Page 77 of Defending You

“Just change burners.” He handed her another one, then opened his laptop. “I’m going to connect to the hotspot and see if Bartlett has any more intel for us.”

Cici’s hands trembled, though the little gas fireplace had warmed the room considerably. The cold didn’t have her shaking so much as the weight of it all, the realization that they weren’t close to the end of this, no matter how near they seemed to Shadow Cove. Gagnon wasn’t going to quit searching for her until he was behind bars or dead.

She dialed Alyssa, again putting the phone on speaker. “Hey, sis. You’re on with Asher, too.”

“You two okay?”

“We’re fine. Just hiding from bad guys and bad storms.”

“I can’t wait to hear the whole story.”

“Did you learn anything?”

“You doubt me?” Her voice held a hint of humor. “You already ID’d Gagnon. The bald guy he was with outside thepolice station is Gustavo Souza, a low-level criminal out of New York City. He’s tied to a gang there.”

“Is there a connection between that gang and Gagnon?”

“I see no link between them.”

“Obviously, there is one, or between them personally.”

“Whatever it is, it’s not detailed on the internet, at least nowhere I’ve been able to find.”

“What’s the name of the gang?”

“They’re called the Fourth Hood. I guess they’re an offshoot of the Bloods.”

The Bloods? That was a real thing? The name alone was enough to give Cici the chills.

“There’s a guy running the Fourth Hood, Maxwell Pierce,” Alyssa continued. “According to a report, he’s a community activist, but the NYPD believes he’s dirty. No proof, though.”

Sounded a lot like Wendall Gagnon. “Can you dig into that leader? See if he’s connected to Gagnon?”

“Already on it,” Alyssa said. “Nothing yet, but I’ll keep looking.”

“You learn anything about Gagnon?”

“Yeah, lemme just…” Her voice faded. “Here we go. He grew up in Waterville, Maine, one of seven kids. Single mom. I guess the kids had a few different dads. She was on welfare, food stamps. Gagnon dropped out of school at sixteen and started working construction. Here’s something interesting. He applied for a software patent when he was nineteen, some kind of cybersecurity.” She made a littlehmphsound. “Ahead of his time, it seems. He was denied, but obviously, he was tinkering with programming. Then he got arrested… Oh, in Shadow Cove.”

“We know about that. Check out the arresting officer.”

A pause, then, “Ah, I see. Our own Leonard Taggart, back before he was chief.”

“Before the murders,” Cici explained. “We think it’s how they got connected.”

“Gotcha. Okay, so after that… let’s see. He moves to Philly and starts a tech company at the tail end of the bubble. Suddenly, he’s a successful, wealthy businessman.”

“Seems his cut of the smuggling operation was enough,” Cici guessed.

“I don’t know.” Asher’d been quiet, but he’d lifted his gaze from the laptop to her. “Why get out of the business if it was so profitable?”

“Maybe he got spooked by the murders,” Alyssa suggested.

“Maybe he thought the necklace was his ticket to riches.” Cici was sure the necklace was related, somehow.

“Guys like that… Would he have been investing his take? My guess is he was a grunt, being paid a pittance compared to the value of what they were moving. And we already know he didn’t sell the necklace, so… What happened? What changed?”

Cici had no idea and guessed by Alyssa’s silence that she was just as stymied.