17

Gonzalez and Marc came in with all the energy of a summer storm. They were both outraged and intrigued by the whole case, which pretty much matched our feelings on it. I knew the second they hit the door, the work would really begin. It was why I’d organized a phone conference with Dwayne so he could be told this was now a federal case. We wanted to wait and catch him up all at once.

Gonzalez had texted they were on their way, so Sho and I pulled all the case files and evidence to the conference room, then laid it out and got it ready for them. I heard them before I saw them and stood, greeting them at the door.

“Havili.” Marc approached first, all smiles, and shook my hand. He looked as attractive as always, his mink black hair swept out of his face and his ready smile charming. “Good to see you, man. I understand you popped the question.”

I didn’t know why everyone assumed I proposed. I mean, I’d planned to, but that wasn’t how it’d panned out.

“Actually, Jon proposed.”

Marc’s head jerked back in a double take. “No kidding?”

“No kidding.”

He leaned sideways to look past me. “Jon, you’re smarter than you look.”

“Hey! I’m not a complete idiot.”

Marc laughed, clearly enjoying the teasing.

Gonzalez hip-bumped his husband to the side so he could shake hands with me, too. He was as short and stocky as his husband was tall and slender, and clean shaven for once, as he normally kept stubble. “Hey, Havili. I hope you understand we’d love to be at the wedding.”

“Of course! Once we have a venue and a date locked in, we’ll send out invites.”

“Awesome. Now, where’s this apprentice Marc spoke to?”

I moved away from the door to let them in, waving to Abby. “That’s Abby. Abby, this is Marc—he’s a Tracer—and his partner in every sense of the word, Javier Gonzalez.”

Abby popped up and came around the table to shake hands.

Marc held her off with a stayed hand. “First, you look like you run hot. Are you as bad as Jon?”

“No, no,” she assured him. “Your phone’s safe from immediate death. If you want to sit next to me, though, I’d put it in a case. I leave mine in a case all the time.”

“Okay. Just double-checking. Hi, Abby.” Marc shook hands with her, and the longer he looked, the more delighted he became. “You and I need to talk about FBI recruitment after this meeting.”

Jon, still seated, drawled, “Thou shalt not have mine apprentice until she’s out of high school and at least legal.”

Marc ignored him. “We’ve been dying to get Jon as an agent for years, so you? The one who can actually use tech? You’re a godsend. Doesn’t a guaranteed job that makes 80K out of the gate sound like the best idea ever?”

Abby’s eyes narrowed. “I’d normally say yes, but your lines are speaking of greed.”

Ha! Take that, Marc. You couldn’t ever negotiate with a Reader and come out with your initial goal intact.

He groaned. “Of course I’m greedy. You’d cut my casework load in half.”

“That’s kinda what I thought.” Abby pursed her lips, then relented enough to agree. “We’ll talk later.”

Marc was instantly back to all smiles. “Okay!”

“First, though, help me solve my case.”

“Your case?” Gonzalez asked this question even as he took a seat. “I thought it was Jon’s.”

“No, no,” Jon corrected. “Abby was the one who initially found the guy in prison and alerted me. She and Dwayne are very good friends now, and she’s determined to not only exonerate him, but also to find the missing sister. This is very much her case. I’m along for the ride and to sign paperwork.”

That about summed it up, yeah. Some days I felt like I was around for the same reasons.

“Well, that’s even more awesome.” Gonzalez pointed to the chair Abby had just left, coincidentally the one to his immediate left, and encouraged her to sit. “Tell me about it. I read Sho’s brief on the way here, but what’s your take on Dwayne?”

Abby took her chair and dropped into it. “I know for a fact he’s law-abiding and just the best guy ever.”

“Damn. Okay, so he’s absolutely not involved in any of this shit.”

Jon supported this with a nod. “Correct, I verified that with my own eyes. We have a conference call scheduled so you can ask him questions yourself.”

“Look at you guys being all efficient. Okay, let’s do that. What time’s the call?”

“In about twenty minutes, but we can push it forward.”

Gonzalez waved this off. “Let me get some housekeeping done first.”

Oh, right. We’d need to sign some forms to be taken on as FBI consultants for this case. Jon would have to sign for Abby as a guardian, too, and walk her through the forms so she knew what she was looking at. Good thing they’d come in a little earlier.

We sat, did the paperwork, and Gonzalez bounced out the door to the scanner-slash-copier so he could send it all in. By the time that was done, we were ready for the call, so I patched it through and then connected it via Bluetooth to the speaker in the middle of the table. Jon wisely stayed on the far end, away from all tech, keeping a safe distance. Well, hopefully safe; sometimes tech just had it out for him.

The phone picked up and Dwayne’s voice came through loud and clear. Also hopeful.

“ Hello ?”

“Hi, Dwayne,” Abby greeted cheerfully. “You’re not going to believe the update. It’s lit .”

Couldn’t argue there. “We’re all here, as well as new friends. Right now, Abby, Jon, and I are all here, plus FBI Special Agents Javier and Marc Gonzalez. Marc is a Tracer, if you know what that is.”

“ I do .” Excitement trickled into Dwayne’s voice as he talked. “ Wow, nice to meet you, Agents. Uh, I heard my case went federal. Are you here to tackle it immediately ?”

“You could say that. I feel like this needs a drumroll.” Abby went pat a pat a pat on the tabletop. “Turns out, the weapon found in your case was made by a psychic. AND according to Agent Gonzalez, the person who made it is in an entirely different state.”

“Legally speaking, since this is now an open case, that makes this an FBI case. Plus, it involves the kidnapping of an anchor, so it’s very much in our jurisdiction,” Gonzalez explained.

“ That’s…crazy. I’m sitting here feeling like I’m on one of those ‘Gotcha ! ’ prank reality shows. ”

“Pretty much how we feel about it,” Jon mumbled. Then he raised his voice. “Dwayne, we’re all in really good hands here. I’ve worked with these two before, they’re good friends, and honestly, I reached out to them for help figuring out where this weapon even came from.”

“ I’m really thankful. What can I do to help right now ?”

“First, some information.” Marc used a glove and pulled the supposed murder weapon out of his bag and put it on the table. “Then we do questions. Right now, I have the murder weapon on the table, and to be honest, I don’t think it’s killed anything. Not even a bug.”

Uh. Seriously?

Abby pointed at the axe and demanded, “Are you sure?”

“Look, no matter how careful a murderer is, it’s really, really hard to get bloodstains off something. I can trace whatever small amount is left behind. There’s blood here on the axe, but it doesn’t connect to anything. The blood is as fake as the weapon itself.”

I let out a low whistle. Not surprising but good to know. Also, Marc saying it was fake had a lot more weight than your average psychic because he was FBI. It was his job to stand as witness to such things in trials. Dayum, this was going in all the right directions.

Marc seemed pleased by our reaction. “Told you guys this one was jacked up. It’s why Javier called and asked what the hell we were getting into because this shit’s weird .”

“No kidding,” Abby breathed. “Okay, but do you know what kind of psychic can do this?”

“I sure do. They’re called Materializers. It was not on your short list that Sho gave me, but don’t feel bad, they’re rare. Most of the time, they get recruited into areas like the medical field. After all, with some training, they can create simple bionics, limbs, and whatnot, all perfectly sized for the individual.”

“There’s a Materializer in France who works as a fireman,” Gonzalez pitched in. “He’s exceptional in the job because he can create whatever he needs in a pinch. Doors and windows all blocked with fire? Okay, no problem, he creates a new door into a building to rescue the people. It’s crazy what all Materializers can do.”

Sounded that way. Damn. I might need to get online and do some digging.

“Now, I will say, Materializers have to pass all the same psych evaluations and such that most licensed psychics do. So if they’re proven to be unstable for whatever reason, they’re not given those high-stress jobs.” Gonzalez grimaced. “And sometimes, psychics go rogue like everyone else. I think this might be one of those cases.”

Marc leaned forward toward the speaker. “Dwayne, think hard. Did you have any association with a Materializer? Did your sister?”

There was a pause, which meant Dwayne really was thinking about it.

“ I don’t…think so ? If someone had the ability, they certainly never showcased it around me .”

Kind of expected this answer.

“Okay. That’s fine, just keep thinking about it. We’ll take any lead right now. The good news is, we can prove it wasn’t you who did this. After all, you’re licensed, so we know for a fact you don’t have this ability. That plus the witness testimony and footage putting you somewhere else should be enough to exonerate you.”

A choked sob sounded through the speaker. Poor Dwayne, my heart just broke for him. He’d really had a terrible year.

“ Thank you ,” he choked out. “ All of you. You’ve really gone the extra mile for me and I appreciate it more than anything .”

“Trust me, this isn’t over yet, but we’re happy to help. Now.” Marc sat back a little. “While I was trying to trace this thing, I did get something of a hit. It was very brief. About fifteen seconds altogether, but I did get something of a location for our perp. They’re in Georgia somewhere. Know anyone from Georgia?”

“ Uh. Well, my aunt, but she wouldn’t have anything to do with this. She was devastated when Tylesia went missing. She’s also in a wheelchair, so… ”

“Likely not the culprit. Dwayne, as painful as this question is, is there any chance your sister set this whole thing up?”

“ No way in hell .” His answer was strong and immediate. “ Tye loved me to pieces, and I her. Besides, I always told her, if she didn’t want to be my anchor for whatever reason, I’d break the bond and let her go. She was adamant she didn’t want to leave. This wasn’t her doing .”

“Okay. I had to ask, you understand. Now, the good news is, there’s not many Materializers. Perhaps a dozen altogether in the US.”

Oh? This was really good news. The fewer there were, the easier it would be to sort through them.

“Honestly, him materializing everything instead of sourcing it is going to be in our favor. The perp was too clever for his own good.”

“ You know ? That sparks joy .”

Marc grinned like a kid with a new Lego set. “Doesn’t it, though?”

“ Does that mean you can just look up Materializers who live in Georgia and find him ?”

“Well, we can’t assume they live in Georgia. Could have just been passing through. What I’d really like to know is how I’m being blocked from tracing him. It’s a mean feat, and honestly, I’ve only had one other case where it happened. If this asshat is blocking not only me, but also Carol and Grant Walker? Then they’re doing something hinky.”

Hinky sounded about right.

Jon had his thinking cap on, I could tell from his expression.

“I think,” he opined, “that if we can figure out how the shielding works, then we might be in a better state of either finding the perp or finding a way around it. Might be something of a tough road, though.”

Gonzalez winced. “Yeah. I’ve already spent hours talking this over with Marc and not coming up with an answer, but maybe someone else will come up with a great idea. In the meantime, we’ve got a dozen people to interview and sift through. One way or another, we’ll figure this out.”

“ I’m counting on you. Um. Quick tangent, but with you two here, can I have you as witnesses in my civil case ?”

Civil case? Oh, right.

Seeing Marc’s and Gonzalez’s confusion, I clarified. “He’s suing the detective who declared him the perp to begin with. Name’s Solomon. We have a long, long history of Solomon screwing people over, and this is one of those times where we have him caught red-handed, so Dwayne’s pursuing a civil case against him.”

Marc’s grin turned feral. “Oh, I do like to take the arrogant ones down a peg. I’d be happy to be a material witness for you.”

“ Thanks so much. I really appreciate it .”

“Trust me, this will be fun. All right, Dwayne, we’re going to hop off. My husband and I have to plow through all of this material to see how much of it is useful, useless, or something we can use against Solomon—that’s his name? Right, against Solomon in your civil case. We’ll touch base with you the second we have more questions, okay?”

“ Sounds great. Thanks again. Bye, guys !”

“Bye.” I reached out and ended the call.

Marc and Gonzalez looked at us. We looked at them.

Abby cleared her throat. “Um, so, it sounds like even you’re not sure Tye is actually dead. So how do we prove whether or not she’s alive? And how do we track down the Materializer short of interviewing people all over the country?”

Jon let out a decade’s worth of sighs. “One question at a time, Abby. One question at a time.”