CHAPTER3
JOLAR
When Lieutenant Commander Sachuu arrived,the sullen demeanor of the prisoner changed. She’d been loud and obnoxious when I arrived but after a brief period of lapsing into song as a form of protest, had quickly settled down to do nothing but glare at me as I passed by on my rounds. I’d thought she’d shown me what Neal called ‘the evil eye’ before. It turns out I was mistaken. If looks could kill, the commander would be dead right now.
“You!” she shrieked, jabbing a finger towards him. “This is all your fault!”
I admired the commander’s impassiveness. “I thought you told the agents who arrested you it was all their fault. And then it was your nephew’s and his mate’s fault? Tell me, were your actions your sister and brother-laws’ fault? And is anything ever your own fault?” he replied calmly,
Linda had gone still at the mention of her in-laws, her eyes calculating. “You’ll never prove their deaths were my fault,” she said smugly.
My eyebrows shot up. She’d committed murder? Oh, my stars, her list of crimes got worse by the moment. Sachuu, however, appeared unfazed by her comment.
“Now, why would you say that?” he asked her. “I never mentioned their accident nor did I accuse you of killing them.”
She licked her lips. “Good. Because it was, you know. An accident, I mean.” She threw us a triumphant look.
Yep, she’d killed them all right. I’d be willing to bet money on it if I was the betting sort. Which I’m not, not anymore. Once I became a parent, I put aside risky leisure activities that could place myself and my young at a disadvantage, even if it were just for an extra work shift or something. Neal was my whole world and I was his, it being just the two of us as I was unmated.
“No one has said otherwise,” Sachuu replied to her.
She turned away. “I haven’t done anything wrong other than try to give my nephews the opportunity to gain more stability.”
Sachuu snorted. “You certainly had an odd way of going about it. Paying someone to claim your oldest nephew was neglecting his younger brother, which could have landed him in prison. And doing so after faking the sale of their home to cover the bank’s non-existent debt, which was after you got the probate lawyer to agree to also pretend there was no insurance money, which you split with him.”
I felt sick to my stomach. How could someone do that to their family?
“Tell me, Linda,” Sachuu carried on, his tone sounding almost friendly, “where is your husband? No one has seen him since your move to your in-laws' home, the one you pretended to sell.”
She still didn’t reply, but I could see her hands were balled into fists so tightly that I was dead sure that her long scarlet-lacquered nails were digging into the flesh of her palms, and she was shaking with rage as a light flush crept up along her neck, visible thanks to the shaved short back of her hairstyle.
Sachuu shook his head and came into our office.
“She’s cool as a cucumber,” Klora said, glancing up from the row of monitors.
Sachuu frowned, trying to puzzle out what Klora was trying to say. He glanced at me and I shrugged. This was not a saying I’d ever heard my adopted son utter.
Klora grinned. “I heard it on a crime show and looked it up. Cucumbers are a green vegetable humans eat chilled in salads. The inside of a cucumber can be colder than the outside, apparently, hence the expression.”
“I see,” the lieutenant commander said.
“Does she still own her old house?” Klora asked.
“Yes, but she’s rented it out.”
Klora rubbed his hands together. “I’m betting there were some home improvements first.”
Sachuu stared at him. “One of those half-glass rooms was added off of the kitchen at some point, I’d have to look to see when that was.”
Klora nodded, and I felt lost.
“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked, wanting to know what they were alluding to.
Sachuu saved me from my misery. “If it was before she moved or after he was last seen at any rate, it is entirely possible that he is buried beneath it.”
I looked over at the small woman still standing with her back to us. In the monitor, she looked so completely ordinary, and while she’d been obnoxious, she’d not done or said anything that threatened life or limb. Looks certainly could be deceiving.
“Oh,” I said, feeling nauseated.
