedaman asked, his head swiveling between them.

“Our witness is the victim’s dog. He’s how we found the body,” Aaron said, bracing for his boss’s reaction.

Stedaman face lit up like the Hungarian flag. Red. Then white. And finally, green.

Aaron reached in the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a fresh roll of antacids he kept in there just for these moments and offered it to the captain. He opened it and popped two tablets into his mouth and chewed, his color slowly returning to normal.

“So,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, “let me get this straight. You have an unidentified victim, who may or may not be the first victim of someone who might or might not be a serial killer, and your only witness is a dog who may or may not be able to lead you to the killer, who may or may not be targeting homeless people for unknown reasons. And you have no other clues at this time? But your gut is telling you this is just the start of a media clusterfuck?”

Aaron just gave a shrug. What could he say? When you put it like that, the whole case seemed far fetched and on the impossible side of solving. But his