it,” she said as she patted on the sofa cushion next to her and found her phone.
The building had no generator, and when she went to the power company’s website, she discovered that all of Caldwell was out of juice. There was a total blackout, it seemed, and for kicks and giggles, she hit refresh a number of times, watching the reports come in on the map. It was like gophers popping out of holes in the grass.
Putting her phone down, she let her head fall back. What did it matter. Now that her résumé had been submitted everywhere it could be, it wasn’t like she had any plans past staring off into space—and waiting to see if her body exploded.
Waiting to see if she needed to call that other male.
Waiting to feel better.
She could most certainly handle that to-do list in the pitch black.
Note that she wasn’t preparing to feel normal again. Nah, she’d way given up on “normal.” She was shooting for an improvement to “passable,” which would certainly be better than where she was currently—
When her phone rang, she wondered whether it was the power company reaching out—which was nuts. Like they’d be calling two million people individually to give them an update on their outage?
Picking her cell up, she frowned when she saw who it was.
“McCordle?” she said as she answered. “And before you ask, yes, I’ve spoken with the FBI. I told them the same thing I told you, I don’t know the guy—”
“I have another video to show you. I’m sending it to your phone.”
Swallowing a curse, Jo switched her cell to her other ear. “Look, I’ve done what I can with you all. I appreciate you keeping me in the loop, but I’m not interested in—”
“We got it wrong.”
“Got what wrong,” she muttered.
“The man with Gigante on that videotape.” There was a rustling, and then McCordle addressed someone somewhere around him. When he came back on, he spoke in a whisper. “We got cell phone footage shot by Gigante’s bodyguard on the night they were all murdered. Turned out he was filming while it happened. The man in the first video at the Hudson Hunt and Fish Club killed all three of them.”
“Well, he’s a hit man.” Jo tried to keep the boredom out of her voice. But come on, the last thing she needed right now was even more confirmation about how stupid she’d been with Syn. “That’s his job, right?”
“He killed them to protect you.”
Jo jerked up. “What?”
“Watch the video. Then call me back—and keep this between us. As usual.”
When McCordle hung up on her, she held her cell phone like she might drop it even though she was sitting down over a rug. Then again, her hands were shaking like you couldn’t believe.
The text came through a moment later. Just a video. Nothing else.
She started the thing up, her screen glowing in the darkness with a blue light. There was distortion at first and a fuzzy screen. And then the camera herky-jerk’d and steadied. The vantage point was an extreme angle upward, as if whoever was taking the footage was sprawled on the ground, and they were filming into an SUV’s interior, through an open passenger door.
When the focus tightened, and the lighting recalibrated, she saw a man sitting behind the wheel. When he turned around to the back seat and leaned into the light from the door being ajar…
It was Syn.
Clear as day, she could see his face. As well as the gun in his hand.
And then he said, “I don’t have a problem killing females—or anybody. But I’ll be damned if you hurt Jo Early. Say good night, motherfucker.”
After that, he pulled the trigger, some kind of muffled shhhhooo going off.
Jo’s heart beat so hard, she couldn’t hear anything else. Not that there was much more to go on. The video cut off shortly after that.
She watched it two more times before calling McCordle back.
He answered on the first ring and she didn’t bother with any “hellos.” “Where did you get this?”
“The FBI raided the Hudson Hunt and Fish Club earlier today. It was on a cell phone in the pocket of a coat that also happened to have Gigante’s son’s ID in it.”
“So you’ve arrested Junior?”
“No. We have his coat, for all the good that does us. Again, the cell phone belonged to Gigante’s main bodyguard. We believe the guy took the footage during the shooting and then the phone was retrieved before anyone came on scene