The Distance Between Us (MAC Security 3)

“Have you…” She blows out a breath causing her auburn hair to flow off her face. “Have you seen Evan?”

“Evan?” I frown. “Should I have?”

“No… no… forget it.” She sits back down at her desk and presses the keys on the keyboard, the clacking echoing throughout the room.

I press the numbers into the keypad and head up to the pit where they all wait for me.

“Well?”

“So... the social worker,” Leroy says, pointing at her photo on the board. “The principal called her, telling her the concerns she had, but the social worker said that she never had that call from her.”

“But,” Jane interrupts. “I ran her phone records and she did get that call, so I ran some other searches.” She walks to the whiteboard, writing something next to the social worker’s name. “Social worker Janice Pedro, also known as Jennifer May.”

“May?” I widen my stance and cross my arms over my chest.

“Yep.” Jane nods. “As in Joel May, she’s his wife.”

“Joel has a wife?” I frown.

The wheels start turning in my head, trying to connect the dots. If Joel’s wife is their social worker that means they somehow have a connection with Jonny, which means I could get him put away for good.

“I want the social worker brought in, I want to know what she had to do with their murders. You have an hour to get her in the cage.”

I storm into my office, pacing the small area while I continue to try and make the connection. Why were the Jacobs murdered? What were they doing for Jennifer, or should I say Joel or Jonny?

They had to have had something to do with it. There’s no way that this could be one big coincidence. They’re involved in it, I know it.

“Tell me, Jennifer, what were they doing for you?” I raise my brows at her as she sits across the table from me, her ink black hair hanging straight down her back and her dark brown eyes glazed over.

“What were who doing for me?” she slurs.

“Felicity and Brandon Jacob.” I push their photos closer to her on the metal interview table, both their murder photos and their latest school photos. “Were they working for you?” No reaction. “Your husband?”

Her eyes widen and she fidgets in her seat. Finally, something I can go on.

“What were they doing for him, running drugs? Only it went bad didn’t it? What did they do, huh? Did they refuse to do his dirty work? Is that why he shot them?” I stand up and place my hands on the table, leaning closer to her. “But that’s not all he did, was it? No, he burned Brandon after shooting him and then went after Felicity, shooting her in the middle of the street in broad daylight.”

“No.” She shakes her head, gripping her hair with her hands. “I did it.”

“You don’t need to cover for him, Jennifer.”

“I’m not,” she says, bringing her eyes back to me. “They should have done as I asked, but no, they wanted to tell the police. All they had to do was take the package to the drop off site and then I’d rehome them.”

“Rehome them?” I ask, sitting back down and gritting my teeth to keep myself from saying anything that I shouldn’t.

“That was the deal.” She slams her fists down on the table, her eyes flitting around the room in anger. “They drop the package off and I’d get

them into a new foster home. That’s all they had to do. One simple thing and then I’d do as they asked. Stupid fucking kids.”

“So what happened?”

She leans back in the chair, her face bored as she looks down at her hands. “Felicity wanted out, but Brandon, he said he’d do it.” She shakes her head and looks me in the eye. “He was working with the cops, the stupid fucker thought he could get one over on me!” She pulls at her hair, a crazed look in her eyes. “So I shot him in the chest three times and once in the head to be sure he was dead.”

My hands grip onto the table, my knuckles turning white as I see the look in her eyes. The passive, blank look that only someone who has done evil things like this before has, the kind that shows no remorse for the loss of two young lives. I can tell that this isn’t the first time she’s done something like this and that only makes me want to lock her up for what she did to Brandon and Felicity even more.

“Then I went after the little slut, the one who thought she could do no wrong. I soon showed her.”

I turn my head to Leroy slowly then turn back to face her. My patience is wearing thin and sitting across from someone who shot two young kids in cold blood because they didn’t want to do something illegal has my anger boiling over.