Finding Tessa by Jaime Hendricks (best ereader for comics .TXT) 📗

it starting to show through his shirt in his armpits? He didn’t blink, like a psychopath, and his mouth was like sandpaper as he was dying for a sip of water. He didn’t dare ask, even though the water cooler in the corner with the little paper cups mocked him. Like slow motion in a movie, everything went silent. He could almost hear a single drop of water fall from the spout.

Drip.

Drip.

Delicious, wet water. So close, yet so far.

“We have reason to believe you do, Montgomery. You wouldn’t mind if we searched your house?”

“Not at all. With a warrant, of course.”

Jace had watched too much Law & Order, and mentioning a warrant immediately made him look guilty. Let them ransack his house, drawer by drawer, book by book, floorboard by floorboard.

They’d never find it, anyway. He’d kept his promise.

“Why would you think I had a gun?” Jace asked, even though he was sure that’s what the email between Tessa and Gwen was about.

“Mmm,” Solomon said, his go-to answer for anything and everything under the sun. Then he looked at Detective Garvey, raised his eyebrows again, and she thumbed through her papers. They stuck together, and she licked her forefinger, over and over, page after page, until her eyes lit up. She slid a piece of paper over to Solomon and he retrieved his glasses from his left shirt pocket and put them on. They slid to the tip of his nose and then his eyes shifted north to look at Jace.

“You know a Gwendolyn Holloway, I presume?”

He was right. Tessa had told her what had transpired between them that past week. Why couldn’t she keep her fucking mouth shut?

“Gwen is my neighbor. Next door neighbor, but they’re a bit of a ways down the street.” Answer only the questions that are asked of you.

“They?”

“Yes. Gwen and Nick. Her husband. We’re friends. All of us.” He didn’t dare look Garvey’s way. She’d been eyeballing him ever since he’d lied about the gun.

“Mmm. Gwen has reason to believe you have an illegal firearm.” Solomon took his glasses off. “I guess I don’t have to tell you that an illegal firearm, is, well, illegal, do I, Montgomery?”

“I don’t know why she’d say that, to be honest.”

Garvey flipped through her papers again, studied one sheet that caught her interest, and pulled out a highlighter, which she used on a few of the lines, then slid it toward Solomon. He caught it with a whoosh before it skidded off the table and he zoned in.

“Says here, Tessa went to Gwen earlier this week. Complained about a gun in the house. Apparently, you two had quite the fight about it.”

Jace scoffed. “Please. I called Gwen first thing Friday morning. Check the phone records. I wanted to know if either of them had seen a strange person or car on the street, or if they’d seen Tessa. They both said no. Maybe you should look into reasons they’d be lying?” He had to get Solomon off the illegal gun questioning, even if it proved futile. “I mean, if Gwen told me she hadn’t seen her, then why would she tell you something different? Who’s lying here, Detective?”

Solomon looked up from his pages of statements and peered directly at Jace. “Well, that’s what I’m here for, Montgomery. I’ll decide who’s telling the truth. So,” he continued with flourish, pointed at the camera, and then at Jace. “I’m asking you again. Do you own a firearm?”

Jace flashed back to three weeks ago. Talking with a client, Carl Rittenberg, after he’d secured a loan for his jewelry business. The guy was a straight shooter and Jace liked him. Talk of the loan turned into talk of the business turned into talk of how to protect the business. New Jersey had archaic gun rules, and Carl had recently applied for a carry permit. Illegal in the state for the most part, but he had extenuating circumstances: He dealt in diamonds. At any time, he could be coming from or going to a wholesale place. At any time, he could be carrying a half a million dollars in cash or a half a million dollars in diamonds. Anyone who scoped him out knew that. Anyone with less than good intentions knew where’d he’d be, and where he was vulnerable.

Carl didn’t want to wait three months for a legal permit. He’d mentioned to Jace where he was able to secure a pistol in the meantime. The early bird gets the worm, but the second rat gets the cheese. Carl refused to have a broken back in a metal contraption.

“I don’t own a firearm,” Jace repeated.

Whoever made up the term silence is deafening must’ve had a time machine and must’ve come to a front-row seat in this room. Jace didn’t want to be cliché and say that you could hear a pin drop, but it would’ve sounded like a crack of thunder at that point.

“Did you have blood on your shirt Thursday night?”

Fuck. “Who told you that?”

Solomon slammed his hand on the table again. “I said I’ll be the one asking questions.”

“I had a nosebleed.”

He looked at Garvey and laughed. “A nosebleed. Do you believe this guy?” His attention turned back to Jace. “We’re going to need that shirt.”

“Is Judge Nguyen back from vacation?” Garvey cut in and asked Solomon. “We could probably have that warrant signed imminently.”

“It’s at the dry cleaner’s,” Jace said. A flash-forward of the jurors’ disapproving faces danced in his head.

“Well, wasn’t that lightning speed? Your wife is missing but you remembered to run your laundry off to the dry cleaner’s?” Solomon asked.

“You’re barking up the wrong tree. You should be looking for my wife. Are we done here?” Jace asked. “I really need to spend time with Candy. She’s confused.” Garvey gave him a look, one that said Oh, the stripper girlfriend you’re hiding? “Our dog,” he clarified.

Yes, Candy needed him. But he had to get rid of that gun. Completely and totally rid of it. Not just out