The Last Straw (The Jigsaw Files #4) - Sharon Sala Page 0,49

a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? I’m gonna make myself one.”

She ignored his dig about the silver cat suit and red knee-high boots she was wearing.

“Do we have grape jelly?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Then, yes, I will have a PBGJ, but just one, thank you.”

He grinned as she went to make coffee.

PBGJ. Peanut butter and grape jelly. Perfectly Wyrick being perfectly specific.

“I called Detective Floyd. He was understandably shocked and is going to pull the old case files today. I told him we were going back to Detter House,” Charlie said.

She nodded as he spoke, but she was watching him making sandwiches, too.

“Uh... Could I have the grape jelly on one side, and the peanut butter on the other?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said and never missed a beat.

“Um, you’re using creamy peanut butter,” she said.

He paused. “Yes.”

“If we have crunchy, I would prefer that,” she added.

Charlie took a deep breath. “I’ll check.”

She nodded, then retrieved her cup of coffee from the Keurig and sat down at the table to watch the final construction, knowing full well she was aggravating Charlie Dodge’s last nerve.

Finally, the sandwiches were finished, and Charlie plated them up and carried them to the table.

“You didn’t cut mine,” Wyrick said.

Charlie turned, grabbed a paring knife from the knife block and stabbed it into the center of her sandwich.

“Knock yourself out,” he said.

Wyrick hid a grin, then proceeded to cut her sandwich in four squares.

“Hank Raines called this morning. The ATF was serving an arrest warrant on Preston Davis yesterday when he pulled a gun on them. He’s dead.”

“Cowards always choose the easy way out,” she said and stuffed one whole square into her mouth.

Charlie smirked. “Such a dainty little thing you are,” he said.

Wyrick chewed and swallowed, then licked a smear of peanut butter from her thumb. She was reaching for another piece when her phone rang. But it was the “Hallelujah” chorus ringtone that startled Charlie and sent Wyrick bolting from her chair.

“What?” he yelled.

“Someone just named one of the hit men. I have to check my email,” she said and ran.

She was gone in a flash of silver, the click of her heels marking her speed as she bolted down the hall. But Charlie wanted to see the man’s face, because her enemies were his enemies.

Wyrick had the email open, sitting motionless at the monitor, staring at a face.

“Is that one of them?” Charlie asked.

“Maybe...probably,” she said.

“What’s his name?”

“Jessup Wallis,” she said, then switched screens and pulled up a file listing the members of the Church of The Righteous. “His name is on the list of members.”

“How can you prove he’s one of the three who were sent?” Charlie asked.

“I hacked into Jeremiah Raver’s phone records when I was making the case for money laundering. Most of the calls on his phone were from parishioners, or Preston Davis. But after Barrett Taylor tried to kill me, I checked Raver’s phone records again. There were three new numbers he’d never called before, but they were local to Raver’s area—and made within the past week. One of them belonged to Barrett Taylor, and I already knew he was hit man number one. Then Raver had a call from the Dallas County Jail right after Barrett Taylor was arrested. I assumed it was a plea for Raver to get him a lawyer. So that verified one of those three numbers did belong to a hit man. I ran a search on the other two numbers. One belonged to a man named Jessup Wallis.” She pointed to the screen. “And that is Jessup Wallis. The man who turned him in is a man named Jordy Gooch. Gooch does not belong to the church, but is a local in Paulette. I’ll have to do some research to make sure he’s no relation, but I think I just got number two.”

“Location-wise, do you know where Wallis is?” Charlie asked.

“Now that I know which number is his, I enter it into my locator.”

“If he’s in Dallas, then that means you’re still in danger,” Charlie said.

“He’s not in Dallas. Neither of them are,” Wyrick said.

“How can you be so sure?” Charlie asked.

“If they’ve been notified about the video, they’ll both be worried about who knew what they were doing, and who might turn them in. They’ll be looking for a place to hide, and to deny, deny, deny the accusations.”

“Are you going to stay here in the office for a while?” he asked.

“No. Rachel Dean takes precedence over this. I’m just sending an email