Jon and Seiji’s Monstrously Macabre Predicament
Page 16
Shaking my head, I got up and walked out. I rejoined the others in the room next door as Borrowman wrangled Carrington back out and to a holding cell. Seiji stood near the mirror still, Lachlan right next to him, and his eyes were thoughtful as he looked at me.
“Sorry, wasn’t able to get you all of the answers. I think the power bank isn’t more than a year old, though. The house being used for murder was about that long in his lines.”
“Ah, that does tell me quite a bit. Thank you for that much, at least. I wouldn’t think it could be older than a year, and it’s probably younger than that.”
“Because it would have been too powerful and explosive if it was older?” Lachlan guessed.
“Bingo, got it in one. It’s borderline unstable as it is. Too much power.” Seiji gave an eloquent sort of shrug. “I suspect the dead body next to the power bank was an attempt to move it to the second location, since they planned to burn the house down.”
“Makes sense,” Lachlan mused.
Donovan groaned. “It unfortunately does. Jon, was he at all emotionally broken up about the dead guy?”
“Nope. He’s not really emotionally attached to anything but his own pride, psychopath that he is. I do feel like the dead guy was tricked or hired into doing it.”
Seiji shrugged again. “In their shoes, I’d use someone else as a guinea pig. Even laymen with no psychic talent could tell that power bank was bad news and didn’t want to touch it, so stands to reason they were more cautious. Jon, any idea where their second location is?”
“Sadly, no, I just saw that he had one.”
Borrowman abruptly opened the door and stuck his head in. “Jon, come quick, the wife’s here and she’s ready to bury her husband.”
“Oooh. Coming!” I practically skipped out the door. Well, after Donovan maneuvered to protect the door from me, I did.
Listen, I love upset women in cases like this because when a woman’s mad, she tells all. I do mean all. I felt bad for her, because wow she did not deserve the prick she was married to, but in this case? She might have answers that will give us the intel we desperately needed to shut this insanity fully down.
When we got down to the main floor, Mrs. Carrington stood there with a folder in her hand. Gone was the elegantly put together woman, replaced with one who currently did not give a fuck. She wore jeans and a formfitting black shirt, her eyes so puffy and red she hadn’t bothered with makeup, and her expression was furious. I could tell she’d been crying, raging, and likely venting to family about the situation. If you stuck a fire cracker in a hornet’s nest, the hornets would be friendlier than she was right now.
Ooh, boy, Carrington done fucked up, and he’d alienated the one person he should not have. Forgive a cackle because for us, this was a goldmine.
I masked my cackle as I greeted her with all of the warmth and sympathy I could muster. I did feel bad for her—if my Donovan had betrayed me, I’d be beyond heartsore, too. Not that he ever would. Still, I felt for her. “Mrs. Carrington, I am so sorry, are you all right? No, stupid question, do you have a support system to help you through this situation?”
She softened a little, and her eyes turned bright. “Thank you, I’m…not alright, but my family is already helping me. I’ll fly home tonight if I’m allowed. Detective, can I?”
“Yes ma’am, I don’t need to hold you, as you’re not even an accomplice. Thank you for coming in, we need information and your husband isn’t cooperating.”
Her lip curled. “He never does own up to it when he’s in trouble. I brought everything I could think of to help you.”
“Come sit with us,” he invited. “Oh, do you mind if our expert also sits in?”
“I’m sorry, expert?”
I turned a little to indicate the two men behind us. “Seiji Ito and Lachlan McTavish. Your husband was up to some really evil stuff, not just the cannibalism, so we had to call on friends to undo the madness. They have questions and no ready answers.”
She was even more confused now, but gave a nod to both men in a jerky fashion. “I don’t mind, but I don’t know if I have answers.”
Seiji was all charm as he assured her, “Whatever you can tell is will help. We’re largely in the dark right now.”
Borrowman herded us into one of the mini conference rooms on the ground floor, which barely had enough seats for all of us. It was a small room, no decorations, white walls and bland particle board table, but it served its purpose.
Mrs. Carrington barely had butt in seat before she opened her folder and started handing Borrowman things. “I put together a timeline of every trip he’s made down here in the past year. I’ve got flight receipts for them. He came down regularly without me, about once a month. I haven’t been here since last year. Claimed they were boys’ trips.”
Borrowman happily took that. “We do like timelines, thank you.”
“We keep separate accounts, but I can access his, mostly because he uses the same password for everything”—she rolled her eyes—“and this is a printout of all of his bank statements for the past year.”
Damn, she had been busy. See? Don’t piss off your wife.
I pushed a little. “Do you know who his friends are down here?”