Stars danced in his peripheral vision. He was going to pass out again.
No. No. Pull your shit together, Bailey Kirk.
He dug in deep to his center, forced his breathing to slow. He focused on the pain until it became manageable. Pain was just a program. It could be hacked. Or so the man who taught him to fight had advised. Press it down. Compartmentalize it. Ignore it.
“Son, who did this?”
Son? Really? Who was this guy? Then he realized. He recognized the man from the articles about the Carson property raid. He was thicker, grayer but Bailey recognized him as the cop that led the team. They’d traded messages but never talked seen each other in person.
“A man I’ve been chasing. I don’t know his real name. Some people know him as Raife Mannes, or Adam Harper. He’s a ghost.”
“A ghost with a gun,” said the big man. “I’m guessing you’re Bailey Kirk. The private detective.”
“That’s right,” said Bailey. “And you are?”
“I’m Jones Cooper,” he said. “I’m a friend of Wren’s. My wife got a call from one of Wren’s girlfriends in NYC, a woman named Jax, of all things. Kind of hysterical. Said she thought her friend was in trouble.”
“Okay,” said Bailey.
Jax, the best friend. Bailey knew that women didn’t like being called hysterical, and they didn’t like men who called them that. But this guy was obviously running on an old operating system; maybe he hadn’t downloaded the new software.
Cooper went on, “Then I got a call from Joy Martin of The Hollows Historical Society saying she thought you were headed here, maybe together. She also thought Wren was in trouble.”
“Where is she?”
“That’s the thing. Her friend Jax said that she and Wren track each other, and that Wren blocked her. That the last Jax saw Wren was headed out of town but not back to the city. Farther north.”
“Why?”
“Jax seemed to think she was chasing your ghost.”
“Goddammit.” Bailey rose, then sank back, weak with pain. He steeled himself and rose again, determined to make it to his car. He had a first-aid kit there, some pain pills. He’d patched himself up and soldiered on before.
The old man looked at him with a mildly amused frown. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I put a tracking device on her car,” said Bailey. When he saw her vehicle at the hotel, he took a moment and stuck one on the inside of the wheel well. All he had to do was open the app on his phone. “I’m going after her.”
“You can’t drive.”
The old guy had a point.
“Can you?”
Jones Cooper was that kind of guy, wasn’t he? You could always recognize them—the cop, the soldier, the first responder. He was the guy at the scene, who knew instinctively what was right, and what to do, did it without question or regard for himself.
“I have to call this in and stay until someone comes to secure the scene,” he said. “But, yeah, let’s go. I have a first-aid kit in my car.”
Of course he did.
The police arrived just as Cooper had finished expertly wrapping up Bailey’s shoulder—tight but not too tight. The pressure gave a relief from the pain, and the two Vicodin he popped had him less than sharp mentally, but at least functional. In the passenger seat of Cooper’s car, he opened the app on his phone and saw the little blue dot that was Wren Greenwood, creeping north.
Cooper seemed to know the two officers who exited the squad car. They had a quick conversation, nods all around. Then Cooper walked to the car, climbing into the driver’s seat, making the car pitch with his weight.
“I agreed to bring you in for questioning later tonight.”
“We made a mess of their crime scene.”
Jones Cooper nodded. “I told them where we were in the room, what we did, and we didn’t touch Rick. I texted the chief with the suspect’s names, details, and told him we’ll loop back. This department is on a shoestring. They’ll be happy for the help with this.”
“You were the chief here once.”
“That’s right,” Cooper said, putting the car into gear and pulling away from the drive. “Just a private investigator now.”
“I read about you.”
There were a lot of articles about Jones Cooper in The Hollows Gazette, not all of them flattering. He’d “retired” from the department in scandal, hung out a shingle, worked with a psychic at some point.