John Brewer. He appeared twice. The first time was the week before Brewer had disappeared. The second time was the day he’d last been seen. The same day that Wesley last made contact with his Cleveland PD partner.

Grant now had proof that John Brewer had somehow, somewhere crossed paths with Wes. It had to have been on the riverboat. It and its security manager, Scott King, were the only common denominators. Where he’d only dreaded the possibility before, he was now certain that Wes was one of the bodies the police had pulled from the river on Saturday morning.

His gut roiled and he had to swallow back the bile that burned his throat. One of the seven dismembered bodies.

Wes. My God. Then his jaw tightened, resolve giving him strength. Whoever did this to you needs to pay.

But who could make that happen? The police were the obvious first answer, but Grant didn’t trust the Cincinnati cops. Not after Detective Stuart had swept Laurel’s disappearance under the rug.

He considered his options. The other group that exposed wrongdoing was journalists. And thanks to his aborted visit to the riverboat last night, he happened to know of a few journalists.

Making a quick decision, he opened a new browser window and searched for Stone O’Bannion and the Cincinnati Ledger. If O’Bannion had been targeted by King, it was possible that the reporter had gotten in the killer’s way. If that was the case, he might prove to be an ally.

The man had a number of bylines in the local paper. Many of them were exposés of criminals, mostly pedophiles or those guilty of domestic violence.

Stone O’Bannion seemed to be a man dedicated to finding justice.

Grant then searched the other man mentioned in the article about Stone’s recent shooting. Elvis Kennedy. Grant was unsurprised to see a photo of the soft-spoken bald man from the casino staring back at him from his laptop screen. Known as Diesel, according to one article. He was listed as the Ledger’s IT person. But he was also a decorated veteran of the Gulf War. Earned a fucking Purple Heart. And he coached Pee Wee soccer and baseball, and had been given civic awards for building low-income housing.

Both men seemed like upstanding citizens. Both had faced pressure from the police for their journalism, but hadn’t given up their sources. Stone had even spent time in jail for refusing to name the source on an exposé he’d done of a high-profile corporate president who’d been accused of domestic violence.

Grant needed to meet these men again. Needed to talk to them. Needed to be sure he was choosing the right people to handle the information he’d found in Wesley’s globe.