Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99132 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99132 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
“I don’t need help with my defense. I did not orchestrate this fucking situation. I was shot, damn it.”
Fair enough. “Which means this was a deliberate and precise sniper. Abigail, who wants to kill you?”
Abigail stared at her for a moment, her face unreadable, though Laurel had no doubt a flurry of neural calculations fired behind those eyes.
“Like I said, I really don’t know,” Abigail replied, her voice softening and her lips almost curving into a smile. “This is a bit of a surprise.”
What was the woman planning now? Not for the first time—or even the thousandth—Laurel wished she possessed reliable instincts when it came to people. “Tell me about the threats.”
“You just said you couldn’t investigate.”
Laurel exhaled again. “Tell me about the threats anyway.”
“Fine.” Abigail rolled her eyes. “They were from an anonymous email address. Wayne’s trying to track them and hasn’t had any luck.”
So the Seattle FBI office was involved? Officially or not so much? “What exactly did the threats say?”
“I’ll forward them to you,” Abigail said. “As soon as I get my phone back. Why are you acting like you care?”
Laurel was both a witness and a trained FBI agent. “I care when people are shot on the county courthouse steps.”
“Isn’t it more than that?” Abigail asked. “I am your sister.”
“Half sister,” Laurel said evenly. “Let’s not forget, I’m trying to put you in prison for killing Zeke Caine.” She refused to refer to him as their father.
Pink dusted across Abigail’s smooth cheekbones. “He killed you, Laurel. For a few moments, anyway.”
A surprising pain clicked through Laurel. Their father had drowned her, and she had been dead for a second or two. “I’m aware of that fact. And yet I would like to know why you murdered him.”
Abigail’s eyes widened even further, which Laurel would have thought was impossible. But if anything, her sister had learned to perfectly mimic human emotions. Laurel could barely read them. “I was upset that he had tried to kill you and ended your pregnancy. I was quite looking forward to meeting that baby. So were you. He attacked me and I fought back.”
If that wasn’t nonsense, Laurel didn’t know what was. Abigail was relentlessly calculating; nothing she did lacked intent. Which meant there was a reason she killed Zeke. There had to be. “I will find out the truth.”
Abigail plucked at the blanket covering her. “Oh, little sister, when are you going to learn?”
Laurel stood. “I’ll let Agent Norrs know you’re recuperating well. Apparently, he’s quite worried. When are you going to stop manipulating him?”
“You think I’m using him?” Abigail pressed a hand to her chest. “You don’t think it’s true love?”
“We both know you’re incapable of real love. You don’t have the slightest idea what it means.” With that, Laurel shoved out of the hospital room, shaking her head.
It was possible someone in the Genesis Valley Community Church congregation wanted revenge for Zeke’s death. He’d been their spiritual leader for years, and some people didn’t care if their messiah turned out to be a monster. They’d follow him straight into the fire and call it faith. But Laurel had no idea where he’d even been the past sixteen months. He’d disappeared without warning, and when he returned, he acted like nothing had changed.
He could’ve made enemies in that time. Dozens. But the real problem, the one Laurel couldn’t ignore, was Abigail. The hobbies her sister had gotten involved in—misguided experiments, questionable medical research, people she manipulated for funding or data or who knows what—those had created their own kind of wake. One had even turned into a serial killer.
Those were just the possibilities Laurel knew about.
She pushed through the hallway doors back into the waiting room, mind still spinning. Walter sat in one of the hard vinyl chairs, hunched over his phone, the screen glowing blue across his pale face. He didn’t look up. He didn’t even blink.
“Walter.” She slowed. “What’s wrong?”
He exhaled sharply, staring down at the screen, his expression carefully controlled. Too controlled.
She stepped closer, her mind already cataloging the details like a micro-tightening at the corner of his mouth, a fractional delay in his blink rate, the way his shoulders squared just a little too precisely. Not shock. Not panic. Suspicion? Calculation? Her pulse ticked up. “Walter?”
His gaze lifted. A flicker of something passed over his face. A hesitation. One she couldn’t track. “It looks like my brother’s missing,” he said, pushing to his feet. “I have to go, boss.”
Brother? What brother?
Chapter 3
A light rain began to mist the plaza as the crime scene tape flapped uselessly against a growing wall of press and bystanders.
Huck finished reading the text from Laurel and tucked his phone in his back pocket. Truth be told, he liked her safely away from this scene. “Norrs?”
Agent Norrs finished a phone call and strode toward him. “What?”