Fatal Intent - Jamie Jeffries Page 0,68

allowing him to escape?

“Have you got Jim Atkins in custody?” she blurted. All three men turned from their standoff and stared at her.

“Jim Atkins?” the detective, Jake, asked. “What does he have to do with anything?”

“Don’t answer that, Alex. Keep your damn mouth shut until I tell you to open it,” said Rick.

Wells stared Watson down. “What’s it going to be, Jake?”

“Oh, all right,” said Watson “immunity for testimony.”

Alex started to speak again, but again Rick stopped her. “You don’t have that authority. I want to see it in writing, and I want it signed by the DA.”

With a disgusted look, Watson pulled the paper from his pocket. “There, satisfied?” he said.

Alex looked on in bewilderment.

What just happened?

Rick smirked as he read the paper. “Okay, Alex, go ahead.”

Watson pulled out a small tape recorder and turned it on, after Rick’s nod. Alex began to tell her story, beginning with finding the flier on the door of the shooting range. As the next hour went on, Watson stopped her at various points and sent for more officers, who ran out of the room on mysterious errands after he whispered to them. Alex went on, her training in reporting making her story remarkably cogent.

TWENTY-SIX

Dylan waited in vain for a call until late Sunday night, and then reluctantly went to bed, hoping to hear something in the morning. He’d heard from Wells that Rick was negotiating a deal for Alex, so he wasn’t as anxious as he could have been. It sounded as if Alex had been mixed up in something very nasty.

The following morning he was relieved to find a text from Alex waiting. In it she apologized for keeping her plan from him and told him he was right. Best of all, she said she’d be in Tempe before the end of the week. She had something to tell her dad, and was going home to do it.

Dylan pumped his fist with a stage whisper of yes! Everything would be all right now. He couldn’t wait to have Alex in his arms where she belonged. Whatever problems they’d had, he would do his best to meet her halfway to solve.

The part about something she needed to tell her dad was intriguing. Maybe she was going to mend fences with Paul about his decision to keep her mom’s betrayal from her. Without commenting on it, because he believed she would tell him when she was ready, he sent back a message telling her he loved her and couldn’t wait to see her.

While he was registering the boys for school, he’d turned off his phone so he wouldn’t be interrupted while he consulted with their school about the best placement for them. Before he put them in public school, he’d checked out the Catholic school, but eventually decided the public school was the best option for now. It was a couple of hours before he turned his phone back on, to discover he’d missed several calls and messages from Wanda, Paul, Lt. Wells, Rick and some of his former co-workers. What in hell had happened while he was out of pocket?

As he went through the texts, he became more and more bewildered. Alex had cracked a case? What case? Finally, one of the messages advised him to turn on his TV. He settled the boys at the kitchen table with sandwiches and took some time to hook up the cable, thanking his real estate agent mentally for getting it turned on in his name. When he turned it to a local all-news channel, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

Across the ticker at the bottom of the screen was Alex’s name every few seconds, along with the headline “Student journalist solves attempted murder case. Interview next hour.”

What the hell? He looked at his watch. He had ten minutes to wait for Alex to explain to him, along with most of Arizona, just what was meant by that cryptic headline.

Absently munching his own sandwich, Dylan watched several commercials and the end of a silly soap opera before the news came on at noon. The announcers took turns intoning teasers about the stories to come, and then it was finally time to announce the top story…how a twenty-year-old student had solved not one but two murder cases involving the Patriots anti-illegals group.

Dylan swore and then looked over his shoulder to make sure the boys hadn’t heard him. No shocked little faces turned his way, so he turned his attention back to the screen, where Alex’s picture was