Asher watched Grayson with growing dread. “What makes you think we’re lying?”
“Don’t even go there with me. I was in Special Forces and learned interrogation techniques from the best. I’ve also been playing in the big leagues in the business world for years. I know when someone’s not being straight up. You and Faith just told a whopper with that story about using a new type of geographical profiling. What I want to know is why.”
Faith’s green eyes were big and round as she met Asher’s gaze. Both of them slowly sank back into their chairs.
“Wanna draw straws?” Asher asked her.
“Coward. I’ll tell him.” In spite of her brave words, she seemed nervous as she answered Grayson. “We really did try to do what we said, map out everywhere our missing person had been, her usual routine at least. And we tried to figure out what areas made sense as the best ones where she’d have gone missing. But, well—”
“There were too many,” Asher said. “With no witnesses to the abduction and no forensic evidence. We hit a wall. Couldn’t make any headway.”
“So we, uh, we...” Faith swallowed hard and squeezed her hands together on top of the table.
Grayson’s brow furrowed. “I’ve got all night. But I’d rather spend it at home with my beautiful wife than in a conference room trying to draw the truth out of two of my extremely well-paid employees. I deserve the truth and I want it. Now.”
She let out a deep breath then the confession poured out of her in a rush. “We sent letters to ten serial killers in prison and offered a deal. If they’d put us on their visitation list and agree to speak to us, we’d go see them. In exchange for their opinions on which of our potential locations would make the best dump site, we’d put four hundred dollars in their prison accounts.”
Grayson stared at her a long moment then cleared his throat. “And how many of these despicable murderers took you up on this bribe?”
She chewed her bottom lip before answering. “All of them.”
Another minute passed in silence. Then, his voice deadly calm, Grayson said, “Let’s see if I have this straight. You gave four thousand dollars of my money to the scummiest excuses for human beings so they would give you their guesses on which of the areas in Gatlinburg they would choose to dump a body. Is that what you’re telling me?”
She winced. “Sounds way worse when you phrase it that way. But, um, yes. That’s basically what we did.”
He blinked, slowly, then looked at Asher. “Let me guess. This was your harebrained idea?”
Asher cleared his throat. “Actually, I believe it was.”
Grayson leaned back in his chair. “And how many of the sites they chose did you send the cadaver dog team to?”
“How many?” Asher asked. “Total?”
“That’s what the phrase how many means. In total, how many sites did the cadaver K-9 sniff out before you hired an expensive ground penetrating radar team, construction workers with a backhoe and, on top of that, lie to Chief Russo that your brilliant deductive reasoning determined that mountainside this morning was most likely where our missing person’s body would be located?”
Asher stared up at the ceiling as if counting. Then he straightened his tie. “Um, pretty much it was—”
“One,” Faith said. “Just the one. The dog hit on it and we felt confident that we were going to find...something. If we told Russo about asking serial killers for opinions, he’d have laughed us out of his office, in spite of the cadaver dog. So we exaggerated the geographical profiling theory in case he asked questions. We needed something to make it seem more—”
“Legit? Reliable? Worth a substantial expenditure of resources in spite of how busy Gatlinburg PD is and how tight Russo is with his budget? Since the whole point of us taking on this cold case was to keep him from having to use his funds and resources, you do realize I’ll have to reimburse him for his expenses from this morning?”
Faith clenched her hands together on the table. “We believed strongly that our—”
“Educated guess?”
“We believed we had a high probability of finding Jasmine Parks. And we were somewhat desperate for a break in the case. So, we, um, we lied. And, yes, we cost Unfinished Business—you—a lot of money today. But wasn’t it worth it, sir? By all accounts, the clothing and jewelry found on one of the skeletons makes it seem highly likely that we’ve found Ms. Parks. Plus, we’ve found other missing people.”
“That doesn’t sound like an apology for lying to the chief of police and your boss.”
She glanced at Asher. “In our defense, sir, we never intended to lie to you. We didn’t expect you to even be there today. Our hope was that after we located Ms. Parks’s remains, no one would care how we did it.”
Grayson stared at her a long moment, his eyebrows arching up toward his hairline. Then a deep rumble started in his chest. His shoulders shook and he started laughing so hard that tears rolled down his cheeks. Still chuckling and wiping away tears, he pushed back his chair and headed for the conference room door.
“Willow’s going to love this one.” He laughed again as he left the room.
Faith stared at the closed door, her eyes wide.
Asher turned in his chair to watch Grayson cross the war room below, his cell phone to his ear as he no doubt updated his wife about what had happened. “I hope this means we’re not fired.” He turned around. “Maybe we should have taken advantage of his amusement and went ahead and told him how much that GPR team cost.”
“Oh, heck no.” Faith stood. “We’ll let that one slide in under the radar with the rest of the team’s monthly expense reports and hope he never notices.”
He stood and held the door open for her. “Now who’s the coward?”
She lightly jabbed his stomach with her elbow, smiling at his grunt as she headed out the door.
He hurried to catch up to her as she descended the stairs. “Where are you off to so quickly? Got a hot date?”
“Yep. His name is Henry.” She headed across the room to her desk and retrieved her work computer and purse from the bottom drawer.
“Ah. Your laptop. Henry Cavill. If you’re going to name a piece of metal and plastic, couldn’t you come up with something more exciting than the name of some scrawny actor? Cavill. Seriously. He’s so two years ago.”
“So is my laptop. Let me guess. You think I should have named it Asher?”
“It does have a nice sound to it.”
She rolled her eyes and headed toward the open double doors just a few steps from the exit. Asher tagged along with her.
“I think you’ve rolled your eyes at me a hundred times today. It’s getting a little old.”
“Then maybe you should stop doing things that make me want to roll my eyes.”
“Ouch.”
A low buzzing sounded from her purse. She stopped at the building’s main exit and pulled out her phone.
Asher moved to the door. “Sorry, princess. Are you waiting for me to open this for you? Allow me—”
“Wait.” She stared at her phone, her face turning pale.
He stepped toward her, frowning. “What’s wrong?”
In answer, she turned her phone around. “I had my News Alert app set to buzz if any local updates went out. This is from a local evening newsbreak.”
Asher winced at the picture on the screen. “Poor Jasmine. Poor Jasmine’s family. It was bad enough when the news vultures paraded her pictures on TV this afternoon. Here they are doing it again. We don’t even have confirmation from the medical examiner that it’s her. I mean, you and I both know it is, based on her jewelry and—”
“Asher. Look at that picture again.”
He frowned and took the phone from her. Then he saw it, the name beneath the photo. He blinked. “No way.”
Faith’s eyes seemed haunted as she stared up at him. “The odds against this happening have to be astronomical. What the heck is going on? How is it even possible that a handful of hours after we find Jasmine Parks’s body, her younger sister is abducted?”