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“Do listen to that advice,” Ty countered. No one should have followed the rules of the Family. Each one was archaic and abusive.
Josiah chuckled as the server approached with their pizzas, disintegrating the rule-following conversation. Ty dove into the lobster pizza. The kid wasn’t kidding. In his words, it was bussin’.
“So, how’d you get into the FBI?” Josiah asked through a big bite of pepperoni, cheese stringing from his lips down his chin.
“When I left Asheville, I was on my own.” He cut a glare at Bexley. “I had some skills but I decided to attend school. I majored in religious studies and minored in psychology. I guess I was trying to figure out the world. What makes religious people tick—all religions. That degree won me a trip to Quantico to the FBI Academy, and the rest is religious history.”
“Your degree had the FBI calling you?” Josiah asked.
“Not exactly. I got a job working with the university doing some case studies for the chair of the department. Then the Harbinger of Death cropped up in Charlotte.”
“That serial killer. I saw a documentary on him once.”
“Yep. I helped the SCU South division solve that case and was recruited for my specialty, but for fieldwork, you have to go to Academy.”
Josiah took his third piece of pizza. Had he even tasted a single bite the way he was wolfing it down? “That’s cool. Who’s the craziest killer you’ve caught?”
If Ty had a dollar for every time someone asked him that. People were fascinated with serial killers, and he understood it. The psyche of that brand of monster was impossible for a normal human brain to grasp. What made sickos tick? What or who shaped them? But in his opinion, they were far too glorified and the victims and their hurting loved ones far too forgotten.
“I don’t know, man. They’ve all got their screws loose. Last year we worked a case in a Kentucky holler. Guy was taking his victims’ eyes and sewing their lids shut, then leaving those women in a cave for a period of time before strangling them. That was pretty bizarre to say the least, but we got him.”
“Who’s the scariest killer you never caught?” he asked, and wiped his mouth on a napkin, swiping the string of cheese that had been there this whole time.
Easy enough. “The Fire & Ice Killer.” If they’d caught him, Ahnah might not have vanished and Ty wouldn’t be sitting here. But if Ty wasn’t sitting here, then he wouldn’t know he had a son.
“In Virginia?” Bexley asked.
He nodded.
“The one where your mouthing off about him went viral?” she asked, then froze. She’d made a boo-boo. The Fire & Ice case was three years ago, before Bexley came to Memphis and spoke at Fiona’s church, giving her the ministry’s business card.
She’d known all along where he was and she was never going to tell him about Josiah. He swigged his sweet tea in an attempt to swallow that bitter pill. “Saw that, did ya?”
“Everyone saw that,” she muttered.
“I didn’t. I’m gonna look it up.” Josiah snagged his phone as Bexley’s dinged with a notification. She frowned and began moving her thumbs across the screen.
“What’s wrong?” Ty asked.
“Nothing. A patient not following rules.” She emphasized the not following rules.
“So,” Ty said to Josiah as he watched the video and hooted at Ty’s remarks. “Do you have a girlfriend?” Bexley had told him earlier that he didn’t, but sometimes boys hid things like this from their moms. But not their dads—or guys in general. Not that he’d fess up in front of her.
“No.” He smirked. “But I got options.” He laid the phone down. “That was epic. I wonder if he saw that video.”
Pretty sure he had.
“Options, huh?” He put out a fist. Josiah bumped it. “Nice.”
“What about you? You see a lot of action?”
“Josiah!” Bexley squawked. “Inappropriate table talk—or talk in general. Women aren’t action. They are people who deserve respect.”
Josiah’s cheeks reddened. “I meant dating action. Now whose mind is in the gutter?”
Not so much the gutter as reliving the past.
Bexley shoved a mass of hair behind her ear. “Well, either way. His personal life is private.”
