“I got here as soon as I could.” Blake glanced at Karen and asked, “Are you OK?”
“Better now.” She was pale and obviously shaken up.
“Seems our bird-guy is interested in Karen after all,” Jim said.
“Someone jumped the fence here and broke into her car. She found another dead crow, this time mangled and in the front seat of her car.” Dean watched Karen as he spoke. “I have a crew coming over to investigate.”
“Is there anything on your surveillance cameras?” Blake asked Michael.
“I don’t have surveillance cameras. Only an alarm system.”
Blake couldn’t imagine a man of Michael’s worth and fame not having a better system. “Time to put one in.”
Michael nodded.
“Guess this means we need to keep an eye on Karen and let Neil know he and Gwen can come back.” Dean stood and placed an empty coffee cup on the table in front of the couch.
“Only problem with that is no one knows where Neil is,” said Blake.
“I’ll start a track on him…credit card use, bank account. He’ll show up eventually. Or maybe Gwen will call again.”
Blake would have his own people start searching. The thought of his sister running off with a paranoid retired marine made him edgy.
“Do you think we’re dealing with a fan?” Michael asked Dean.
“Could be. Or maybe someone ticked at you, Karen. Any ideas who we’re dealing with?”
“I don’t have any real contact with the clients at Alliance and you know my co-workers.”
“What about at the Boys and Girls Club?”
“Jeff is the head guy there. Happily married. Most of the volunteers are housewives. There’s no one I hang out with or really know outside of the organization.”
Dean paced the room. “What about the kids? A lot of kids in those places are high risk. Or maybe even mandated to go there after school.”
Karen looked stunned at the question. “The kids are great.” She paused. “Most seemed happy when they found out Michael and I got married.”
“Most?” Dean asked.
The hair on her arms tingled. “Well yeah. There’s this one boy. I think he has a crush on me. Got a little upset the last time I saw him.”
Dean removed a pen from the inside of his suit pocket. “What’s his name?”
“Oh, c’mon, Dean. He’s just a kid. Not capable of what’s been going on here.”
“Do I have to remind you how many kids are sitting in juvenile hall convicted of murder?”
“Juan isn’t that kid. I know him.”
“Really? Where does Juan live? Who are his parents? Any priors?”
Karen glanced at Michael and back to Dean.
“I’m just going to ask him a few questions, Karen. If he’s a good kid, he has nothing to worry about.”
“He’ll never trust me again.”
“It’s a risk you’re going to have to take,” Michael told her. “The sooner they rule him out as a suspect, the sooner they can search for whoever else is behind all this.”
Karen sighed and ran a hand over her face. “Juan Martinez. He’s a good kid, Dean. Last I looked it wasn’t against the law to have a crush, so please don’t come down hard on him.”
“If he’s been planting dead birds to scare you, I’m going to make him piss himself. If he isn’t behind it he’ll be fine.”
Jim stood and joined Dean as they turned to leave the room. Blake followed them out. “You really think a kid did all this?”
Dean placed his sunglasses over his eyes as they stepped outside. “Anyone capable of killing animals can eventually kill people. And yeah, teenage kids do that shit. Most don’t graduate to murder until they’re old enough to get a drink in a bar, but that doesn’t mean it’s not unheard of.”
A couple of black and white squad cars rolled down the drive and Jim walked over to greet them.
“What about the bugging of the house, tampering with the surveillance equipment?” Blake asked.
Dean shrugged. “We didn’t find a bug. Yeah, there’s interference in the line, but that could be anything. No guarantee the system in Tarzana was messed with either. Outside of the stolen electricity mucking up the system.”
“You think this is all a bunch of shit piled up to be meaningless?” Blake asked.
Dean shoved his hands into his pants pockets and rolled back on his heels. “I think you need to open your mind to that possibility. Now might be a good time for you to consider that Neil isn’t invincible and that he might just have a case of PTSD. He wouldn’t be the first vet to come down with it.”
Blake felt sick to his stomach. Damn it, he trusted Neil.
“Something else you might want to do.”
“Yeah?”
“Search through Neil’s belongings…his files. Maybe you’ll find a clue as to where he is. I know I’d feel a whole lot better with him and Gwen back here. I’m sure Neil left with an armload of weapons and ammunition. If there’s a war going on inside his head…that needs to be addressed before someone gets hurt.”
Blake did not want to hear that.
There weren’t many things that made Neil’s palms sweat. This was one of them. A ring sat in his pocket and a lie soiled his tongue. Gwen was up in her room and a priest was on his way. All Neil needed to do was convince the woman he’d been obsessed with for longer than he cared to admit, and who he couldn’t sleep without, to marry him. Then, and only then, could he move in the big, mean world to catch the bad guy and know she was safe.