Rafe opened the folder he’d walked in with. “According to his ex-wife, he took off sometime after the case was over. She said he’d decided to leave the rat race behind and get in touch with nature.”
Jesse stared at the hate-filled letters again. “Looks like he’s ditched that plan.”
Laura put a sympathetic hand on his arm. “I don’t know about that. Do you know what Rafe, Cam, and I used to do?”
Most everyone in town had a story. Laura, Rafe, and Cam’s was a violent one. “You profiled for the FBI.”
They had worked for the BAU. They knew their stuff, and Jesse was willing to listen.
“I’ve profiled criminals for years and often with far less than I have here.” She gestured toward the letters. “What I find interesting about these letters is the complete lack of passion behind them.”
“I don’t know about that. Putting a fucking heart in a box seems a little extreme.”
Rafe picked up one of the letters. “I know it seems that way, but really look at these letters. They’re precise. He says the same things over and over. You’ll pay the price for what you did. Lawyers are bad. Gemma is the worst of them all. But the wording is almost polite.”
“Men who are truly angry don’t mince words.” Cam pressed a couple of buttons on the laptop in front of him and turned it around so Jesse could see. “These are some of the transcripts from the depositions prior to the trial. They’re expletive filled. He was truly angry. He had to be restrained at one point.”
Jesse looked them over and had to agree. But talking and writing were two different things.
Rafe cut that pass off. “We also have copies of the letters he wrote to Giles and Knoxbury, the law firm Gemma worked for. Again, he’s very vitriolic. There’s no politeness in these letters. They’re full of bile and rage and centered squarely on what he lost. Most of his rage is directed at the firm, not Gemma herself, though he calls her out.”
“If you’ll note,” Cam began, “he doesn’t actually threaten her in a physical sense. He calls her morality into question.”
Jesse skimmed through the notes. Sure enough, they were filled with a “woe is me” attitude that didn’t completely jibe with the latest batch of letters.
“And there are some phrasing inconsistencies that bother me.” Laura placed the second of the letters in front of him. “See here where he says this is ‘all your fault’ but over here in the next one, the phrasing is ‘this is your entire fault.’ I know it sounds odd, but the second one is the way Word corrects a document. If he’s that angry, why is he letting his processing program fix his grammar? And then in the third we’re right back to ‘all your fault.’”
Jesse wasn’t sure what changing the wording had to do with anything, but they were the experts. And he did trust them. They were friends. They wouldn’t steer him wrong. “So what does all this add up to?”
Rafe and Laura exchanged looks, a whole conversation occurring in silence. Rafe finally nodded as though agreeing with her.
“I think it’s a game. And I don’t think Paul Johnson is at the heart of it. If you asked me, I would say if he’s involved, he’s just a pawn.”
“Why would someone do this?”
Laura shrugged, an elegant movement of her shoulders. “To scare her for some reason? To set up a potential lawsuit? I’ve been going through her cases. She had her fingers in some really big cases when she left the firm. Tremon Industries, a lawsuit against a biochemical plant, two intellectual property cases. She wasn’t lead on any of them, but she was crucial.”
“I talked to some FBI friends in New York,” Cam said. “There’s a rumor that Giles and Knoxbury is being investigated. I’ve gone over this with Gemma, but she can’t think of anything she knows that could hurt the partners. And according to those same friends, this kind of harassment is typical for a lawyer who works the kind of cases Gemma does. So we could be totally wrong and this guy is just expressing his anger.”
He calmed just a little. “The heart shit still scares me.”
Rafe’s fingers drummed along the table. “It smacks of showmanship. It wasn’t human. We suspect he bought it from a supply store.”
He widened his eyes because that didn’t sound right.
“Cadaver hearts are used for research purposes and for training surgical residents, though many hospitals are moving to more technological methods. If there had been blood on the heart, I would be worried. I actually think it was a very sterile warning.”
It still seemed awful to him, and he didn’t want them to brush this off. “I would be happier if I knew where this guy was.”
“Cam’s looking into it,” Nate said.
“If he pokes his head up, I’ll find him. I already have access to all of the e-mail accounts he’s used in the past and I found one his ex-wife didn’t know about.” Cam smiled. “Hey, I wasn’t always a straight and narrow fed. I’ve done some hacking in my time.”
“I want to be kept in the loop,” Jesse said. “Even if Gemma won’t talk to me.”
It was a real possibility. She’d been surprisingly mad this morning. He wasn’t sure exactly how to handle her. He just knew he had to figure it out. There was no other option. He couldn’t let her go.
She was it. He’d suspected it that first time she’d turned her tart mouth on him, known it last night when his heart had nearly broken at her deep vulnerability. He’d cared for women before, but he’d never just longed for one. Gemma was inside him now, and he didn’t want to get rid of her.
The door to the room opened, and Holly rushed in. Holly was manning the phones on Gemma’s day off. The beautiful redhead was flustered. “Nate, we have a big problem at Stella’s.”
Her eyes trailed to Jesse, her mouth firming, and he just knew.
“Gemma?” He stood, his heart threatening to thud out of his chest. “What’s happened?”
Nate and Cam were already on their feet, heading out the door.
“Just tell us all,” Nate said as they moved toward the front of the station house. Nate picked up his Stetson and settled it on his head.
“Gemma went into anaphylactic shock. Caleb is prepping her to go to the hospital, but a fight broke out. Caleb is pissed. If you don’t get down there right now, I worry he’s going to do something stupid.”
Laura sat down at the desk. “Go, Holly. Go help Caleb.”
Jesse didn’t wait to hear another word. He’d heard Gemma and shock and hospital and someone was stopping her from getting the help she needed. They shouldn’t worry about Caleb doing something stupid. They should worry about him.
He ran. He heard Nate curse behind him and then both Nate and Cam were catching up to him.
“You try to remember that Gemma needs you,” Nate said, his voice even though he was sprinting. “You help Caleb get her out of there, and you leave everything else to me and Cam.”
All that mattered was getting to Gemma. What the hell was anaphylactic shock? What had happened? She’d been fine this morning. More than fine. She’d been perfect. What else was she hiding from him?
Nate made it to the door first, shoving his way through. Jesse’s heart nearly stopped at the scene in front of him.
It was complete chaos. A man was thrown bodily right across the diner, and then there was a loud roar as another man launched himself.
“Stop him!” Fuck. Gemma’s ex-fiancé. His nasally scream seemed to echo in Jesse’s head.
He looked at the other man and nearly joined in the fight. Cade. Cade jumped on Patrick Welch, his face red with fury. Cade’s fist flew back and he started pummeling the smaller man.
Caleb Burke hadn’t gotten his trusty tranquilizers out yet. He was leaning over a prone body, protecting it with his own. His face came up. A truly wrathful expression played across his features. “Get that shit shut down now, Nate. I swear to god, if she comes to harm because of that, I will kill them both.”