Page 46 of Flash and Bang

“Please be careful, Declan. I’m serious.”

“Will do, Jarrett. Take care, boy.”

Jarrett swiped the phone and tucked it back in his pocket. Not only had he learned nothing to help them with the case, but he’d now possibly put Declan “Fox” Jensen in danger just by speaking with him. Now he was really certain he could very possibly die. A rogue CIA cell was the last thing he wanted chasing his ass… or Thayne’s for that matter. Jarrett was a man on a mission now. He was more determined than ever. He had to kill whoever wanted to kill him first.

****

Jarrett looked positively grim when he walked back into the office. Thayne didn’t have good news for him but he knew he had to share it. Tim and Sarah had been running background checks on the Mason crew and they’d come up with some things that required follow-up.

“I don’t like the look on your face, Wolfe.” Jarrett glanced across the aisle and Thayne noted Sarah and Tim didn’t look too happy either. They stood up and walked over as Jarrett sat down at his desk. “What’s up?”

“We did a background on Anthony Revilla and Beth Quinn, the two interns who were hired by the Masons most recently,” Sarah said. She bent over Jarrett’s desktop computer and pulled up the report she’d sent to his email that was still open. “Look.”

Thayne watched as Jarrett ducked his head and squinted at the screen, reading the report before looking up at him.

“Revilla was dishonorably discharged from the Army last summer and Quinn washed out of basic training in the Marine Corps,” Jarrett read. “Well, that explains the field strips we saw out there,” he concluded.

Sarah nodded and flipped the page. Jarrett bent to read it for a second before glancing back at Thayne. “Mason and his wife were both Marines?”

“Right?” Thayne said, recalling the gray-haired Mrs. Mason and how frail and innocent she looked. “They have decent service records though. It seems they met in the Corps and served together in the Gulf in the late 80s. They were both munitions specialists which probably explains their love of fireworks.”

Jarrett rubbed a hand over his face. “Jeez. Can this case get any more complicated? I was hopin’ we could narrow our suspect pool and instead, we don’t know nothin’.”

“Sorry, Evans. It would have been nice if we could have eliminated at least one of them,” Sarah said.

“Well, we know Mason didn’t bash his own head in so that leaves his wife, Revilla, and Quinn who were close enough to him before the explosion to have done it, so if we can figure out a motive, that would be the key here,” Thayne added.

“Mason had a sizeable life insurance policyand the beneficiary was his wife,” Tim said.

Thayne and Jarrett both turned to look at him. “You checked on that?” Thayne asked.

“Well, yeah. As soon as we found out about their military backgrounds, I figured it might be best if we could see who’d benefit from his death.”

“Thanks, Darcy,” Jarrett said. He turned and looked over at Thayne. “We should call Captain Willis and let him know. If she’s still down there, he could bring her in for questioning.”

“Yeah. We will. Did you learn anything about who may have built the bomb?” Thayne asked.

Jarrett seemed to hesitate for a split second. Anyone else might not have noticed it but Thayne saw it. Jarrett shook his head. “Nothin’ we don’t already know.”

He’s lying.Thayne’s stomach flipped. It was always possible that Jarrett really hadn’t learned anything new but he’d seen the worry in Jarrett’s face when he’d walked back in the office. It was possible that he just didn’t want to say anything in front of Sarah and Tim but it still bothered him like crazy. He would ask Jarrett again when they were alone.

“So what’s left to do?” Jarrett asked, staringat his computer screen and studiously avoiding Thayne’s eyes as Sarah and Tim walked back across the aisle to sit down at their desks.

“I called Snow to ask him about the guns they collected after the raid.”

“What did you find out?” Jarrett asked, sitting forward in his chair.

“That they definitely are stolen and all from the same shipment. I was really hoping they matched some of the guns we recovered when we arrested Mills Lang but no such luck. They actually came from a break in at a bonded warehouse used by one of the gun manufacturers. He also checked to see if there were any crimes where notes with bible verses were left at crime scenes across the nation.”

“Any luck?” Jarrett asked.

Thayne shook his head. “No. Nothing that specific and he also told me that their behavioral analysis unit doesn’t know of an active serial killer using explosives or fireworks as a murder weapon.”

“Well, there goes that theory.”

“It’s just more to rule out and it is progress,” Thayne said.

Jarrett rubbed his eyes. “I know. I’m just not used to thinking of progress by taking such babysteps.”