Page 40

Enemy Fire

T he hometown-style diner in the middle of the bustling city I’m sitting in is just off State U’s campus. Belle’s is an institution, and as always, it’s packed even after lunchtime.

I agreed to meet Jackson here after he texted about a potential source. My useless fishing expedition on the darknet didn’t yield solid information and, with the chaos surrounding my life in the Hollow, I haven’t had time to dive in again. I reluctantly handed my contacts and digital breadcrumbs over to him after the drugging incident because I knew we needed answers more quickly than I could manage on my own. I didn’t think he’d get a hit this fast, but when he messaged me, I had to come.

I’m here without my ‘entourage’ because despite their fury at the blow-up at the Hollar yesterday, every single one of my boyfriends, friends, and the stupid freeloaders had conflicts. Their absence is a bit sus after the scolding I got at home last night, but it’s not like they’re all off together at some secret ‘Jolene Protection Society’ meeting.

Presley had a full schedule at the office, Wolfie had to go to the farm to check a foal, Teddy had to see someone called ‘The Hook’, and Seer went off with her new playmates. I didn’t ask for more details because while it’s sweet that they’re protective, I won’t complain when they decide not to smother me after a day like yesterday. I’m still processing my emotions and I can’t keep analyzing the motivations of my old bullies.

Besides, I have the animal contingent with me. Euryale had to wait outside because of her size, but the cats, dogs, and this blasted snake are all at the table. Jekyll and Hyde are perched on the chair with Kali and Hecate flanking them on the floor. The snake—who I haven’t named yet, but can seldom get to stay more than a couple of feet from me—is coiled around one leg and up to my waist with its head resting on the table. I must look like a reject from a Steve Irwin special to passersby, but Belle and her family have ties to the Hollow.

How do I know?

The cute freckled girl at the hostess stand damn near kicked someone out of their table to seat me without batting a lash at the menagerie following me. Then Belle herself trotted out of the kitchen to coo at my servals and promised I didn’t need to order because she knew what I needed to eat. I just nodded at her, deciding I’d had enough drama to last a month and I’ll just eat whatever the hell she brings. I wouldn’t even be in public today if it weren't for Jackson’s text and my gut deep belief that all of this weirdness starting from my background check to the latest bullshit is tied together somehow.

Whistler’s Hollow is the key to everything; I know it.

“How’s it hangin’, J-Dawg?”

I chuckle, looking up at my old college friend and the least lawyerly looking attorney this side of the Mississippi. “Jackson, it’s been a while. You look relaxed as hell.”

Tossing his blond surfer style hair out of his eyes, Jackson Ellison Thorn IV gives me a megawatt grin. “I sure as fuck do, doll. Since my dad finally kicked it, I restructured the firm and I have all the sibs handling the drudgery. Taxes, estates, civil class action, corporate—I only handle the bloody stuff besides you. Litigation keeps my blood pumping, and I only take the ugliest shit I can find.”

My lips curve. “And you take it via sandy beaches, I’d assume? You’re so tan that you might as well open a bar and serve umbrella drinks in Bermuda, dude.”

“Ah, well. I do like to plan my legal assassinations in locales that suit my temperament, Jojo. My dad would never let me move to the coast and be a surfing bum, so now I get to do both. It’s a win-win—much like everything I do.”

I roll my eyes at his arrogance. Jackson was the one who found me after Trevor left. I was holed up in my room, doing nothing but studying and homework for weeks. He was the RA on my floor, and when someone reported to him they hadn’t seen me leave for almost a month, he came barging in.

I was a stinky, malnourished, snotty mess he threw into a shower fully clothed. Once I stopped screaming at him, he helped me get back on my feet for the next few days and booked me in with one of the school therapists. He sort of saved my life, and we’ve been accountability buddies ever since.

Notice I didn’t say friends?

We are friends, but casual ones. He helped me because he recognized the broken pieces I had on full display. Jackson will always be a recovering drug addict—rich kid, overbearing dad, drunk mom, family legacy shit—but he pulled himself out of the hole and stay clean. While we didn’t share our darkest thoughts and pain, our relationship has always been an anchor point for us both. When he graduated from law school, I was his first client. He’s never let me down, and I never let him forget how grateful I am.

“Are you going to sit down or stand there posing all day?” I grumble, giving the group of giggly Alpha Phi girls staring at him with the stank eye.

“The ladies love a Thorn, Jojo. It’s in our blood.” He plops into the chair, sprawling like it’s a couch and he’s on a Vanity Fair photoshoot for eligible bachelors.

Too bad for all the ladies because the Thorn sitting in front of me likes dicks as much as I do. “Don’t be gross. You called me here because you have information, and we’re working. Show me what this hacker found.”

“Right. Business Jojo in the house. Okay, so I hired this delicious little emo boy I found at a drum and bass rave. Who on Earth knows why he was there, but when we got to his place and saw he stocked it like a hotel room at DEFCON, I knew I’d gotten a two-fer.”

Pulling the messenger bag off his shoulder, he opens it and pulls out a stack of accordion files and two hard drives. “The kid wrote a program to trawl for specific keywords and phrases—a spider bot or something—through four different darknets while he gave me the most amazing bl?—”

“Jesus Christ in a sweet potato pie, Jackson!” I glare at him, grabbing the first file as he smirks. “Boundaries, asshole.”

“Aw, Jojo, I just wanted to share . You’re no fun since you crossed the pond. All you’ve done is work yourself into a hole for that FBI thing, and now that it’s shot to hell, you went and buried yourself in that toxic wasteland you call a hometown.” He pauses, arching a brow at me. “And what is with the zoo, Doolittle? Those dogs look like short chicks could ride them.”

“ Don’t call me Jojo,” I murmur as I read the page. It’s a police report, but not one I’ve ever seen before. It was taken by a Statie the night of my parents’ car crash—it doesn’t match any of the official records they sent me after they died. In fact, it doesn’t read like any report, news story, or even medical chart Jackson sent.

His brown eyes soften as I pick up the glass of bourbon and take a shaky sip. “This is pretty out there, right? When I looked up this dude, I found out that he was a rookie when the accident happened. Fresh out of the academy and working the corridor in a speed trap. Want to know what else?”

I take another swig of the Booker’s, knowing in my gut this information is going to change everything. “Yeah. Tell me more, Jax.”

“After the inquest and all of that, this dude retired with his wife and two kids to fucking Istanbul. He’s a cultural attaché to some fancy pants charity organization as far as the paper trail shows. Now, I may have fried my grey matter with way too much coke and X in the day, but I’m still smart enough to realize that a Statie with an associate’s in crim jus doesn’t have the money, the experience, or the language skills to move to a foreign country for that job.” Jax stacks his hands behind his head and grins. “So I had cutie Ely dig in further, and that rube cop is living in one hell of a fancy fucking house with a goddamned Jag in the driveway. The job is bullshit—the charity doesn’t exist.”

The coils of my new companion tighten and relax around my midsection and I realize that I’m sitting ramrod straight, tension flooding my body as I digest the news. “You think someone buried this and whisked his family as far away as possible to keep it from coming out?”

“Jojo, that report says there was no drunk driver on the road. It says it was a single vehicle when he arrived, and the scene looked like someone had set a bomb off. Yeah, I think it’s shady as fuck. This is the scent that makes predators like me hold their heads up and start tracking.”

Closing my eyes, I try to reconcile that my parents may have been murdered, and they covered it up. Why? Two college professors with a paid off home, no connections to any weird criminals, and a boring lifestyle in a small town are not assassination targets.

It’s like aiming for the goddamned Cleavers, for fuck’s sake. Who in the nine realms of Valhalla would put a hit on two middle-class teachers?

“Jax, I don’t… I don’t know what to say. I can’t wrap my mind around this. It makes little sense. My parents were as small town, plain Jane as two people could be. Imagining someone being angry enough at them to take out a hit is almost laughable.”

“I know, but everything Ely found points to a massive cover-up. It doesn’t point to who covered it up, but you assume that Chief Barrington’s dad, Dr. Bennett, Grayson Parks, and Aurelia Fletcher were in on it. Obviously, to achieve something like this, you’d need the Chief of Police, the town doctor, the coroner, and the nurse to start. Given that it happened on Statie territory, not in town, you’d probably need someone with governmental sway, so I’m going to point a finger at the local senator, and possibly whoever handles burials in town,” he muses.

Belle walks up with a big tray and we pause, flicking our eyes around guiltily. She places bowls of spoon bread, greens, fritters, fried green tomatoes, and a basket of crawdads on the table with a flourish. “Y’all eat up. This is just the beginning.”

I groan, knowing that I’m going to gorge myself and have to roll my ass into the Impala to drive home. Making a mental note to talk to Teddy about that damn gym, I shove a fritter in my mouth and almost pass out in a food related orgasm. “I said god damn ,” I mutter as I pick at the tomatoes. “Nothing like home cooking, no matter where in the world you go.”

Jax chuckles, nodding his head. “You just can’t get it like this outside of the South, Jojo. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

“Tell me about the rest of the stuff in these files,” I say, reaching for the salt. “Is it all related to the accident?”

He peels one of the crayfish, sucking the shell clean and shakes his head. “Nope. It’s also a pretty detailed path from the college to some sort of shadowy recruitment. I don’t really understand it, but maybe with all your secret agent shit, you’ll be able to figure it out.”

“If it’s about basketball, I’m not interested. Everyone knows that State U and Pointe do shady shit to get recruits to the teams. Scandals at the NCAA level aren’t my focus,” I reply as I spear some greens. “It’s gross, but not something I need to look into.”

“No, Jojo. You don’t get it. This seems to indicate that State is paired up with some untraceable… thing… or group… that it funnels grads towards. Like some Skull and Bones shit. If either of your folks was wrapped up in it, maybe that’s a reason…”

Oh. Now I feel stupid. Who’s the brilliant profiler now?

Getting laid is making my brain soft, I fucking swear. “I see. Do you think if I scan a bunch of old crap that I found in a mysterious trunk, Eli could try to...do his thing?” His eyebrows bob and I make a disgusted face. “Ugh, not that thing, you pervert. The hacker shit. Goddess, you are so fucking nasty.”

“Jojo, you’ve never been a prude before now! Why don’t you want to indulge my... sweet tooth?” His eyes sparkle as he waves an aptly shaped fritter at me and he bites the end off with a satisfied smirk.

“Because… because… because I just don’t!” It’s not the best retort in the world, but I’m not prepared to share my alternative lifestyle with him, especially since I avoided the animal question. “Now, can he do it or not?”

“I’m pretty sure that boy could launch the nukes at CENTCOM if he felt like it. Send me the files through the encrypted drops, and I’ll talk to him.” Jackson tilts his head and eyes me carefully. “Oh, I get it! You’re getting laid . And it’s not just a fling-a-ling like in Europe, so you’re being all provincial about it. Tsk tsk, Jojo. I’m hurt.”

I sigh, stopping my inhalation of the fried food at the table to look at him seriously. “It’s...it’s… You know what happened with Trevor; you were there. This is the first real thing since then, and I’m not ready to open that wound and let it bleed today.”

“I’m not asking if you’re gonna wife anyone, doll. I just want the long story, and I’m not going anywhere until I get it. Settle in kitties,” he says, looking at Jekyll. “Your mama’s gonna keep her ass in this chair until she spills the beans.”

Kali lets out a howl, and I press my thumbs into my temples. Just what I fucking needed today—traitorous companions and a gossip mongering lawyer.

I wonder if the boys are faring any better.