Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 96402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
I didn’t know which route would lead me to him, so I’d go down all of them.
I start with Blake Jensen. There aren’t that many youth mentor programs in a small town like this. It’ll be easy to track down the one Cavendish worked for and find out who was cursed with him as their big brother.
I nodded to myself. Making a plan gave the illusion of control, but since I didn’t have even that much a week ago, I’d take it.
“—de Souza. Miss de Souza.”
“Ah, Rainey.” Nelson nudged my shoulder. “Look.”
Twisting around, I fell on my professor by the entrance, standing next to a guest. My jaw clenched hard enough to crack.
“Miss de Souza,” said Sheriff Jack Sharpe. “Come with me, please. I need to ask you some questions.”
A thousand emotions flooded my senses. Sound fled under the roaring in my ears. My muscles contracted, sending my pen skittering to the floor.
Sharpe hefted his belt higher up that gut. “Miss de Souza, come with me,” he repeated.
“Am I under arrest?” I amazed myself. My voice was steady.
“Not at this time. It’s just a few questions.”
“Good,” I replied, “then you can fuck off.”
The room fell silent.
“Rainey,” my professor scolded. “Who do you think you’re speaking to? There’s no need for that. Get up and go with the sheriff.”
“Mind your own business.”
Nelson goggled at me. The looks I was getting from my other classmates weren’t much better.
I glared at Sharpe. “I’ve got nothing to say to a dirty cop, so you can turn right the hell around and leave.”
Sheriff Sharpe was as expressionless as the day he told me he had no memory of receiving the autopsy results of Abigail de Souza.
“I’d rather we not have a problem,” he said slowly. “I will ask you one more time, get up and come with me.”
“Fuck. Off. I’d write it down for you, but I know how easily you misplace things.”
Saying nothing, he stepped to the side, revealing two uniformed officers standing outside the door. “Looks like we will have a problem with this one. Arrest her.”
“For what?”
The officers bore down on me—those two words their charge to action. Davidson grabbed under my arms and hauled me up and over the row.
“You’re under arrest for trespass and vandalism.” I did not imagine the satisfaction in his tone. “You know you’re not allowed out at that farm, and I know that hasn’t stopped you. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and—”
“Get off me!”
I bucked, ripping an arm free from Davidson’s partner. Sheriff Jack was there all too fast. A faint click was all the warning I got as the Taser jammed in my side.
Choking on a soundless scream, fifty thousand volts surged up my veins, drowning my mind in white light.
I was out before I hit the ground.
“CAN I GET YOU ANYTHING? Water? Soda?”
Davidson’s voice barely registered. As far as I was concerned, he was the spectator. The unwanted guest. He didn’t get to distract from the show.
Showdown.
Sheriff Jack and I locked gazes across the table.
I woke up in the back of his squad car, heading for the station. I hadn’t said a word, barring one last shout at his balding head that he was a crooked piece of shit that tore his mother’s anus when she shat him out. Davidson took particular offense to that and barked at me to shut up. The sheriff didn’t say a word. Not then, not now.
Slow, measured blinks were our responses to one another during the last twenty minutes we sat in his run-down interrogation room. I wasn’t certain what he was waiting for, but I was just counting the minutes till the yellow-faced bastard keeled over and died.
Jack came to life. Leaning forward, he pushed the open folder across the desk. It was the only thing on the table. That, and the recorder capturing the interview.
“Miss de Souza, do you recognize this woman?”
I flicked to the photo of Bella—dead on a mortuary slab. I didn’t answer.
Davidson opened his mouth. “She was found dead—”
A raised hand from the sheriff silenced him.
“Do you know her?” Jack repeated.
I pushed down the flash of pain, holding my crossed arms tighter.
“I believe you do, seeing as she was the night manager at the motel you’ve been living in for months. How close were you and Miss Hope?” he asked. “Would you say you were friends?”
I cocked my head, studying the gray creeping into his mustache. What kind of justice was there in this world that men like Jack Sharpe got to live their life peaceful and undisturbed into old age, while kind, good people like Gran died alone in a field?
“A few days ago, we found her body in your old home on the farm. She was killed by an arrow. We also found this.” Jack pushed her photo aside, revealing the one underneath. “You have quite the collection of bows and arrows, Rainey. How long have you been practicing archery?”