Page 70 of Ride the Lightning
Rocky quickly responded. He would start as soon as possible but warned there could be a slight delay since the cheating wife case was taking up so much of his time.
Jonah rose from his chair, grabbed the presentation materials, and exited his office. Avery wasn’t at his desk, so he continued to the conference room.
“St. John,” said the devil as he approached from behind, “I hope you’re prepared for the meeting.”
Jonah halted and turned to face his boss. Avery was a few paces behind Trexler, watching their interaction.
“I’m more than prepared,” Jonah said. “Avery and I are looking forward to sharing our exciting news.”
“We are,” Avery confirmed, handing Jonah a steaming mug of coffee.
Trexler scowled at Avery and Jonah in turns. “He’s joining us?”
“He is,” Jonah said without quantifying his reason.
Trexler stormed off without another word.
I’m onto you, you sanctimonious prick.
The presentation went amazingly well. Trexler tried his best to trip him up but failed miserably. Jonah knew the chip inside and out because he and Avery had built it from scratch. He focused on what the latest cybersecurity would mean to the bureau, then asked Avery to present the data from the trial run.
“I can’t believe you’re developing it for us when you could sell it for a huge profit,” Agent Paxton said. “You could probably get millions and spend your days on a boat or a beach instead of chained to a desk in here.”
The thought had crossed Jonah’s mind once he realized how unhappy he’d been at work lately.
Trexler quickly moved the meeting along once the attendees started heaping praise upon Jonah and Avery. No way the traitorous fucker would stand for that. Jonah only gave half his attention to the meeting and let his mind wander.
Why had Trexler restricted his access? So the bureau could avoid sharing the blame for the botched investigation? Or, was there a clue to the killer’s identity Jonah had overlooked? Thankfully, he had a copy of the file on the flash drive Avery made for him. Jonah would prefer to examine the actual evidence collected at the crime scene, but he’d have to get someone at SPD to—
Wait a minute. He recalled seeing the storage location noted in the records, and it wasn’t an SPD site. That was the proof he needed to show GBI had taken over the investigation at one point? When? And who? Since he’d memorized the case file number, he didn’t need to swing by his house first to get it.
The meeting ran much later than it should have, since Trexler was in love with his own voice. Several agents had follow-up questions for Jonah about the microchip, and he stayed to answer them. Avery took off because he had dinner plans with his family.
By the time Jonah logged off and secured his computers, Avery was already gone. He’d left a note on his desk.
You’ll be my dessert. I’ll call you when I’m done.
Jonah swung through Arby’s again on the way across town and ordered his favorite combo meal, but his stomach was too upset to eat it. He decided to leave the food in the car and reheat it later at home.
The sky had started to darken with impending storms by the time he reached the storage facility, a windowless warehouse. It housed rows upon rows of dusty metal shelves jam-packed with decades’ worth of evidence from solved and prosecuted cases. Because the risk of theft and tampering was low, they didn’t keep a clerk on site. This was also where all the old files had been stored before he’d digitized them, so Jonah knew the access code unless someone had changed it. He tapped it in and held his breath while waiting for the system to respond. The red light turned green, and the lock disengaged.
The setup reminded Jonah of a library, but instead of using alphabetical letters, they sorted and stored the boxes numerically by case number. Jonah went to the section where Earl’s evidence should’ve been and found an empty spot on the shelf. There was a disturbance in the dust which signaled recent activity.
Son of a bitch. Of course, it wouldn’t be as easy as he’d hoped. Jonah was disappointed but not surprised. No wonder Trexler didn’t change the access code. Why go to all that hassle when you could just make the evidence disappear?
The headache he hadn’t been able to shake had intensified from stirring up dust and other allergens. When he stepped outside, Jonah noticed the sky had darkened further. The wind had kicked up considerably too. It whistled and howled between the warehouse buildings the city used for various things, swirling dust and debris in miniature dirt devils. It wasn’t loud enough to drown out noises coming from around the side of the building.
“Dammit,” a gruff voice muttered.
Instead of heading for his car, Jonah poked his head around the alley between two buildings. An older man wearing filthy, frayed clothing stood looking angrily at the dumpster. He pushed an old grocery cart with one hand and held a dingy teddy bear in the other.
As wretched as his grandfather could be, Oscar St. John had a soft spot for homeless people. Jonah remembered the surprise trip to Atlanta when he was ten years old to see his very first Braves game. Jonah had never seen a homeless person before and was shocked to see how mean people were to them.
“Get a job, you bum,” one lady had said to an elderly man who’d stretched out a paper cup to her as she walked by.
Not Oscar. He slipped some folded bills in the cup. “No one would choose to live on the streets,” he’d said. “That man is probably a veteran who lost his mind after seeing horrible things in a war.”
“Do you know him?” young Jonah had asked.