Page 51 of Shrapnel

“I saw that. But it was usually on a Friday, so it was probably a date. She had a live-in girlfriend.”

He hadn’t even thought to look at the dates. “Can’t I just go shoot someone?”

Owen sighed like Elijah again, a little wrinkle appearing between his eyebrows. “You shouldn’t joke about that.”

“And you shouldn’t ask someone who didn’t even graduate high school to look at all these numbers.”

The spinny chair squeaked as Owen sat back, eyes wide as he stared down at Jamie. “You didn’t…you didn’t graduate high school?”

Jamie shrugged, zooming in on something. “I don’t know? The Weavers had a tutor for a while, but he mostly left me alone. Focused on Elijah.”

Of course, he had left Jamie alone after he had shot his glasses off with a .22 after one of the guys bet him he couldn’t. Apparently that ‘crossed a line’ or something.

For some reason, he found himself reluctant to tell Owen that. Jamie had never been embarrassed about the things he had done before, but he didn’t want Owen to think he was…well, he didn’t know what Owen thought but he didn’t want him to stop doing that dopey grin whenever he saw him.

They left it at that, and Owen went back to whatever it was he was doing. Jamie tried to concentrate but the numbers swam, and he struggled to make sense of what they were supposed to be saying. They kept jumping lines and he would get the account numbers and values confused. Switching to the phone records didn’t help—they were worse. So many numbers all in a row. It made him feel itchy and a little frustrated.

Jamie had always been better with words, so he focused on those instead. They were meaningless. Eventually, he shoved the laptop away and padded over to Owen, leaning over his shoulder to look at what he was doing.

“Are you cleaning up the CCTV footage?”

Owen grunted. “Most of the scenes were so corrupted I couldn’t even open the file. Either the doers knew the cameras were jacked or they used something to mess with the signal. I can try and access them, but it’s pretty impossible.”

After a minute Jamie recognized the footage on Owen’s big screen. It was from the convenience store where the two homeless men died.

“What are you doing? I thought that footage was ok?”

“It is,” Owen agreed. “But I don’t settle for ok. There might be something in a reflection, a facial tic, anything that could be missed without a high resolution. I chose these cameras for a reason and if I just apply some additional parameters within the resolution filter and max out the fire fusion, I might be able to get it.”

Jamie stared at the back of Owen’s dyed head. His roots were dark, curling up through the orangy yellow color on the rest of his hair. There was an energy in the way he was talking, the way his eyes shined, that had nothing to do with the caffeine flooding his system. Pieces were clicking in his brain that Jamie couldn’t even begin to comprehend. He loved this. He loved the chase and the adrenalin.

For an absurd moment, Jamie wondered what he could do to convince Owen to come back to the Weavers. To be his wingman again.

But then he remembered the way his soft eyes had gone dark when he talked about fear at the concert. The carefree way he danced and sang when he knew he didn’t have an international crime family breathing down his neck. Owen was happier without them. Without Jamie.

He could never take that security from him.

“Why do you need me, anyway? Isn’t Noah like…stupid rich? Can’t he employ a squadron of computer geeks?”

“Yeah, but Noah is trying to keep all this quiet. He can’t use any of his people that aren’t 100% loyal.” Jamie leaned back against the wall beside Owen’s computer, crossing his arms. “Besides, we needed the best.”

Owen scrunched up his face in disbelief, turning back to his computer and clicking through more screens.

Even though Owen was a few years older than him, Jamie always thought he looked young. With his neon orange hair flopping over his brownish green eyes and his baggy hoodies, he gave off a hamster energy. Like he could reach into his cheeks and pull out a can of energy drink at any moment. Jamie felt strangely protective of him. Not just about his physical safety, but about his emotional well-being. He didn’t want to expose Owen to his life. To the emotions he shut out behind thick locks and metaphorical walls.

He was a cancer and Owen was healthy and whole. A wholesome person that shouldn’t be exposed to his toxins.

Watching Owen slurp down another energy drink, cheeks puffing up as he swished the carbonation around his teeth, Jamie suddenly felt something not quite unfamiliar.

Loathing.

He shouldn’t be here. Owen was right. The Weavers needed to keep away from him and his hamster cage full of cute family photos andhappiness.

“I should—”

“Wait, I’ve got something.” Owen turned his computer monitor towards a shaken Jamie. Blinking away the pang of self-disgust, he focused.

“Two of our victims worked for the same pharmaceutical company. Donahue worked for Satex Pharmaceuticals for two years before her murder.”