He knew the day was going to be spent going over Jumping Jack’s case file and running criminal background reports on the members of the circus. Thankfully the Boston Police had made a list of all the employees, down to the roadies, whose job it was to break down the apparatus, like the trapeze.
As Ronan was making a pot of dark French roast coffee, Jude and Fitz walked into the office. Both men looked tired as well. “Hey, guys. Everything okay?”
Jude rolled his eyes and sunk into his seat. “The kids didn’t want to go to bed last night.”
“You only had Lizbet and Ezra. They’re usually both in bed by eight.” Ezra wasn’t a fan of the early bedtime, but he and Ten were sticklers about it.
“They teamed up.” Jude said, rubbing his eyes.
“What do you mean they teamed up, like in wrestling?” Fitz asked.
“Sort of. They were talking and laughing until about nine. Cope and I figured they’d eventually fall asleep, but we were wrong. We moved Ezra in Wolf’s room, but then they kept running back and forth between the rooms. It was like someone slipped them sugar.” Jude shot Ronan a suspicious look.
“Not guilty,” Ronan said, holding up his hands. Ten brought Ezra over right after we got back from Boston. We didn’t feed him anything.”
“Maybe it was the carbs from all that pasta?” Fitz asked. “I know Jace and I were extra frisky last night.” Fitzgibbon bounced his eyebrows suggestively. “What happened with Ten? Did he have the nightmare again?”
“I’ll never unsee that.” Ronan grimaced, picturing a naked and frisky Fitz. While one set of friends chased unruly toddlers, the others fucked like bunnies. His tale of the night before was a bit different. “So, Ten thinks I’m going to die in a bloody heap on the floor of the Boston Garden. I really love the Celtics, but this is goingtoofar.” Humor was the only thing standing between Ronan and a nervous breakdown. That and coffee. He poured himself a cup and tried to compose his thoughts.
Jude and Fitz gasped. “Way to bury the lead, asshole,” Fitz said, taking a seat and grabbing a pen and notepad from the center of the table.
“Start from the beginning and tell us everything,” Jude said more gently, taking a seat across from Ronan.
Ronan took a deep breath. “Ten said he heard people screaming in the dream. He tried to find the source of the noise, but he said it felt like he was running through quicksand.”
“I hate those kinds of dreams,” Jude grumped. “The faster you try to run, the further what you’re chasing gets.”
“Right,” Ronan agreed. “Only in Ten’s case the closer he got the more fuzzy the picture became. He saw someone lying in a pool of blood with Celestina hunched over them. Blood was soaking into the hem of her dress. Ten couldn’t tell who the victim was.”
“You said that Ten thinksyouare going to die. How does he figure that, if he couldn’t see the person lying on the floor.” Fitz paused, his pen hovering over the notepad.
“He heard Everly screaming, but couldn’t find her.” Those words had chilled Ronan to the bone. “Ten said the way she screamed made him think it was me. I can deal with being wounded and on the verge of death, there are ways we can hopefully stop that from happening, but what if the main focus of this dream is Everly being missing?”
“Shit,” Jude thumped a hand down on the table. “He’s sure this dream took place at the circus?”
Ronan nodded.
Jude sat up straighter and reached for his briefcase, which sat on the floor beside his chair. He opened it and pulled out a folder full of papers and a legal pad. “Okay, so then we need to get to work on the Jumping Jack case. If we can figure out who murdered him, we can stop the killer from striking again, therefore keeping Ronan and Everly safe.”
“Maybe,” Ronan tentatively agreed. “Ten’s always telling me how the future is fluid. One change of plans here or there and the outcome changes completely.”
“I’ve heard him say that repeatedly as well,” Fitz began, “but the dream has stayed the same. Pink dress. Someone screaming. Ten calling for Everly. These things make me think whatever is going to happen is more concrete than not. What do you think?” Fitz turned to Jude.
“That scenario makes sense to me, but I don’t want to waste another second thinking about what Ten’s nightmare may or may not mean. Let’s get to it.” Jude opened the folder and pulled out a set of pictures. He passed them to Ronan and Fitz. “I have to tell you that the pictures of the crime scene are pretty sparse. There’s a couple shots of the body inside the tiger cage and then only a few more once Jack was removed. I’m assuming the cops thought he’d been mauled and that was that.”
Fitz frowned as he looked over the pictures. “We’re trained to look at every unattended death as if it were a homicide.”
“I hate to say this, Fitz, but I don’t think the officers put a lot of effort into this until they found out Jack was murdered, and even then, it felt half-hearted to me.”
“I agree,” Ronan chimed in. “When the cops started interviewing witnesses, all they were doing was throwing stuff at the wall and hoping it would stick to someone. The interrogators were threatening the circus crew with indefinite imprisonment and with having their kids taken from them. In my opinion, the goal was to make someone confess, quick and dirty.” It killed Ronan to say this about fellow officers. Yes, they were brothers and sisters in blue, but that didn’t mean they all came at their job with the same dedication and need for the truth as Ronan did. “What did the autopsy say?”
“Jack was shot once. There were no other signs of violence on the body.” Fitz pulled out the photographs and handed them to Ronan. “It was the medical examiner’s opinion that Jack had been shot from a distance of about twenty feet. There were no defensive wounds on his hands or arms.”
“Were there any sign of drugs in his system? GHB or sedatives?” Jude asked.
Fitz shook his head. “Those tests weren’t run. They checked his blood alcohol level and it was well beneath the legal limit. I’m guessing he had a shot before the show started. Maybe a toast of some sort for luck on opening night.”
“Fuck,” Ronan muttered under his breath. “So what are we saying here, that the killer shot Jack, and then moved him into the tiger cage?”
