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out to them.” A look of horror dawned on her face.
“You think Reese was trying to set Jake up, don’t you?”
Baldwin nodded. “It’s possible. Did Reese know about the problems you and Jake were having?”
Qui
“Did Reese dislike Jake?” Baldwin asked. That stopped her for a moment. “Dislike Jake? I honestly don’t know. He always seemed respectful and courteous. They weren’t that close.”
Baldwin nodded, then caught Taylor’s eye. “Qui
Qui
“What doesn’t he know, Qui
she repeated.
Qui
Fifty
“There’s no one at his house.” Fitz’s disembodied voice was yelling out of Taylor’s speakerphone as she and Baldwin broke all the traffic laws and speed limits getting to Reese’s house. “We’ve cleared the scene. He got away.”
“Put out a BOLO for him and his car. He’s in the wind again, and we can’t take a chance that he’s going after another girl.” She clicked off the speaker and glanced over at Baldwin, who was talking into his cell phone and making notes as quickly as he could.
“Okay, thanks. That’s what I needed.” He hung up and returned Taylor’s gaze, eyes deadly serious.
“Nathan Chase has had one visitor. Only one. It was a male who came to visit him nearly five years ago. Care to guess who that someone is?”
“Reese Co
“That’s right. Now it all makes sense. If Qui
All the Pretty Girls
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“Baldwin, I don’t think she’s told too many people about it. Obviously, she didn’t even think Reese knew. But he figured it out, didn’t he?”
“He must have. Visiting his father in jail. Man, that’s…wait a minute. Head back to the office. I want to check something out.” They arrived at the CJC in five minutes. Taylor parked on the street and they bounded through the back door, right into her office. Whitney Co
IM1855195C
He started teasing the letters and numbers apart, the white board quickly filling up with symbols that made no sense to Taylor. Baldwin looked positively blissful, a mad Sam Nash of the profiling world. He finally stood back and let her see the finished product. I/ M/ 1/8/ 5/ 5/ 1/9/ 5/ C
IM/18/5/5/19/C
I’m 18 5 5 19 5 C
I’m R E E S E C
I’m Reese Co
Baldwin’s face was triumphant, as if he’d just solved the most intricate key to the world’s most obscure riddle.
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J.T. Ellison
“How’d you do that?” she asked, not exactly stroking his ego but knowing he wanted to show it off.
“At first I thought it was Nathan Chase’s prisoner number, but that didn’t match up. It’s a simple code, correlating to the letters of the alphabet. R is the eighteenth letter, E is the fifth. S the nineteenth. After that it was pretty clear.”
Taylor stared at the board for the longest time, then stood, took the pen from Baldwin and wrote her own answer below his. The words chilled them both. I AM REESE CHASE.
“His father’s son. That’s what all this is about, isn’t it, Baldwin?”
Baldwin was staring at the board, nodding. “I think it is.”
Fifty-One
Qui
The word had gone out. Eliza Co
J.T. Ellison
no one quibbled about that. It just wouldn’t be the right thing to do, now, would it?
Reese Co
Qui
Yes, she cosseted Reese while Whitney shu
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gone wrong with him? She laughed softly to herself. Where hadn’t she gone wrong with Reese?
The phone rang. She tried to ignore it, but its shrill insistence finally drove her to get up, drag herself four feet away and pick up the receiver. When she reached it, the noise ceased and no one acknowledged her greeting. She realized it was dark outside. She’d been lying on the couch for hours. A thought crossed her mind. The twins. Did Jake have them? He must, she hadn’t heard a peep from them all afternoon. She didn’t remember telling him he could take their children with him when he took off this afternoon. She figured she’d best call his cell phone, insist he bring them home. She dialed the number, surprised when he answered after only one ring. She tried to be courteous. “Jake, I’d appreciate it if you brought the children back for the night. I don’t know where you’re staying but they have their own needs, their own beds to sleep in…. What?