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“Right?” Nate said. “And the assault charge is nine years ago. Maybe he learned from that time, made sure that the next victim died so there was no one to report him.”
“Maybe,” Laura agreed. “There’s only one way to find out.”
“Let’s go see him,” Nate grinned, hitting print on the page with his address and then shutting the computer down.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Nate knew he probably shouldn’t say anything. It never went well when he said anything to Laura. She would get defensive and maybe even stop talking to him for a while. She pretty often realized he was right after a certain period of time, but he wasn’t sure if now was the right time.
He parked and paused for a moment, looking up at the apartment building. He shot a glance sideways at Laura, wondering.
He was worried about her, but then again, Nate couldn’t remember a time in the last few months when he hadn’t been worried about her. Longer than that, even. The more he learned about her powers and how hard things truly were for her, the more protective he felt. The more he started to think that she should be sitting safely back at the precinct, or even back in the J. Edgar Hoover Building in D.C., where she couldn’t get hurt.
Someone who could do what she did was important. More important than Nate himself, more important than any other agent he’d ever worked with. There was no one else like her, not that he knew. And one day, this reckless way she had was either going to get her killed or fired, and either way, she wasn’t going to be able to keep on saving lives the way she did.
“You stay here,” Nate tried. “I’ll go chat with him.”
“Why?” Laura asked. He turned and saw she was giving him a weird look.
“Huh? Well, I just thought it might be better. You stay and keep trying to get a vision about those other cases, so we can get more information.”
“Why are you being weird?” Laura asked. “We always go talk to the suspects together.”
“Yeah,” Nate said. In his head, he was remembering all the times over the years when they’d gone to talk to a suspect together and that suspect had turned out to be violent and aggressive. This one had a track record of violence already, so he wasn’t particularly confident that this was going to go calmly.
“Come on, then,” Laura said, already getting out of the car.
Nate suppressed a groan and went after her. If he couldn’t stop her from putting herself in harm’s way, he could at least try and physically put himself between her and it.
“Here,” Nate said, finding the intercom button for the name they were looking for – Ellis Long. He pressed the button and held it down for a moment, then let go.
There was a long, awkward silence.
“Try it again?” Laura suggested.
Nate did so, but if the intercom was working, there was no indication. He glanced up at the sky. It was already getting dark – twilight slowly leading the way into night. There was a chance the guy was at work, but only if he was working the night shift.
But, given he was known for enjoying the local nightlife…
“Hey, you looking for someone?”
Nate turned and saw an older woman just walking up towards the apartment building. She looked kind. He made a split-second decision to try to play into that.
“Uh, yeah!” he exclaimed. “Yeah, we’re trying to reach Ellis. He lives in the building.”
“Oh, Ellis,” the old woman said. “I know him. I saw him going out in the direction of The Flagship earlier.”
“The Flagship?” Nate asked, exchanging a quick glance with Laura.
“It’s a bar, dear,” the old woman said, blinking at him. “You go downtown and take a left at the mall, you’ll come upon it.”
“Thanks,” Nate said, grinning, still trying to play the curious friend. “We’ll go see if we can catch him, then.”
She waved a hand over her head as she shuffled to the lobby doors, and Nate and Laura stepped out of her way. “Have fun,” she told them.
Nate looked at Laura and rushed back to the car. If he was in the bar, then it would be a great opportunity to observe him in that environment and see if he did anything suspicious. They were in luck, after all.
“We should try and kind of go undercover and watch him,” Nate said, getting back behind the wheel and plugging in his seatbelt. “See what he does.”
