Chapter Four

Billie kept quiet as he drove toward Jesep Wessington's downtown office. The cops would be going there as well to give Jesep an update on the kidnapping.

A really bad update.

In a nutshell, his wife hadn't been at the drop location. And it was her finger they'd found. Thankfully, the lab had been able to confirm that right away, but now they'd have to tell Jesep that Victoria had not only been mutilated but that there'd been no indications as to where she was or if she was still alive.

Other than that flippant TTYS , the kidnappers hadn't left a note with the grisly jar. Nor had they contacted Presley, the cops or her in the half hour they'd all waited at the house for further instructions.

There was an outside chance that the kidnappers had been in touch with Jesep, but if so, the man certainly hadn't shared that development with SAPD or Maverick Ops.

Judging from the map on the dash, they'd be at Jesep's office in less than fifteen minutes. Hardly enough time for Billie to try to determine if Presley was up to this visit or if being in his childhood home, AKA the murder house, had shaken his very foundation. It had certainly shaken her to see him like this since Presley had always been rock solid.

It was time to try to pull him out of it.

"Why don't we have a good air clearing?" Billie threw out there.

Presley glanced at her, scowled. But even with that surly expression, she couldn't help but notice he was still one of the hottest guys she'd ever seen. Once, he'd told her that his parents had named him after Elvis because of his black hair, sleepy eyes, and olive skin. And he did indeed have that rock star vibe about him.

"The air doesn't need clearing," he grumbled. "I'm fine. You're fine. We're all fine except for Victoria." He muttered some profanity. "These dicks are playing games with us. With her."

So, that's what was bothering him and not the trip down hell lane. Billie understood his anger and frustration. The kidnappers were indeed playing games, and they'd hurt a woman that they seemingly had no reason to hurt.

Well, unless they knew some insider info.

"The kidnappers could know the diamonds are fakes," she suggested. This wasn't the air clearing she'd anticipated, but it would do. Get him focused back on the assignment.

"Yeah, I considered that. Which points to someone in the family," he said, stating what she thought as well. "Before I started the drive here, I texted Ruby and requested she find out the terms of Jesep's and Victoria's wills. Whoever has the most to gain might be pulling the strings."

So true.

She hadn't known about his text to Ruby. After discovering the jar, there'd been a flurry of communications. Some through their earbuds, others via text. Jesep's and Victoria's wills were a good angle for them to explore, and while most wills weren't made public, maybe Ruby could find something.

"You want an air clearing about us?" he came out and asked.

Billie did a mental doubletake. No, she didn't especially want to get into the personal stuff, but if it helped with the focus, she'd bite.

"Sure," she said, and was about to add something about where to start.

Presley took care of the starting though. "You certainly dumped me fast after you left my bed."

Okay. They were going there . "I did that because I was your boss, and sleeping with you was wrong."

"So you said," he grumbled, and she heard the serious disapproval about that in his voice.

The hurt maybe, too. Well, she'd been hurt, too, because it hadn't been easy to walk away from Presley or her badge.

"I said it was wrong because it was true," she argued. "You could have reported me."

"For what? An orgasm?" he fired back.

She wasn't sure all of this intensity was for their past. It was likely just being rolled into the stew pot with all the other crap going on.

"I'd never done anything like that before. And it was a mistake," Billie repeated.

"Yeah, got that. You resigned shortly thereafter," he grumbled.

"I should have been fired," she muttered.

"Oh, please." He stretched out that last word some. "I wasn't some helpless dick that you coaxed into bed."

Billie stared at him. And then did something totally inappropriate. She laughed. Really, really laughed.

"Well, your dick was involved," she said, figuring a light-hearted touch wasn't the way to go. Still, she hadn't been able to stop herself.

She waited for his reaction. And waited. And waited.

Finally, he groaned. "Sorry. I was picking a fight with you because I keep seeing my mother's blood on that floor. And now, I have the new memories of a severed finger. Give me a greedy assed, focused on the ransom kidnapper any day over sonofabitches like these."

She couldn't agree fast enough, and she touched her fingers to the still sore area around her eye. "And give me a sonofabitch with a slower right hook."

He glanced at her, and his face—that incredible face—wasn't sporting nearly as much tension as it had seconds earlier. Or rather, he was sporting a different kind of tension. It seemed to disgust him to see that bruise.

"I hope you kicked his balls into his throat for doing that to you," Presley said.

"That's pretty much what happened. The steel toe of my boot in his family jewels, and he deflated like a balloon."

He stayed quiet a moment. "You mentioned it was a noncustodial abduction. Is the kid all right?"

"Kids. A girl, five, and a boy, seven. Thankfully, they didn't witness the ball-busting. He'd stashed them in a motel room. I took him down when he came out to his car to get some things."

"Good. It's bad when the kids see too much."

The voice of experience. Presley had indeed seen way too much when he'd found his dead parents. She suspected that hadn't been his one and only time either. Not with his stints as a cop and military special forces. Maybe fate would give him a break. A break, too, for Victoria, and they wouldn't end up finding her dead.

"Since you're a stickler for rules, how the hell did you end up working for Strike Force?" Presley asked as he took the final turn toward Jesep's office.

Ah, she'd been expecting something along those lines. Her boss, Owen Striker, had a reputation for toeing the line when it came to the law. Actually, a reputation for occasionally going over the line in some hard situations.

"When I interviewed for the job, I told Owen upfront that I wouldn't break the law," she said. "And I haven't."

She might have added more, but he pulled to a stop in front of the Wessington building. No mistaking it for something else since the name was right there, emblazoned in shiny silver across the front of the limestone building. It looked expensive and lavish, exactly as she'd expected.

Presley parked, and while keeping watch around them, they went inside to an equally impressive lobby. The receptionist, a twenty-something-year-old curvy blonde, gave them a look as if they'd tracked in something smelly and disgusting on their shoes.

"Presley Nolan and Billie Cooper to see Mr. Wessington," Presley said, and they both produced their IDs.

The receptionist took the IDs, studied them, and gave them that look again. "Mr. Wessington is expecting you?"

The question riled Billie because, yeah, he was expecting them, and he should have let his employee know so this part of the visit could be streamlined. Instead, they had to wait for the receptionist to call "up to the top floor." Then, they had to wait—Billie kept watch of the time—for over two minutes before they were allowed into the elevator.

"Either Wessington has bad attention to detail, or he's fallen apart," Billie guessed.

"Yep, it'll be interesting to see which," Presley agreed.

They rode the elevator to the top floor, and when they stepped off, there was another receptionist, a middle-aged brunette this time. Unlike her downstairs counterpart, this one didn't give them any nasty looks. She ushered them straight into Jesep's office.

Billie glanced around the massive space. Floor to ceiling windows with a view of the San Antonio Riverwalk. Prime real estate. Everything was gleaming and polished, from the marble floors to the wood on the large desk where Jesep was seated.

Jesep was polished, too, with every strand of his silver-white hair in place. Ditto for his dark gray suit. Billie's first impression of him was that he looked like an arrogant jerk. She hoped she was wrong because that kind of personality wouldn't make it easy for them to rescue his wife.

He wasn't alone in the room. There was a woman on the white leather sofa in the seating area that Billie recognized from her photo as Jesep's daughter, Olivia. The man across from her was Ari.

So, the family was all here.

Well, with the exception of Victoria, and even her picture wasn't present in the shiny framed photos on one of the end tables. In that trio of photos was another woman, a much younger Jesep, and Ari and Olivia as children. Billie was guessing this was Jesep's first wife and Ari and Olivia's mother.

"Presley Nolan," he said, and he hiked his thumb to her. "This is Billie Cooper."

"We've met," Ari all but snarled. "You refused the last time I needed help." So, he obviously remembered.

Billie didn't remind him that he was the one who'd done the refusing by not wanting a woman on the case. At least she didn't remind him verbally, but she shot him a cool glance that probably had a tinge of a smirk to it.

"Where's Victoria?" Jesep demanded without introducing himself.

"We don't know," Billie admitted. "Presley and I went to the drop location—"

"Yes, yes, yes," he said impatiently. "The police told me there was a note on the wall and a finger in a jar."

There was no usual look of revulsion when he said that. Not from Ari either. But Billie noted that Olivia turned a little pale. Good. At least someone here was disgusted with what had happened.

"You're both fired for incompetence," Jesep barked. "You should have found Victoria by now and brought her home."

That got Billie's attention back on the man, and before she could say anything, Presley shrugged. "Fine. The kidnappers requested us, so I'll just let the cops know that along with refusing to pay the ransom, you've now put up a roadblock to getting your wife back."

Olivia bolted from the sofa and hurried to her father. "Dad, you can't fire them."

"I can and will," Jesep snapped. "They've failed to do their jobs. They've—"

"No, the kidnappers lied," Olivia corrected. "They're playing around with us, maybe building our desperation to have Victoria safely returned home. And we do want her back," Olivia stated, directing that at Presley and Billie.

"They're not even sure if the blood and that finger is Victoria's," Jesep spat out.

"It's hers," Billie verified. "Your wife's DNA was in the bone marrow registry."

Olivia dragged in a breath, nodded. "Because she donated marrow when I was eight." She paused. "My father and Victoria got close after that."

That reminder seemed to cause Jesep to throttle back some. "I'd been a widower for six years by then," he rattled off as if to explain that he hadn't jumped straight from one wife to another.

But Billie had to wonder if Jesep's gratitude for Victoria saving his daughter's life had played into them getting married. She was certainly having a hard time figuring out why anyone would have wed Jesep. Then again, she didn't know anything but background facts about Victoria. Maybe Jesep and Victoria were a perfect match.

"So, the finger is Victoria's," Ari said, clearly directing his comment to Presley and not Billie. "What's next? Why haven't the kidnappers been in touch?"

Those were both good questions, and there didn't seem to be any hidden subtext in that. Unlike his father, Ari didn't appear to be blaming Presley and her for what had happened. But that talking man-to-man crap must have riled Presley because he motioned for Billie to dole out the response.

"There could be several reasons why the kidnappers haven't contacted us," Billie replied. "One is building the desperation that your sister mentioned. They could be hoping to capitalize on that and either make a higher or faster demand."

Ari nodded, sparing Billie a glance. "Give us the diamonds now or we cut off more fingers?"

"That's a possibility," Billie confirmed. "But something could have gone wrong with the drop. Maybe the kidnappers thought they were about to be captured and fled to set up another venue for the exchange."

"Bullshit guesses," Jesep snarled. "You don't know what happened to my wife. She could be dead for all you know."

Presley gave the man that look. The one Billie had seen him use when interrogating the worst of criminals. It was a flat-eyed, quit pissing me off glare. And it was very effective.

"Yes, she could be dead," Presley said, his voice low and with a dangerously calm edge. "The kidnappers could have learned the diamonds were fake and killed us. Whose idea was it to try to con people who had total and complete control over Victoria's life?"

Silence fell on the room, and Billie didn't need the answer verbalized. She could tell just by the way Ari and Olivia had their gazes fixed on their father.

"Those diamonds aren't mine to give away," Jesep spat out.

"And you couldn't purchase them for your wife's ransom?" Presley was quick to ask.

The muscles in Jesep's jaw went to war with each other. "No." That was it. He didn't add any further explanation as to why a man of his estimated wealth couldn't shell out money to give his wife a fighting chance of being returned alive.

And in one piece.

"Have the cops taken DNA and fingerprints from you?" Presley asked, keeping his attention pinned to Jesep.

Oh, that didn't set well with the man. "Why would they?" Jesep snarled.

Presley shrugged. "They normally do in situations like this. It's to exclude family members' DNA or prints from any evidence they might find. While we're waiting on the kidnapper to contact us, I can have someone from SAPD lab come over and do that."

Jesep snatched up his phone. "I'll talk to my lawyer about that."

Billie had no idea if the man was just doling out more of his asshole ways or if he had an actual reason why he wouldn't want the cops to have his DNA.

"Ella, get Tate on the line now," he barked.

"Tate Harrington, his lawyer," Olivia supplied.

Judging from the stink-eye Jesep was aiming at Presley and her, he seemed to believe the call would intimidate them.

Not a chance.

She turned to Presley to see what their next move should be, but before she could say anything, his phone rang. Of course, that amped up the adrenaline because her first thought was this was the kidnapper.

It wasn't.

"It's Ruby," he relayed to her in a whisper, and he motioned for her to follow him out of the office. He didn't answer the call until they were on the other side of the reception area.

"You heard from the kidnappers?" Presley immediately asked when he answered. He didn't put the call on speaker, but Billie moved in close enough so she could hear what his boss had to say.

"No, the lab," Ruby corrected. And she paused a long time. "I don't know what it means yet, but the tech just told me that there's a familial match in the database to Victoria's DNA."

Billie's forehead bunched up because that didn't seem like a big deal. It was probably a relative. That would have occurred to Ruby, too, though. But still, she'd called.

"Who's the match to in the database?" Billie came out and asked.

Ruby blew out an audible breath. "Presley."