14. The U S of Fucking A

FOURTEEN

The U S of Fucking A

In the genetic pool sweepstakes, for her short life, Brittanie Iverson was a clear winner.

Rus knew this, standing at the viewing glass, watching a twenty-eight-year-old calm, composed version of Cade Bohannan sit and study Dakota Iverson as he prowled the room, punching air, kicking walls and making empty threats.

Dakota was thin, weaselly, short, already losing his blond hair, and Rus would guess they didn’t have running water up in that hunting cabin, because he looked like he hadn’t taken a shower or put on clean clothes in weeks.

Listening to the going’s-on, Rus didn’t know if the guy loved his sister, or he was pissed at the world and using this as his excuse to do something about it.

“Whaddare’ya doin’, sittin’ there?” he demanded of Jesse Bohannan, and he did this slamming a chair into the table opposite where Jesse was sitting.

Jesse, lounged back, one forearm on the table, which was fortunately bolted to the floor, one hand resting on his thigh, long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, didn’t move a muscle.

“What the fuck!” Dakota stabbed a finger at the wall. “My sister’s killer is walking free, asshole.”

“What I’m not doing is kicking a wall. A wall didn’t kill Brittanie,” Jesse replied, cool as Brad Pitt playing poker in Ocean’s Eleven.

Rus wasn’t sure that was the way to go.

They were contemporaries, though. Jesse was a built, good-looking guy who clearly had his shit tight.

Dakota was probably the way he was, not only because his mother was who she was, but because he’d been bullied at school.

The cool guy gives you attention, you don’t act like a dick.

You act like the cool guy.

“Now, I came in here because you’d calmed down and said you were ready to help,” Jesse continued. “Are you not calm? I mean, we’re trying to find who did this to your sister, and you can be a part of that. What doesn’t help, is you being a dick and punching air and getting pissed at me. I need you to talk to me, Dakota.”

That did it.

He wanted to be the cool guy.

Dakota pulled out the chair and sat down.

Jesus.

He’d never seen it go down that easy when someone was that riled up.

“Fucking hell,” Rus muttered.

“I know. It’s uncanny. They’re goddamned savants with this shit,” Moran muttered at his side.

“It’s just, she’s my sister, dude.” Dakota tried to sound like he was explaining his behavior, but there was a whine to it.

Jesse nodded understandingly, two cool guys bonding.

“I get it, bud. Seriously, the worst. I feel you.”

“Yeah,” Dakota huffed out.

“When’d you last see your sister?” Jesse asked.

“I dunno.” That was sullen. “Fuck, she told me she was gonna help me find a job. Fuck!” he exploded.

“Dakota,” Jesse said warningly.

“You know, she had it so together. Sweet crib. Sweet job. Cool shit.” Dakota’s small eyes narrowed on Jesse. “Why’d your brother dump her, hunh? She was happy with Jace. Real fuckin’ happy.”

“We’re not talking about Jace. We’re talking about Brittanie. When did you last see her?”

“Went by her crib when that asshole canned me. Three weeks ago. Said I didn’t wanna go back to living with Mom. She got me. Man, did she. She said I could crash on her couch, and she’d ask around to see if she could get me something to tide me over until I could, you know, get my career back on track.”

Rus and Moran exchanged a glance on the words career back on track.

“I said I needed a vacation. I was gonna hook up with Dad and chill out. She told me not to go. She said she’d buy a bed for that extra room where Keyleigh used to stay. Said we could be roommates for a while. Did I take her up on that shit? No. I coulda saved her.”

Jesse further proved his mettle by keeping a straight face at that.

“Did she talk about anyone she was seeing? Anyone who maybe she was having an issue with? Someone who was causing her problems?”

“You think I’d go off with Dad if she did?” he demanded.

Yes, Jesse did. So did Rus and Moran.

Jesse didn’t give that away either.

“She could have tried to blow it off,” Jesse noted.

“She didn’t say dick to me,” Dakota returned. Then he stabbed the table with his pointed forefinger. “I’ll tell you this shit, you listening?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He kept tough guy stabbing and talking. “You said she was killed at that motel. My sister wouldn’t go to that motel. She was class, man. Jace knows it. You know it. Everyone knows it. She was a dancer at Bon Amie. She wasn’t a skank. She wasn’t my mom. She wouldn’t go to that motel. Someone had to drag her there. She probably died going through the door to a room, it was so beneath her.”

And again with the motel.

But she checked in.

Not in distress.

“I want to talk to the desk clerk,” Rus said just as Moran said, “We gotta go back to the desk clerk.”

They looked at each other.

Then Moran flipped the switch that muted the audio and they turned around to the viewing glass to the other interrogation room.

Jace, an exact replica of Jess, was leaning against the wall, ankles crossed, arms crossed, chin in his throat, eyes on the man slumped at the table, weeping.

Momentarily, the thought of Sabrina meeting one of these two guys skimmed through Rus’s head.

He’d still hate sharing all the love she had to give.

But at least he wouldn’t wake up in a sweat worried someone might hurt her. A threat came to their door, Rus could convince himself just looking at these two, they could vaporize it with a hard stare.

Moran flipped on the audio, and they heard the weeping.

“Mr. Iverson,” Jace said low. “I need you to pull it together and talk to me. When did you last see Britt?”

“You shouldn’t have left her,” the man sobbed into the table. “You shoulda kept her safe.”

Rus got tight, and he hadn’t even met Jace yet.

He felt Moran do the same.

Worst of that, he watched Jace do it.

These two fucking wastes of space?

Laying that shit on a guy who went out there, turning stones, trying to do something for a woman he was no longer seeing?

Fuck.

And…

No.

He pivoted on his shoe and stalked out.

“Lazarus!” Moran clipped.

But he was out the door.

He took the three strides to room one, yanked the door open, and he walked right in.

Jace straightened with a start from the wall.

Rus had his hand out. “Jason. Special Agent Lazarus.”

“Sir,” Jason greeted, giving him a shake, his eyes sharp and taking in everything about him.

Christ, he’d never felt so seen in his life.

Could he talk Sabrina away from the sunshine to the pine trees? At this rate, with her lack of interest in her studies, and these fucking guys, he’d take a community college.

Rus let him go and turned to the table.

The man at the desk had lifted his head.

Rus saw it then.

Take years and experience from Melanie and this man and maybe, there was a hint of Brittanie there.

Just a hint.

Maybe.

Lucinda was right.

Although he was taller, more built, he was Dakota in twenty years.

Including the fact he had very little hair.

“Mr. Iverson. I’m Special Agent Zachariah Lazarus of the FBI. I’m helping local law enforcement investigate what happened to Brittanie.”

The man wiped his nose on his sleeve. “FBI?”

“Yes, as you can see, we’re all taking this very seriously.”

“FBI,” the man breathed.

Rus fought a sneer because Iverson was impressed his daughter’s death brought in the Feds. Just like Melanie, though her way was less complimentary.

He took a seat across from the man.

“Now, what I’m going to say, I’ll preface by sharing I mean no offense. I know this is tough on you. I feel for you. But you didn’t kill your girl. And we need to find that person. So, taking this time getting you and your boy to talk is time we can’t spend looking for who did what was done to Brittanie. To do that, we need to know everything we can from everyone we can talk to, especially those closest to her, about every little detail we can dig up that might lead us to the killer. So, can you please tell us when you last had contact with your girl?”

“I don’t…I wasn’t…” His face crumbled, he did a snot take all over the table, and wailed, “I wasn’t close to my precious girl!”

Christ.

“Mr. Iverson, please pull it together.”

“You!” he shouted suddenly, pushing to his feet.

Rus rose too.

“You! You shoulda been with her!” he yelled at Jace.

Rus moved into his field of vision. “They broke up. It happens. It isn’t his responsibility. Look at me.”

Iverson didn’t look at him.

“Look at me!” he roared.

Iverson did a full body shake in surprise at Rus losing it, and he stared at Rus.

“For three days, he’s been busting his ass to find anything that would help, including finding you. What have you been doing for the three days Brittanie’s been lying in the morgue? Don’t you fucking cry again,” Rus gritted when the man’s face started collapsing. “Man up, goddamn it, and tell me when you last saw Brittanie.”

“I haven’t seen her in months,” he admitted.

“Right. Do you know if she was seeing anyone? Do you know if she got caught up with someone that made you uncomfortable?”

Iverson puffed his chest out. “My daughter wouldn’t get caught up in shit. She was a dancer at Bon Amie!”

Rus nodded. “I’ve been learning everything about her, and she was a good person. People loved her. It isn’t good people who do bad things. But that doesn’t mean bad people don’t get to them.”

He shook his head. “We weren’t that close. She’d…she’d…”—he looked to the table—“she’d slip me money, you know, when things were tight. But she didn’t tell me things.”

She had a nice apartment. She might have a designer bag or two.

But mostly, it seemed it was the weight of her deadbeat family hanging on her that led her to needing money, and she probably didn’t tell her friends or Lucinda because she thought it was embarrassing.

He hoped to Christ it wasn’t money that took her to that motel.

If it was, Brittanie dead, these motherfuckers alive, he wasn’t sure he’d be responsible for what he’d do.

“Even so, think hard. Is there anything you can give us that might help? Anything at all?” Rus pushed.

“I’ll think about it. I just…” He dissolved into his chair. “I just didn’t know her real great, you know? She was young and had her life ahead of her, and I’m an old piece of shit. She’s not gonna hang with me. My boy, he hangs with me. We’re men. But to her, I’m just an old piece of shit. You know?”

Oh, he knew.

“You keep thinking and you tell us, Mr. Iverson, if you think of anything.”

He nodded and looked beyond Rus.

“It wasn’t you, son. I’m just a piece of shit,” he said to Jace.

“It’s okay,” Jace murmured.

Rus turned to Jason and jerked his head to the door.

They both walked out.

“You don’t take that on,” he ordered the minute the door closed them from Iverson.

Jason’s jaw bulged.

He felt someone approaching, but repeated, “You don’t take that on.”

“Take what on?” Bohannan asked from behind Rus.

“Look at me,” Rus said to Jason because his attention had gone to his dad. “Did you hear me?”

“Yessir,” Jace replied.

“She’s not yours, she’s mine. Did you hear that?” Rus pushed.

“Yessir.”

“Say it.”

Jace’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

“Say it, Jace,” he pressed.

“She’s not mine, she’s yours.”

“You do this work. You know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” he whispered.

Yeah.

He knew.

“I get it. I do. I’d feel the same as you. But don’t let that meat suit in there get under your skin.”

“It’s tough,” Jace admitted.

“I know. He feels guilt, and no matter what kind of person he is, his daughter is dead. He’s striking out. Don’t let it get under your skin.”

Jason nodded.

“I need you to stand down, bud,” Rus told him.

His gaze went over Rus’s shoulder, again to his dad.

He got it back when he said, “I don’t need anything fucking with this investigation. You’re good at what you do. That’s obvious. Moran deputized you, like this is the Wild fucking West. But it isn’t. It’s the U S of fucking A, and when we get this guy, you and I both want him going down and staying down. No one fucking it. Yeah?”

Jace’s nod to that was stronger.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“Good work,” Rus grunted, turned, jutted his chin to a deeply concerned-looking Bohannan, and he started to walk away.

He needed a breath of fresh air, because being in that room with Iverson answered the question that no, that hunting cabin didn’t have a shower.

He stopped when he heard, “Yo.”

He turned and Moran was coming out of the viewing room, holding his phone.

Rus didn’t know him well enough yet to decipher the look on his face.

He walked back to stand with Bohannan, Jace and Moran.

“What?” he asked.

“You’re not gonna believe this shit,” Moran said.

“What?” he bit out.

“Ezra Corbin has skipped town.”

They talked to him last night.

Last.

Fucking.

Night.

God.

Fucking.

Dammit.