Hide & Seek - Nicole Edwards Page 0,23
could use to interact with some of these groups. Maybe we can lure them out of hiding eventually.”
“You have a problem takin’ point on this case?” Brantley asked.
Baz’s dark blond eyebrows popped up in surprise. “Me?”
“Yep. You. And we’re at your disposal. Whatever you need.”
“What we need is another investigator,” JJ grumbled.
Because he was in a good mood, Brantley decided to broach the subject now that they’d gotten approval. “Who you got in mind?”
It was her turn to look surprised, her head popping up from behind her computer monitor. “Really?”
“Sure.” Brantley nodded at the pile of boxes they’d been acquiring with the cold cases from various departments who were hoping for some help.
“How many are you gonna hire?” Baz asked.
Brantley shrugged. “As many as we need.”
“I’ve got two suggestions,” JJ said.
Now Brantley was curious, so he waited patiently.
“Trey and Cyrus.”
Brantley barked a laugh. “You’re serious?”
“As a heart attack.”
“You know Cyrus is a computer nerd, right?”
“Yep. And he’s got some skills even I don’t. Which might come in handy. And Trey, he’s smart, determined…” Her grin formed slowly. “And plain nice to look at.”
Brantley saw the way Baz’s gaze snapped over to JJ. “He qualifies because he’s hot?”
JJ peered over. “You’re hot and you’re here.”
Baz leaned back in his chair. “You think I’m hot.”
“Oh, cool it, Detective,” she snapped back. “That wasn’t me comin’ on to you.”
Sure sounded like it to Brantley, but he didn’t say as much.
“So? What do you think?” JJ’s question was directed at him.
“We need some sort of structure,” Brantley told them. “Partners or teams.”
“Agreed,” Baz said, his tone shifting from jovial to serious. “We could split up into teams, distribute cases, work them in tandem. Rather than focusing on one at a time, we could be lookin’ into two or three at a time.”
Brantley stared at the detective. Up to this point, Brantley had been using the excuse that they were still ramping up, getting their feet wet, so to speak. But after getting a glimpse of the cases they needed to solve, he knew they had to hit the ground running. And having a few teams seemed like the smart route.
“I’ll talk to Reese,” he told them. “If he’s on board, we’ll reach out to them. See what their thoughts are.”
“Regardless of who you bring on, we could use a couple more warm bodies. Those who can travel,” Baz said.
“Or hold down the home front,” JJ inserted, “so I can travel.”
“You want to travel?” Brantley was learning all sorts of new things about her today.
“I would, yes.” She motioned to her electronic tablet. “You know I can do my work anywhere, right?”
Yes, he knew. How she had convinced him to spring for the new iPad with the fancy keyboard, he wasn’t sure, but she had. Evidently, the laptop hadn’t been good enough.
“Good to know,” Baz said before ducking his head and getting back to work.
“Like I said,” Brantley told JJ, “let me talk to Reese. We’ll get back to you.”
She nodded and smiled like he’d committed to hiring them already.
Then again, he had to admit, it wasn’t a half-bad idea.
***
The bad news, according to Kennedy: Tesha had something she referred to as intestinal parasites.
When she had told him, Reese winced, although he had no idea what that meant.
Thankfully she had followed it up with the good news: they could treat them with medicine. Then she had gone on to tell him she was running other tests, including one for heartworms, which she said would take a couple of days but she would get back to him. Luckily there wasn’t a plethora of issues. She’d been spayed already, which Kennedy had hoped meant she’d been adopted from a reputable place and they’d given her some shots, so now she was up to date. No microchip, but Kennedy had fixed that.
As he’d expected, Tesha was malnourished and dehydrated, but she said a regular diet would take care of that. She recommended some food, which he bought directly from her, and gave him instructions on when and how much to feed. Some flea and tick shampoo, nail clippers, and the meds she prescribed had also gone on the bill, but Reese didn’t balk. He was invested.
Now, with Tesha in tow, Reese was heading back to Brantley’s house … er … their house. He figured it would take some time to think of it that way. When he was there, it felt like home. Or it would once Brantley actually let him furnish it like he’d promised.
The thought of