Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 71226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
I’d be working with both as the ‘charge nurse’ and working however and wherever I was needed.
“Got it.”
Bells stopped to talk to Odin while I went inside and got started on the files that I’d been neglecting.
I was halfway through the first file when the emergency contact on the file caught my attention.
Paola Marren.
Why was that so familiar?
I wrote the name down and kept reading.
It took me ten minutes to get through the first file.
It took me five to get through the second when I saw it.
The same emergency contact. Paola Marren.
Out of the five files that I had of the missing little boys, four of them had Paola Marren listed as the emergency contact.
I texted Gentry, hoping that he would have time for a chat, but he didn’t call back.
Where had I heard that name before?
I got onto social media and started what I did best. Internet stalking.
I searched for the name Paola Marren.
Seven popped up in our area.
But there was one very specific one that caught my eye.
And she was listed in several area groups as none other than the parkour teacher.
The woman that’d been on maternity leave, then bereavement leave, for going on two months now.
A woman that lived in the mountains with her dogs.
A woman that had no husband or boyfriend. A woman that had no pregnancy photos of herself. A woman that had been in contact with all nine missing little boys.
I’d found a mom that’d tagged several of the little boys’ moms at a parkour outing in the park a couple of towns over. Though the others weren’t tagged, I saw their little faces in the group photo.
I searched more and more and more until my heart was pounding.
This.
This was it.
My gut was practically singing.
This woman was behind these kidnappings.
I just knew it.
I got out of my office chair, pushed through the door that led into the medical examiner’s office, and hurried up to Odin.
He stopped what he was doing—he was weighing what looked like a spleen—and stared.
I knew no one had just walked into his office before like I’d just done, and he wasn’t sure what to do.
“I think I found them!” I declared.
Odin listened to my off-the-wall rambling, but instead of calling me crazy, he looked thoughtful. “I think you might be on to something here. Call Black.”
I shook my head. “I can’t. I don’t know his number.”
“It’s in my phone,” he said.
I again shook my head. “I’m just going to go to the station. They’re only a couple of blocks away.”
His eyes looked worried. “Ask Bells to go with you.”
I looked out the front door. “Is he still there?”
He shrugged. “Might be.”
I left. “I’ll keep you updated. Also, I didn’t lock the office door.”
Odin called out, “I got it.”
Bells wasn’t at the door. He was back across the street talking to some other person who wasn’t Mr. Salesman.
I didn’t bother to go over there. Instead, I took off at a jog and arrived at the police station long minutes later wheezing and promising myself that I would seriously start working out one of these days.
I didn’t stop to talk to Kelly, just hurried past her despite her yelling out, “You can’t go in there!”
I burst through the doors, spotted Gentry in a glass room off to the right, and all but ran inside.
I didn’t notice who else was in the room with him when I set everything out on the table and verbal word vomited everything to him.
Well, and Black, who had come closer at some point during my rambling.
It was only after I was done, and the silence became quite oppressive, that I realized that I wasn’t in the room with only Black and Gentry.
There were several other people in that room as well. A gorgeous blonde female. A redheaded man who looked like I’d just stuck his dick in an ant pile, and a studious-looking nerd guy that looked ever so thoughtful.
“It could work,” the nerd said.
The woman and the angry man, however, didn’t agree.
The man stood up and leaned over the table. “Who are you?”
I looked to Gentry to answer, but Black had somehow maneuvered him out of the room in the few seconds I’d been looking away.
Black was talking to him and pointing to the room to the left. When Gentry looked ready to come back inside, Black poked him in the chest, leaned in, and whispered something that had Gentry stiffening.
“You are?” the man repeated.
“Sage Kelly,” I blurted out without thinking.
I instantly cursed myself for using Kelly, seeing as it was supposed to be Ryan now.
Black came back inside and said, “Sage is a nurse in town.”
I looked at the scary FBI people, then Black, and back to the scary FBI people.
“How did you know where to look for this woman?”
I bit my lip. “What do you mean?”