The Last Straw (The Jigsaw Files #4) - Sharon Sala Page 0,26
an hour to get home, and as he approached the road leading up to the house, he slowed down considerably, making sure there weren’t any parish police cars parked off in the trees.
Once he got to the house, he ran straight to the office and began taking down the website. He was still at it when he got a call. He recognized Preston Davis’s number, but he didn’t take time to answer. Preston was the moneyman. The one he did business with, and he didn’t have time to talk.
But Preston called again, and again, and kept calling until Jeremiah finally answered.
“Hello.”
“What the hell have you done...putting out a hit on some woman and bringing down the law on top of all we have going?”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen that way,” Raver said. “She’s evil. She’s the Devil’s daughter, and she needs to disappear. I had a vision and—”
“No, you’re the one who needs to disappear,” Preston said.
Jeremiah felt the warning all the way to his toes.
“I’m taking down the website and packing right now. Just calm down. They don’t know anything about you.”
“You don’t know that,” Preston said and hung up.
The knot in Jeremiah’s belly tightened, but he didn’t have time to dwell on Preston’s attitude right now. He turned back to the computer and kept dismantling the site, and deleting everything he could find about it online, then deleted all his email until everything was gone.
He leaned back with a big sigh of relief, thinking he’d covered all his tracks, and then got up and went to pack up his clothes.
* * *
Jeremiah might be a fool, but Preston Davis was not. He was certain that, if worse came to worse, Raver would give them all up, as part of a plea deal on his own behalf.
So while Jeremiah was erasing the Church of The Righteous from the web, Preston Davis sent a man to Raver’s home to erase him.
* * *
Two hours later Jeremiah came out of the house with the last of his things—two suitcases full of clothes. He had a bag in each hand and was heading for his car when he saw movement in the trees beyond the house.
He paused, his heart racing, staring intently, trying to discern if it was animal or man. But he never got a chance to figure it out, because Preston’s hit man put a bullet between Jeremiah’s eyes.
Between one breath and the next, he died. He fell flat on his back, the suitcases beside him, while the blood from his body poured out of the gaping hole in the back of his head. He’d lived his adult life preaching about Jesus, but he was about to meet his Maker on a whole other playing field.
* * *
Jessup Wallis was in Texas, driving westbound on I20 and coming up on Longview when he got a call from his girlfriend, Britta.
“Hey, honey, what’s up?”
“Jessup, a woman just put out a quarter of a million dollar bounty for the name and picture of each man Jeremiah Raver sent to get her. And since you told me your trip was just an errand for your preacher man, I’m assuming one of them is you.”
Jessup felt the blood draining from his face. He swerved to the side of the interstate and stopped the car before he passed out.
“What? What the hell? How did she find out? She can’t do that. Why, that’s outright murder for hire!” he said, then Britta snorted in his ear, a sign she was not pleased with him.
“She found out because Barrett Taylor gave y’all up. She took him down with a Taser, and then got it all on video, so he’s sitting in jail facing a butt load of charges. As for the murder for hire comment, what the fuck do you call what y’all were gonna do to her?” Britta cried.
“We ain’t takin’ no money,” he muttered.
“No, but if your job was to kill her, then that makes you a hit man. The good part is, she don’t want none of you dead. She just wants your identities.”
Jessup groaned. “What for?”
“She’s gonna plaster them all over the media for free, so you’ll know what it feels like to be targeted. And just so you know, your preacher’s gone missing.”
“The bastard,” Jessup muttered. “Raver starts a war and then he’s the first one to turn tail and run. So whoever turns me in gets the money?”
“Yes. But it can’t be anyone connected to the church or to you.”