The Same Place (The Lamb and the Lion #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,52
heavy-handed with the volume.”
“That’s enough,” Tean said. “Let’s go.”
“Sure. As soon as he apologizes to you.”
Tean stood, made his way to where Jem stood, and caught his arm. “I want to go.”
Jem jerked his arm free. “Go outside. I’ll join you in a couple of minutes.”
“Fine,” Caleb said, pulling out his phone. “I really will call the police.”
“I won’t break anything,” Jem said to Tean. “Maybe his nose. But I won’t break anything else.”
“Jem.”
Jem glanced at his friend.
“Can we please go?”
When they left, Caleb was shouting into the phone, demanding a patrol car at his house as soon as possible.
17
On Wednesday morning, Tean went to work. Hannah wasn’t there. He conducted the necropsy on the coyote specimen from Heber Valley and found signs of pneumonia, which was nonspecific—neither confirming nor refuting a diagnosis for canine distemper. He took samples from the lungs, mucous membranes, stomach, intestines, bladder, and brain—fresh samples as well as samples fixed in formalin—all of which needed to be tested. He packed and labeled the samples to be sent off to a specialized lab. Then he cleaned up the lab, cleaned up himself, and went back up to his office.
Still no Hannah.
He pulled up the DWR database and plugged in Zalie Maynes, hoping he could get a line on Joy’s wife—or ex-wife. He got nothing. He tried again, this time with just the last name, limiting the search to the Heber Valley. This time, he got Azalea Maynes, with address, phone number, and hunting licenses issued for upland game and, two years ago, a turkey. He tried the phone number and got a robotic voice asking him to leave a message. He disconnected and tried again.
“Ms. Maynes, my name is Tean Leon. I’m calling because I need to talk to you about Joy Erickson and Hannah Prince. Please call me as soon as you have a minute.” He left his number and disconnected.
He tried Hannah. No answer. He left her a message too.
Dead end, dead end, dead end. The condo had been a dead end. The pig farm too. And Leroy Erickson. And even Hannah herself had been a dead end. Tean made himself work through it all again. He thought about Hannah’s story when she had first hired Jem. He thought about Joy’s condo in The Avenues. He thought about the threatening emails and messages he’d found from the man named John Sievers. Tean plugged that name into the DWR database and got a hit: phone number, address, and a list of related documents—hunting and fishing licenses, citations, and bounties paid to Sievers.
He called Jem. “What are you doing?”
“Honestly?”
“Why would I want you to lie? Why would I ever want you to lie?”
“Um, right. Never mind. Scratch that. I take it back.”
Tean waited. “So?”
“Well, since I’m being honest—always, completely, totally, never the slightest shadow of change—I am watching Visionaries re-runs and eating chips and queso.” He cleared his throat. “In my underwear.”
“Ok.”
“You’re not mad?”
“That sounds like how you spend every Saturday.”
“But now I’m doing it on your couch.”
“You always do it on my couch.”
“And I might have dripped some queso and—” Jem suddenly giggled, high pitched, and said, “No. Stop it!” He was obviously trying to make his voice normal when he spoke again. “And Scipio keeps licking where I spilled it. And obviously that tickles.”
“Remember when you didn’t like dogs?”
“I don’t like dogs. I’m scared as fuck of dogs. But Scipio—” Another of those giggles. “I said stop!”
“Ok, well, if you two can stop licking each other for five minutes, I thought we might run out to Heber again.”
“We’re not licking each other, although Scipio did get a little queso on his fur, so maybe—”
“I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes.”
As Tean drove back to Central City, his phone buzzed, and Ammon’s name appeared on the screen. Tean considered letting it go to voicemail, but something pulled tight in his gut, the old breathlessness, and he answered.
“I got a call from Caleb Prince this morning,” Ammon said. Tean could hear the strain in his voice as he tried to sound calm.
“Are you going to yell at me right now,” Tean asked, “or do I have to wait a few minutes while you pretend to be nice?”
“I’m sorry about last time. I’m sorry I let my emotions get out of control like that. I take responsibility for how I spoke to you, and I apologize.”
“How long have you been seeing a therapist?”
He laughed, and for a moment, he sounded like the real Ammon. “Since you dumped