“Then what the hell are you talking about?”
“New information.” He looked away for a moment, seeming to focus on a spot above the bar. Then he turned to me, his eyes troubled. “I got a call today.”
“From who?”
“I don’t know. It was a number I didn’t recognize.”
“And…?”
“It was a guy. He didn’t say his name. He just said, ‘I’m watching.’”
Chills skittered down the center of my back. I took a sip of my bourbon, letting its fire dig spikes into my throat. Seemed almost like a premonition.
“Did you have the call traced?”
“No.”
“Stupid question.” Of course he hadn’t. This was between the two of us. No one else knew about Justin. No one we knew of, anyway.
“I did some research on my own with the number. I found nothing.”
“How about we give it to the Spider?”
“Yeah, I will. I’ll send it through the account I set up.” He downed the rest of his bourbon and set the glass back on the wooden bar with a clomp. “I don’t scare easily, Bryce, but I’ll tell you. That phone call freaked me out.”
“It’s freaking me out too.” I finished my own drink and set the glass down.
Len raised his eyebrow at me, but I shook my head. I was done with alcohol for the evening. Maybe for a while. From here on, I needed to keep a clear head.
“Do you think it might’ve been Morse?” I asked.
“Didn’t sound like him, and whoever it was didn’t sound like he was disguising his voice in any way.”
“He could have had someone else make the call. What area code was it from?”
“Somewhere in Iowa.”
I lifted my brow. “Iowa? Why does that sound familiar?”
“Remember when Jade first met Mathias?”
“Yeah. He was dating her mother.”
“He was posing as a guy named Nico Kostas, who was supposedly a state senator from Iowa. That’s the only connection I can think of.”
“Seems pretty farfetched. As I recall, he was not a state senator from Iowa.”
“No, he wasn’t. It was one of his many aliases.”
“He’s also dead.”
“True enough.”
“So I’m thinking this doesn’t have anything to do with a fake name and the profession of a dead man.”
“I don’t know, Bryce. I can give this to the Spider, and I will, but he’s a hacker. He isn’t a PI.”
“Fuck. We need a PI, don’t we?”