Anchored by Death (A Jo Oliver Thriller Book 3) by Catherine Finger

Author:Catherine Finger [Finger, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Elk Lake Publishing Inc.
Published: 2017-06-30T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

After a five-minute break, now armed with bottles of water, we turned our attention to Hector while we waited for Amelia to return to the glass-box conference room.

His phone buzzed. He read a few texts and reached for the remote. “Check this out. Burdock’s elementary and middle-school records show scores of contacts with counselors and deans. Most of them involve reports of bullying.”

I looked at him. “Any descriptions of the alleged bullies?”

Hector pushed a button on the remote and scrolled through a half-dozen pages on the screen. He stopped at a picture of a smiling young man with black hair, brown eyes, and olive skin.

I was unable to stop myself from reading out loud. “Says here one Daniel Salvatore, one of Burdock’s counselors from Camp Oshewan in Northern Wisconsin, resigned under unsubstantiated accusations of abuse. No further information available.”

Goosebumps skittered over my arms. Daniel Salvatore looked a lot like a much younger version of Nick. “Burdock’s abused by a camp counselor years ago, and then, what? Marches into class, spots Nick and places himself in victim mode, starts imagining the abuse all over again, with a bigger, badder, grown up version of Daniel Salvatore?”

“And he snaps!” Hector’s voice sparked through the air. “But what about White? Is he involved?”

“They met in class, I’d swear to it.” Nick’s color returned as he spoke. “Either that or they’re Academy Award–level actors. And trust me, they’re not.”

“Dare I ask what White looks like?” Dread spread over me like a shadow.

“Ugh.” Hector texted. “You don’t want to know.” But he put the man’s picture on the screen. Just like the others.

“Crap. So vic number, what? Six, will turn out to be Burdock’s classmate?” In my mind’s eye, I could see agents running in all directions at once. Where would I be sent?

The door opened and Amelia stepped back into the room. “We’ve got teams heading to last known addresses for both White and Burdock.”

“Great.” Now, something about Camp Oshewan was swimming around in the back of my mind.

Amelia started scribbling on the whiteboard. “Melvin White. Last known addresses include both Waupon and Portage, rents a one-bedroom apartment in each town. He’s not exactly a pillar of either community. Co-owns a barely-legal puppy mill in one and is suspected of running dog fights in the other. Teams should be on site in about ten more minutes.”

She looked away from the whiteboard, staring over our heads for a fraction of a second longer than I was comfortable. Then she snapped her head back to center, shiny-eyed, muscles twitching under her alabaster skin. “Mr. White is a person of extreme interest. He has a rather significant history of mental illness. Variety of run-ins with the law from an early age. Juvenile record includes violent outbursts and, I quote, ‘featuring uncontrollable fits of rage.’”

“Wow. Reads like a serial-killer résumé.” How’d they miss all this on the background check for the profiler class? What had the guy been doing in the front row of Nick’s back-to-school nights? “He got more than one identity maybe?”

Amelia nodded slowly.

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