Page 73 of The Wolves Come at Night
“Phones can be manipulated. Someone could have dropped it outside that house. Sold it. Stole it. Faked the signal. So yes. There is a chance Carson is still alive.”
Avery’s legs buckled, and she sat hard on the stool at the marble counter.
“I don’t know how much more of this I can handle.”
“It won’t be long now. Angelie has gone off-grid, which means she’s hunting. She’ll find Game, and this will all be over. I promise.”
“I want to talk to Jackson. It sounds like she was shunted off Carson’s case for some reason.”
Alan nodded. “It does. But there are always two sides to the story. Hang in, okay? We should know more soon.” He excused himself, leaving her alone in the kitchen.
She ran a hand over the marble. She’d never felt this much pain, not even when the New Haven police came to her door with the news about Richard’s accident. His murder, her mind helpfully corrected. Having Santiago and Alan hovering over her while all of the chess pieces moved on a board she couldn’t see… She was in over her head, but it didn’t stop her from wanting to get back on a plane to Nashville and find out exactly what was happening from the captain herself. She hated the woman, was furious with her for how she was handling the case, and yet, her doctor’s senses were on fire. There was something else going on.
She dialed the number from memory, steeled herself when a woman’s husky voice answered.
“Captain Jackson? It’s Avery Conway. I’ve heard about the explosion, and that you’ve been reassigned.”
A pause. “Doctor. I thought you might be in touch. I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”
“Was Carson in the house?”
“I honestly don’t know. The situation is fluid.”
“And you’re no longer working my daughter’s case?”
“No, ma’am. I’m not. I shouldn’t be talking to you at all. But I think you’re owed the truth. I don’t know what you were told, but we tracked Carson’s phone to that house. I was trying to save her life. I don’t know more than that yet. I’m sorry,” she said again, and Avery knew she meant it.
“What am I supposed to do now? Wait? Again?”
“Unfortunately, yes. The best people are on this. I trained them all myself. They’ll figure it out.”
“If she was your daughter, would that answer satisfy you?”
The smoky ghost of a laugh. “Of course not. I’d be furious like you are, and rightly so. But it’s all I can give you, Dr. Conway. I promise, should things change, I’ll be in touch. But I’m not giving up. I might be off the case, but I’m not giving up.”
The urgency in the captain’s voice sparked a nerve inside Avery. “Don’t. I want my daughter back.” Glancing over her shoulder, knowing she was alone, she whispered, “Look at Joseph Game,” then hung up, setting the phone on the counter. It was foolish, they were clearly listening to her phone, but damn it, she wasn’t content to sit back and wait anymore. As furious as she was, she trusted the captain—a total stranger—more than the men she’d been friends with for years.
She heard the babble of angry voices from the hall, and smiled to herself, even as Alan came into the room like an angry bull facing a matador and snatched the phone from the marble counter as if he could undo the call.
“That was stupid and reckless. The captain is a loose cannon. She tries to go up against Game herself, Carson will die, and the captain will, too. You may have just condemned them both. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Yes,” Avery said simply. “I do.”
Thirty-Eight
Nashville
Taylor couldn’t sleep.
This in and of itself was nothing new. A lifelong insomniac, she’d tried every trick—melatonin, CBD, prescription drugs, alcohol—and finally agreed with Mother Nature that she would forever be a four-hour-a-night kind of girl and stopped trying. Besides, she often solved cases in the wee hours of the morning. She’d take the dark smudges under her eyes if it meant getting justice for the people of her city any day.
Tonight, though, her sleeplessness was well earned. Her wrist hurt. Her lip throbbed. Her chin itched. She kept replaying the fight with Huston over and over, a loop of righteous indignation. In the replays, she said all sorts of things to her boss, from reassuring platitudes to an all-encompassing “fuck you and the horse you rose in on.”
Which, in a way, she had said. All of that. And more.
She replayed the moment over and over. The finality of it still shocked her. Before she could take it back, she’d stormed out of Huston’s office, gathered up her things from her office, driven home, ignored all texts and calls, and seethed.
Huston had been incredibly unfair. And Taylor had overreacted. Possibly. Probably. Definitely. Not at all.
