Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
“I was hoping for more,” he grumbled.
“Me, too,” I confirmed.
He sighed. “I’m headed to lunch. What are you up to today?”
“A little more legwork,” I answered as I stood up and stretched my arms up high over my head. “Headed to the packaging facility again. I want to get a look around, see how many people handle a certain package over the course of a day.”
“I’m headed to the brewery that’s behind the packaging facility around four. I have a dentist appointment before that,” he said. “Catch you later.”
He left, and I snatched my shoulder holster and my badge and tucked them into place.
Heading to the door, I went straight to the packaging facility, and met the woman who’d agreed to show me around at the back door at our designated time.
“You ready for the chaos?” she asked.
“More than ever,” I confirmed.
Two hours later, I was absolutely sure that this was going to be harder than ever.
I was stunned with just how hard it was to follow one single package.
And the amount of people, and packages, and everything in a facility…it was nuts.
Anyone could’ve gotten to that package at any given time.
Nobody cared what happened to the package once it left their sight.
Even worse, there were so many fucking packages of the same size and shape that if you weren’t actively reading the label, it would be easy to lose for a few short minutes—or hours—if someone was determined enough.
I left with the understanding that anyone determined enough could’ve gotten to the package and done whatever they wanted with it.
I was angry at life as I got into my unmarked F-250 and shut myself inside.
Angry because I was no closer to solving this murder than I was a month ago, and if I didn’t catch a break soon, the only person that’d be getting more scrutiny was the one that I knew didn’t do it.
I pulled out my phone and cued up the app, hoping to catch her in her main living space and not in her office or her bedroom—those were the two places that I hadn’t put in a camera.
My moral compass had balked at that.
As luck would have it, getting a camera into her apartment had been child’s play, because she had zero security. Though, that camera wasn’t part of the investigation. The camera was for my viewing pleasure, not anybody else’s.
It was highly illegal, and never something the department would approve of based solely on the fact that it trampled over her rights.
Yet, I’d done it anyway.
Which was how I’d watched her fall apart on the couch as she’d realized that the dog had died.
She hadn’t moved from her spot on the couch for what appeared to be all day.
Though this time I knew she’d gotten up based on the half-drank bottle of water that was on the side of the couch, balancing precariously on the soft cushion.
My heart did a little stutter step inside my chest as I saw the fresh tears on her face.
Fuck.
I rubbed at my chest again where my heart seemed to be permanently aching for her, then closed the phone down and went back to work.
I still had other cases to follow up with, leading me to the nice part of Fort Worth that always seemed to fuck me over with their cell reception.
Seriously, in the middle of fuckin’ DFW, and I couldn’t get a goddamn signal.
Make it make sense.
See this child? Very expensive. Very stressful. Very loud.
—Haze to Nastya
NASTYA
My head felt so full that I wondered if it’d burst at any second.
The gory thought had me smiling despite my depression.
Almost on habit, I got up and brushed my teeth—I never finished a meal without brushing my teeth afterward—finger-combed my hair and put my long locks up into a high ponytail before looking at myself in the mirror.
My gaze went to the bed on the floor of the bathroom, and my heart literally broke.
Fuck.
How could I ever adopt another dog that was destined to die way before me?
I turned and surveyed the ball on the floor of my bathroom.
Last night, Butters had shoved that ball into the toilet while I’d been sitting on it.
I’d had to wash it in the shower with me, and all the while he’d looked at me with his sad brown eyes like I’d taken away his best friend.
Sniffling but refusing to cry anymore, I walked around the apartment gathering up the toys, his leash, his dog bed, and anything else that might remind me of him and put them on the landing outside my apartment.
I picked up the Amazon box that was right outside the door and headed back inside where I ripped open the box, forgoing my usual video that I’d make unboxing it.
I frowned at the toolset with the QR code attached to it.
I hadn’t ordered it, but that wasn’t unusual for me to get packages without me ordering them. Being an Amazon Reviewer, it meant that people could send me anything that they wanted me to review.